Christmas Day 2013

 Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas!  Hope yours were especially wonderful!

It's sad to think all of the visual Christmas cheer has to come down soon.  Does any other day of the year make such happy photos?  My day doesn't include any photos of delighted children on Christmas morn which I know are the happiest of happiest pics, but there might be a puppy pic or two.  

I do know that Christmas jammies are  for people.  

But human Christmas jammies are not this cute.  C'mon, you know that Boston butt in jammies makes you want to sing the Christmas Jammies song.  I start humming Will Smith each time I say the words.  Yep, Every. Single. Time. 

A Christmas Carol four different ways.  Happy times indeed. 

I believe, this was the first year in my life that I didn't spend Christmas Eve or day with my family.  I thought about it and even considered flying out for just an overnight, but in the end, the thought of the airport and the crowds deterred me.  Work has pretty much kicked my butt the past two months and I have been looking forward to some rest.  And more rest.  And days filled with no schedules and more rest. 

We live in an age that makes long distance Christmas a little bit easier though...

And this is how we opened gifts together.  Gotta love FaceTime.  Except I don't because whenever I see myself on the small screen, I have no idea who that craggy woman looking back at me is.  FaceTime is just mean. 

And this is how puppies open their stockings and gifts.  In their Christmas Jammies.  We're wearing Christmas jammies.  

Brooklyn may officially be the queen and supreme ruler and master of Nina Ottosen dog puzzle toys.   I love that the mental stimulation actually wears her out more than a long walk. 

This year I also tried an alternative to the gingerbread house...the chocolate house.  Technically since I used Wilton Candy melts, it was more of a chocolate flavored house, but soooo much easier to construct than the gingerbread houses.  Just melt, pour into the chocolate mold and use white chocolate to build.  White chocolate dries pretty quickly in comparison to royal icing---no falling structures here.

Easy peasy.  In the Little Pigs world though, Gingerbread would be the equivalent of the house made of bricks and this one would be more like the house built of straw. 

It lasted for a week until Christmas Day when I put on a table next to open window blinds,  Its demise rather appropriately signals the end of the holly jolly season. :(

Pistachio Kiss Cookies

Christmas time just screams out for some sort of Hershey's kiss topped cookie doesn't it? I've strayed many times from the traditional PB and chocolate ones usually find myself making the cherry shortbread version.  This year I was determined to finally nail a Pistachio Pudding cookie and thought this might be the perfect opportunity. 

I have a forever weakness for pistachio flavored foods.  Yes, I know it's more likely fauxstachio but there's just something about that faux flavor that makes me grab for that little green jello box entirely way too often. 

There are a lot of fun ideas and recipes to create fun foods from pudding mix and I've given them a whirl...without any luck.  Sad.  Even these cookies had about three previous versions where I played with the sugar/flour/cornstarch combo.

I've tried the Betty Crocker cookie and pudding mix cookies with cranberries.  They tasted like cookie mix cookies. 

These pistachio wedding cookies looked awesome in the original poster's recipe but tasted a little plain when I made them.

I had super high hopes for the pistachio pudding fudge but mine came out grainy and tasting like pistachio white chocolate.  White chocolate was one of the main ingredients but I'd hoped that the pistachio flavor would overpower and eliminate any traces of white chocolate--not so much.  

There's something about that light pistachio green though that just makes it look delicious and fun.  

Butter + powdered sugar + jello pudding mix = something that looks like I want to eat straight from the mixer.  

Dark chocolate topped the cookies in this kitchen, but you can obviously switch up the kisses with the milk chocolate or even the (gasp) white chocolate ones. 

Like the cherry versions, these cookies are definitely more shortbread than sweet cookie.  If you love your sugar, these are probably not going to be sweet enough.  If you find all the sugar of the holidays a bit overwhelming, these may be right up your alley.  

The pistachio flavor is a little subtle the first day but no worries--the pistachio flavor becomes more prominent by the 2nd and 3rd days.  

I know I made them for Christmas, but every time I look at them, I think of Elphaba from Wicked.  

Pistachio Kiss Cookies

Ingredients

1 c softened butter
3/4 c powdered sugar

1 pkg instant pistachio pudding mix
1 egg
1 tsp pistachio extract (I bought might from Savory Spice shop)
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 3/4 c flour

1/4 c cornstarch
1/2 c. pistachios, finely chopped (optional)

30 dark chocolate Hershey's Kisses

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 °
2. Cream butter and sugar until smooth. Add pudding mix and extracts and mix well. 
3. Add egg and beat to combine.
4. Add flour and cornstarch and mix until thoroughly combined. Stir in chopped pistachios. 
5. Shape into 1" balls  Place 2" apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Mine made exactly 30 cookies.  While cookies are baking, unwrap kisses
6. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Remove to a wire rack to cool slightly before topping each with a Kiss.

The Perfect Sandy Shortbread

I acknowledge that this recipe is hardly earth-shattering and you already had a glimpse of the shortbread cookies in the last post.  I actually took the pictures for this post but so this is really more their rightful home.

I also know shortbread and other classic cookies have been done about forty hundred times but I've come across a shortbread cookie secret that has rocked my world.

Doesn't shortbread rock everyone's world?

The quest started after a backpacking trip in the UK where my friend and I spent a lot of time eating our weight in Millionaire's Shortbread Bars.  I found that my favorites always tended to be a lighter bar that was almost sandy in texture rather than than a thick crunchy cookie.

