My friend Laura and I hosted our 3rd Annual Cookie Exchange last weekend. Laura was gracious enough to host at her house (for the 3rd year in a row--THANK YOU Laura!!). We had 11 varieties of cookies exchanged this year. I made Sandies by the Sea.
They are so good, even though they look a little time consuming they were very easy to make. Leave a comment with your favorite holiday cookie and recipe if you feel like sharing. Here's the recipe (I did not use the sea salt on mine, because I couldn't find it in this small town, and I think when I make these again I will use milk chocolate instead of bittersweet, but its all about your personal preference):
SANDIES BY THE SEA
2C. all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1 C (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2/3 C firmly packed light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1 C pecans, *lightly toasted and very finely ground (using a food processor)
20 caramel candies
3 Tbsp cream or whole milk
2-3 Tbsp large crystal sea salt
1 C chopped bittersweet chocolate or chocolate morsels
*To toast pecans, place nuts in a single layer in an ungreased shallow pan. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 5-10 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from pan to cool.
1. Combine flour and salt in bowl, set aside.
2. In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar using an electric mixer or wooden spoon until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla; beat to incorporate. Add dry ingredients in batches, mixing between each, and then stir in ground pecans. Cover and chill dough 1 hour or until firm.
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper or butter the sheets.
4. Roll the dough into 1 inch balls with floured hands. Place on baking sheets at least 1 inch apart, and depress a cavity in the center of each ball using your thumb or rounded implement. Bake for 13-15 minutes, or until the bottoms are brown and set. Check halfway through baking to see that the depressions are still deep enough to fill. If not, use a floured spoon to redefine.
5. Remove cookies from oven and let them sit for a few minutes on the baking sheet. Transfer with a metal spatula to a wire cooling rack set over a piece of parchment paper.
6. Melt caramel candies and cream together in a saucepan over low heat, stirring frequently. Fill the center of each cookies with approximately 1/2 tsp of the caramel. While the filling is still warm, sprinkle centers evenly with sea salt, and let them sit until firm.
7. Place chocolate in a sturdy plastic bag in a bowl, in microwave and heat on medium at 30 second intervals, massaging between each, until melted. Cut a small hole in corner bottom of bag and drizzle melted chocolate across each cookie; add additional salt if desired and allow cookies to sit until chocolate has become firm.
Makes 1-3 dozen 2 inch thumbprint style cookies
Here's the cookies all dressed for the party:
Portsmouth, NH. This is a beach we stopped at so that I could say "hello" to the ocean (one of my favorite places). Set the camera on self-timer and shot this picture of my sister and I. I had to run for the photo, but it was fun. It was cooold, but we stayed for a while and beach combed (found lots of little shells to bring back to the kids).
Boston, MA. Highlight of going to Boston was the Samuel Adams tour. Highly recommend this tour--it comes with free beer at the end and a souvenir glass you can take home.
Newport, RI. On my last day my sister took me down to Newport. The scenery is beautiful there. We drove along the shore where I was able to capture lots of photos. Here's one of my favorites.
Historic home along the shore in Newport, RI. When I go back I'm taking the tour inside the house. It was closed the day I was there :(
Jackson, NH. Covered bridge--this part of NH has quite a few covered bridges. It was fun to drive around to them.
Jackson, NH. We heard about a waterfall near Jackson so we started driving around looking for it. It wasn't a large waterfall by any means but the view from the waterfall area was spectacular.
The drive home from North Conway, NH looked like this the entire way.... It took us 4 hours to go 75 miles--oh the agony.
Overall, I had a great time visiting the New England states. I look forward to going back out there this summer and spending more time.
Our seats were in section 207. Good seats, high enough up that we could see all of the ice, which was a nice bonus. All these pics were taken with my Canon G5 point and shoot. It zoomed in pretty good:
Gotta love the Zambonis:
Getting ready to drop the puck:
Pic of rink with no zoom used
The game was great, fast moving and entertaining. I was a little disappointed that no fights broke out (just kidding). It was an aggressive game though and the Wings pulled through to win 6-2. The drive back was long, arrived home around 1:30 a.m. and had to get up and go to work the next day---6 a.m. comes quick when you're tired :( We will definitely go to another game, next time though I think we will try for weekend tickets.
They are so good, even though they look a little time consuming they were very easy to make. Leave a comment with your favorite holiday cookie and recipe if you feel like sharing. Here's the recipe (I did not use the sea salt on mine, because I couldn't find it in this small town, and I think when I make these again I will use milk chocolate instead of bittersweet, but its all about your personal preference):
Bbbbrrrrrr...it was cold and windy when we went to pick out our Christmas tree. We went to a new tree place this year. We see a sign near our home that said trees $8 so we went to check it out. It ended up being at someone's pole barn with a bunch of cut trees in front of it. The sign said to just leave the money in the mailbox (its the small print on the right side of the above picture). Honestly, I think you would only find a honor system tree lot in northern Michigan. We looked around for a bit and finally decided on the best one for us.
Here's the keeper:
Dang, than you always have to try to figure out how to get the tree home. I think it was around 20 degrees when Alan was tying the tree to the car---dang, I hate freezing cold weather!
Gus hoping for some Thanksgiving treats:
The guys peeling lots and lots of potatoes. I think they peeled 10+ pounds. I don't know how many they were expecting for dinner, but we had potatoes left over for days afterward.
Here's some pins that Emma traded for:
It was busy, busy trading with other girl scouts:
Some Girl Scouts were very prepared with custom containers:
Emma made seashell buddies (we collected the seashells from the beaches of Hatteras Island):
Some girls pinned their trades on really cool bucket hats:
