Sunday Supper - Peanut Butter Fudge

My mother-in-law always made peanut butter fudge for Christmas and my husand LOVED it.  Absolutely LOVED it!  And since she's no longer able to cook, I thought I'd give it a try this year.  

I'll be using this recipe from Casserole Crissy.  I've never made any kind of fudge before so wish me luck.  The recipe looks easy enough.  I should be able to handle it.

Happy baking!

Christmas is how many days away?

 I feel like I'm totally failing Chrismtas this year and I'm not sure why.  I think that it's more like I'm not really enjoying it.  Normally the rush and the hassles and the days and days of pure panic mode get me in the Christmas spirit.  I seem to enjoy the frantic pre-Christmas life.  

But this year, because of the Winterfest booth, I've had to be a little more organized and I've had to get things done in advance instead of doing Every Single Thing on December 23rd.  Yes, normally, I find ways to busilly procrastinate until at least 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve Eve and then PURE TOTAL PANIC kicks in, along with a little Christmas magic and I get it all done.  Yes, I have hemmed, cross stitched and blocked hats and gloves on the car radiator vents on the way to the recipeints' house, but I've always gotten it all done.  And I kinda love that Christmas stress. 

But this year, with the exception of Christmas Eve and Day, I will be working at the Winterfest booth every single night starting tonight and going through January 2nd.  Every. Single. Night.  And by night, I mean I leave home around 1 p.m. every day and get home around midnight.

And because I am NOT a morning person and I have enough trouble leaving the house at 1:00 p.m. every day, I don't accomplish much in the mornings. So, I've had to prepare a little bit in advance this year.

So...

The gifts are bought.  And wrapped.  I've even taken them off the wrapping table and put them under the tree!

The hand-made gifts are made and finished. Gasp!

I've taken the annual tacky Christmas lights tour with Sarah.

The Winterfest booth is stocked.  Maybe not as well stocked as it was on opening weekend, but it's stocked with a decent selection of items.

The cookie dough is made and in the freezer in little balls just waiting to be baked next week.  (Thank you Sarah!)

The rum balls have been made and the kitchen cleaned up.  It never fails to amaze me just how far powdered sugar can fly!

I have either watched or pre-recorded my favorite Christmas movies so I can watch them while I'm having coffee and waking up in the mornings.

And Amazon delivered the last of the packages yesterday. 

Hmm, maybe I'm not done making gifts after all.  Yikes!

And, because I promised myself I wasn't going to kill myself worrying about getting last minute stuff done while dealing with Winterfest every day, there's a very good chance this will be my last post for 2021.  Well, that's not true.  I've written a couple of Sunday Supper posts in advance.  But other than that, this is probably my last post.  So,...

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Sunday Supper - Lemon Squares

Yum... Lemon Squares.... 

My cousin's wife always made lemon squares for Christmas and while they may not be a typical Christmas cookie, they scream Christmas to me.

And being somewhat light, or at least not as heavy/rich as say, triple chocolate brownies, lemon squares are easy to scarf down in quantity so make sure you double, or triple, the recipe.

This particular recipe comes from Betty Crocker.  It's simple, easy and delicious!  Yum!

Happy baking!

Sunday Supper Holiday Edition

It's that time of year.  Cookie baking time.  So, I thought this month's Sunday Supper posts would be Christmas cookie related.

And because everyone who tastes one asks for the recipe, I thought I'd re-share my rum ball recipe.

I'm starting off the month with this recipe because they really should be made a week or so ahead of time.  Not that I know if they are really any better if allowed to sit for a week.  My husband tends to eat them as fast as I can make them.  He tends to eat the ones that are set aside for gifts too.  I pretty much have to make them and deliver them within 24 hours if I want anything to actually deliver.  They really are that good!

Happy rum balling!

Sunday Supper - Snickerdoodles

One last edible Christmas gift idea and then we're back to regular Sunday Supper posts.  I can NOT believe Christmas is only a few days away.  Just where has December gone??