I craved that melt in your mouth texture but every time I made shortbread it was thick and crunchy.  While that's definitely not so bad, I was on a mission and I tried everything from cutting the butter into the flour, using cake flour and adding graham cracker crumbs in place of some of the flour.  Nothing produced that texture I was looking for....until now.

I  found this version in a little cooking booklet I bought in the UK--why it took me so long to read through I cannot say.  And the secret ingredient?...cornstarch.  Before I have the ghosts of a thousand English and Scottish grandmother's haunting me forever, I'll throw out there that I know it's probably not the most traditional and I know that the sexy kilted Lairds of eons past probably weren't grabbing corn starch on their way home each night.

I'm telling you though that the cornstarch made these awesome.  Well actually, the clean pure flavors of butter and vanilla made these awesome, but the cornstarch bumped it up a notch.  The recipe is the same as about a zillion other recipes--I'm just excited that I'm now in the secret society of people who know how to make sandy, melt in your mouth, shortbread.

I used a molded shortbread pan because I could but obviously these can be pressed into any 9x9 square or a 9" circle and cut into wedges.   It's probably better that way so you can cut shortbread into more than 9 ginormous cookies.

I can't help myself.  It's a sickness.  I know it.  In my defense, she really, really likes sitting for the camera.  She sat here for a a good 10 minutes after we were finished, just waiting for me and the camera to come back.  Or rather waiting for me and the treats to come back.  

The Perfect Sandy Shortbread

1 c softened butter, softened
1/2 c powdered sugar
1.5 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 c flour
1/4 c corn starch

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325°F. 
2. Mix butter, sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and mix well
3. Add flour and corn starch and mi well
4. lightly grease a 9x9 square or 9" round pan
5. Press dough evenly into pan.  If using a shortbread mold, no need to spend a lot of time flattening it perfectly as you'll be flipping it over.  If not, make sure you smooth the dough well and then prick all over with a fork(optional but pretty)
6. Bake  for 25 to 30 minutes, or until edges are golden brown 
7. Cool for 5 minutes and turn onto cutting board.
8. Cut and move to cooling rack and allow to cool fully. 

A Tartan Christmas

I was standing in Target last week looking at the Christmas lights (because more lights are always better) when two young ladies came up and spent a good 5 minutes talking about how much they hated Christmas lights.  While the concept of walking over to the lights section to have a lengthy conversation about how much you hate them is slightly perplexing, even more perplexing to me was the idea that anyone can hate Christmas lights.  Actually hate them?  What is this world we live in?

I do not hate Christmas lights.  In fact, I walked out of Target with even more lights.  I'd already put up my tree but good ole Pinterest told me that it's fun to mix big lights with small lights.  Pinterest was right...I love them.  Brooklyn loves them too.  (Any chance someone has an idea about what could be causing the straight edge on the light bokeh on the right side?)

You know what else I love?

Plaid.  Tartan.  Whatever you want to call it, I love it, love it, love it.  I own more plaid skirts than anyone out of high school should wear.  I firmly believe you can never have enough plaid scarves and  have had an undying love for Burberry since the very first time I laid eyes on their check pattern. Yes, I heart me some plaid. 

My very first Christmas tree as an independent adult was decorated with plaid.  It was a 4 foot mini-tree with red bead garland and big fat Stewart plaid bows all over it.  Many, many, many, years later, I still use that tree in my bedroom. 

My living room tree however, has seen quite a changes.  I generally stick with red and white ornaments and find I can pick up a couple of boxes of colored balls and new garland and voila, new tree.  Remember the red and aqua tree?  All it took was some aqua ribbon to hang ornaments, two boxes  of aqua balls and aqua tulle for the prezzies.  Switching out the colored balls are definitely an easy and affordable way to transform a tree from year to year.

This year I ditched the aqua, picked up new stockings and some new ribbon and it was back to plaid.  I have to say, it feels like coming home.  

Another thing I love are red phone booths--there's something so quintessentially English about them. When I saw this lantern at Hobby Lobby a couple of months ago, I immediately envisioned it with a tiny Christmas wreath on the outside and a glowing candle inside.  Apparently, I can think about Christmas throughout the entire year. This is what Dickens meant right?

These plaid and burlap stockings from Ballard Designs are another mid-year find.  I think I ordered them way back in July and had to wait until September for them to come in but it was so worth it. It stung a little bit to see they are half price now.  There's nothing like a little summer stocking purchase to get your mind started on Christmas.

On a side note, sometimes I'm not sure how to handle all of the cuteness from this one.  

Does the lopsided "Laugh" ornament bother you?  Yeah, me too.  It's fixed. 

Hate Christmas lights?!?  Ebenezer Scrooge hated Christmas but even he was converted.   A fully lit Christmas tree,  a little Charles Dickens, a cup of Scottish breakfast tea and shortbread... happiness indeed. 

Of course, peppermint hot chocolate is always an acceptable alternative to tea.   

Let's not kid ourselves though...while tea and hot chocolate do a good job of warming you up, nothing warms you up faster than a little adult drink.   And nothing pairs more perfectly with a whole lot of Scottish tartan than a little bit of Scottish single malt.  In a Scottish stag glass.  I may have taken it over the top a bit here.  Aye.