Cookie Day 2008 report

Well, I am almost recovered from Cookie Day, and only a week later, lol!
We had a nice day of baking, and managed to turn out 30 kinds of cookies this year. One of our last minute add-ins didn't turn out, so that left 29 different types of cookies available for cookie trays. I will post some pics as soon as I get them...I was too tired to take any myself but a few of the participants did take a couple so I just have to gather them.
The biggest hit this year, as always, was the sugar cookies from my mom's recipe. They turned out beautifully. We only made Christmas trees this year to make the trays look more polished..not to mention save us work! Other favorites were the candy cane puffs and sandies. My mom couldn't find her cookie press at the last minute, so we ended up forming the spritz cookies into candy canes. We dyed half the dough red and made both colors into little half inch balls of dough, then rolled them out together into a rope shape. As we put them on the baking trays, we twisted the dough and shaped it into canes. They turned out cute but they didn't hold up all that well on the trays...hard for a thin shaped cookies to survive with all the heavy-weights on the trays!
Some of the cookies we added at the last minute were some Sugarless Star cookies, orange-pineapple drops, Chunky Monkey Bites and Red Velvet Whoopie pies (yes, I slipped up during the baking and called them whoopie cushions!). I will eventually post the recipes for you.
Next year we'll probably be reverting back to the cinnamon spirals (we gave them up this year because we were doing the Cinnamon-sugar cookies) because even though they're a lot of work, they look really nice when done, and taste better than the new ones did.
So, that's the cookie report for today. It has been a crazy crazy week. Baking Sat and Sun last weekend, working and visiting my family Wed...I helped my neice make the cutest turkies out of those striped chocolate cookies and chocolate covered cherries and candy corn, all pasted together with chocolate frosting. She was so excited to give them to everyone at the big family dinner on Thursday!
Randy got a last minute chance to go to Chicago for the weekend, so we stayed up after we got home on Thanksgiving. At about 2:30 am, he went home to sleep for a few hours before the drive to Chicago and I headed off to pick my mom up for Black Friday shopping. We hit our first sale at 4am and shopped straight through until around 10/11 am. We got back to her house, carried in our packages and fell asleep on the couch. We woke up later in the day and headed back out...what a day of shopping! We are not seasoned shoppers by any means...sometimes we do the after-Thanksgiving shopping, sometimes we don't...this year we did it and then some! We stayed out shopping until the stores all closed at 10pm, then headed for my parent's house. I spent the night there, then my mom and I got up the next day and headed to my house to pick up some supplies, then we went to Randy's house and painted his living room and kitchen. I had been planning to do it as a gift for him for a while now and his unexpected trip to Chicago provided the perfect time. The living room looks fabulous....maybe I can get him to post a picture. We worked until after midnight, then drove an hour back to my mom's house with a stop at White Castle as our reward. They have sweet potato fries there now....wow, those were good after that long day! I slept late this morning at my parents, helped my mom do a few things, then headed for home and work tonight....wow, what a weekend!
Now, I'm back to catching up on homework and BakingGALS stuff, so if you're one of my bakers, don't worry; we're on track for this round's mailing and things are good. I got an email from the father of this month's soldier. He gave me a little bio and his son's address. I posted the info on the BakingGALS site and I'll be sending out the address right before mailing begins.
And that's all I have to report for tonight....I hope all the blog readers had a wonderful holiday filled with yummy (and nutty!) baked goodies!
-Val