Do you leave out cookies for Santa?  Around here, Santa likes snickerdoodles.  They may not be a traditional Christmas cookie but there isn't anything Santa likes much better than late night snickerdoodles made from the original Betty Crocker recipe.  And if they are good enough for Santa, they should be good enough to give to friends and relatives.

Happy holidays and happy baking!

Three on Thursday

It's a good thing the Three on Thursday link-up doesn't have a theme other than that we're supposed to list three things, because I got nothing today.  I'm having one of those days where my thoughts and to-do list tasks are all whirling around in my head, swirling a million miles an hour and going way too fast for me to capture or be aware of a single one of them.  I need a list. Except, I have a list, and that's the problem.  My list is 80 pages long so instead of working the list, I keep looking at it, getting overwhelmed by it and then I sit down and eat cookie dough and knit.  And of course, when I'm eating cookie dough and knitting, I'm not knitting Christmas gifts, I'm knitting random stuff.  Stuff that's not even on my Someday I'd Like to Knit... list.  Good grief!

So, three Very random things...

1.  Lots of people commented on my yarn bowl that was pictured in yesterday's blog post.  So, thank you!  I love it too.  I got it from Knit Picks and it was very inexpensive, as yarn bowls go.  I love how shiny and smooth the polished wood is.  It's light enough to toss into my knitting bag and, unlike the several ceramic ones I've had, my Knit Picks yarn bowl has not broken when I've dropped it.  Knock, or more like bang, on wood.  And if you hurry, Santa could bring you your very own wooden yarn bowl.  But you'll need to hurry.  The Knit Picks website says if you want it by Christmas, tomorrow is the last day to order with standard shipping and the 20th with expedited shipping.

2.  I apologize in advance for the rant.  This is probably a big part of why my thoughts are so out of control at the moment.  And I don't mean to stir the political pot.  This is a knitting blog, not a political blog and I refuse to discuss politics here.  But....  Neither my husband nor I have health insurance through our jobs and we don't earn a ton of money.  We get our "free" ObamaCare, which for the last few years has cost us several hundred dollars a month.  This year, however, our wonderful government has decided that our mandated health insurance is going to cost us 69% of our gross salary.  Sixty Nine Percent!  Of our Gross pay! What in the bloody Hell??  If we were to pay it, we wouldn't even have enough left over to pay our most basic utilities.  Of course, we wouldn't need to make utility payments because after a few months, we wouldn't have a house anymore.  Just, Bloody Hell.

Moments before I pulled the tree over on myself....
(Random Christmas photo added for interest)

3.  I really need to move past my current swirly thoughts/Christmas denial situation and do some Christmas baking.  You know, actually bake the cookie dough instead of eating it raw, by the bowl full while I knit and watch Hallmark movies.  We bake so many cookies that I make the dough in advance and freeze it.  On Cookie Baking Day, I take the dough out of the freezer while I'm waiting for the coffee pot to percolate and by the time I have a couple of gallons of caffeine in my system, the dough has thawed and is ready to go.  Looks like this year, I need to go re-buy the ingredients and start over.  Oops.

Every year we make snickerdoodles, rum balls, regular chocolate chip, mint chocolate chip and pumpkin cookies.  And this year, because I'm in total Christmas denial and think I have all the time in the world, and because I found the forgotten recipe while searching the blog for the other recipes to link to and, it just so happens that I discovered two large jars of peanut butter shoved into the back of the pantry the other day, I just might make chocolate chip peanut butter cookies too.  Besides, if I'm going to put us all into diabetic comas, I may as well go ahead and do it before our health insurance runs out.

Join the Three on Thursday link-up over at Carole Knits.

Merry Christmas!

I think I'm ready.  The tree is up, the gifts are wrapped, the baking is done.

Thank goodness the baking is done!  If I NEVER see another cookie, I will be a happy woman.  Besides the rum balls, we bake 13 batches of cookies.  Thirteen!  And near the beginning of the cookie ordeal, I managed to dump nine cooling racks of baked cookies on the floor.  Nine cooling racks worth of cookies works out to about four batches.  Four batches of cookies dumped on the floor for the dogs to gobble.  Good grief!

But it's done.  The baking is done.

And now it's time to relax and enjoy the season.

Merry Christmas!