Hello, Kissers! In the words of a famous Christmas carol:
O Cookie Bake, O Cookie Bake!
How lovely are thee, cookies!
This past December was no exception as we converged on Meg's home to get our bake on. We arrived early-ish in the morning (Some waaaaay less early than others! But we all blame Sebastian!) and were greeted by this festive repast:
We hung up our coats and rolled up our sleeves. Shawn mused that Sebastian's little jacket looked awfully cute hanging with the grown-ups' jackets:
Meg mixed up some mimosas, and before long, even Fernando was getting into the spirit of things!
Rick scooped up little Sebastian with an ease that displayed his years of kiddo experience, and the two of them wandered around to check out the scene.
Part of said scene were a few dozen cookies which, thanks to the efforts of the more punctual members of our group, had already come out of the oven - these were ginger cookies, as I recall!
Meg had recently gone on a trip to Indiana, where she had enjoyed poking around a brand-new, very neat, and exorbitantly-priced kitchen store. There, she'd picked up these awesome goodies for Sebastian! Thanks, Meg! Birthday cupcakes this summer, anyone?
Meg was mixing up something yummy when we arrived...
Meanwhile, Rick initiated Sebastian in the art of personal holiday adornment.
Looks like he'll be an expert in no time!
Back to the cookie-related work. Nuts were chopped....
Dough was rolled in sugar...
And in between batches, we dug into some wonderful snacks!
Knock, knock! Most fashionably-late of all--and maybe the most fashionable, too--William arrived.
Even Meg's squirrel came out to say hello!
Here's Jessica, ready to go with another batch of ginger cookies!
These guys couldn't believe it!!
Frank and Damian organized their workspace and mise en place for some deliciously decadent delights:
Those are dried cherries soaking in that bowl - with vanilla beans!
Rick and Anne had cheated and pre-baked some Linzer-style cookies to assemble as windowpane sandwich cookies. Rick gets to work - spreading each cookie with butter, then raspberry jam.
Guys - These were Shawn's favorites of the whole day.
Could you puh-lease share the recipe?
UPDATE!! Click here for Rick's recipe!
Aren't they lovely?
And, speaking of lovely, here is Joyce feeding cookie dough to her beautiful wife! Awwww!
Fernando takes a break to hang with the pre-sitting-up set...
William discusses the secrets of a happy life...
And still we churned out the goodies! Here are Shawn's chocolate shortbread with cocoa nibs...
Yum!
And here are what appeared to be tiny hazelnut hamburgers, courtesy of Anne and our friends at Nutella. Sooo tasty! **
UPDATE 1/16: Anne informs me that these aren't actually called "hazelnut hamburgers" (imagine that!!) - they are
Baci de Dama (ladies' kisses!), courtesy of David Leibovitz!
A little closer, you say? Sure!
Joyce made some roasted nuts which unfortunately baked a tad too long - here we are separating the overly-browned from the pretty-much-burnt.
Damian discusses something serious...
Joyce works on her nuts...
Rick eats a mandarin, skin and all (Wha...??)
Frank mixes up that
Cherry Chocolate Chip cookie dough...
Here's a closer look...
What's that? Even closer, you say? Happy to oblige!
Meanwhile, Jessica decides that it is Mimosa O'Clock!
Anne displays the
mad skillz she would have as a Home Shopping Network presenter:
Meg and Shawn take a load off for a while...
And this orchid, while very lovely, just sat around the entire afternoon. Talk about lazy!!
Damian and Frank's
Peanut Butter Cup Cookies were ready for the oven.
They bake inside mini muffin tins, and then when they come out--still
hot from the oven--a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup is popped right in the
middle of each cookie!
Then, they just sort of smoosh into the cookies themselves. Yummy!
Meg made her Christmas faves Kourambethes (
Recipe, Meg?) - Here she studiously dusts them with powdered sugar:
Ta-daaa!
We decided that they looked all artsy-fartsy, so we fooled around with snapping photos of the batch from different angles, like this:
The best, however, was the addition of a small, ruddy-faced Santa, hiking through the snowy foothills of the Kourambethe Mountains. Hee hee!
About this time, Sebastian decided he had worked hard enough at being cute, and had a short snooze on Meg's bed.
Shawn took advantage of the short window of free time to share a bag of Christmas goodies she and Fernando had brought for our Kissers to "shop."
Anne found a set of Curiously Hassidic Santas in the bag, and she quickly donned them as earrings to celebrate the joys of a multicultural winter holiday. Isn't she lovely?
Last up were Shawn's
Ritz Cracker cookies - a new recipe she'd found on
The Kitchn. Because "everything tastes better when it sits on a Ritz (
video here!!)," Shawn had no reason to doubt that a mixture of dates, sweetened condensed milk, and walnuts would be any exception.
Rick referred to this recipe as being of the "Are you/Did you" variety. As in, "Are you going to eat that? Or did you already?" It was true. By all accounts, the mixture didn't exactly look very appealing.
Here we began an assembly line to spread a schmear of this unfortunate-looking goo over our Ritz crackers.
Into the oven they went for a few minutes to toast on the edges. Honestly, they didn't look like much, but they were pretty tasty. Supposedly, they freeze beautifully. I can't speak to that, but I can attest to them being tasty to eat freshly-removed from the freezer!
Sebastian woke up and enjoyed his new toy while Meg enjoyed some snuggles.
We were nearing the end...Almost time for lunch! The cookies were organized...
Folks chatted and relaxed while the soup heated...
Joyce prepared a dessert plate for the table...
And, just like that, a brilliant curried cauliflower soup was on the table! Yum!
We dished over dinner, and a grand old time was had by all! Especially this guy:
We're gearing up for Lopez Island in just a few days - Meanwhile, I thought it would be fun to re-read about the last time we were on the island!
Revisit our weekend escape here!
Till then, Kissers - See you soon!
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