Is it too early for Christmas Mode? I say no!

That being said, I have to share some November content.  Here is my coffee station decked out for Turkey Day. The turkey has feathers on it and shows what youngest child was grateful for on a day long ago. - Family, Friends, School, and Home, I think it would be safe to say that she is still grateful for those same things and also Harry Styles, Dunkin Donuts coffee, and her Learner's Permit. 

The Hubs is grateful that Aldi's has these very quirky potato chips that he thinks tastes great. He is planning to go buy more as he finished his bag yesterday.  

And now a book review!  

Merry Scary Victorian Christmas: A Victoria Town Mystery Novella by Mollie Cox Bryan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Yes, I know it is only the beginning of November, but this year more than ever I'm ready for holiday reading. Bring on the tales of Christmas trees, scenes about making cookies, and a murder or two. This third book in the Victoria Town Mystery series is a nice read to kick off your holiday season.

Viv has more bad luck when it comes to being on the scene when someone meets an untimely demise. Someone is framed for the murder, but Officer Willoughy, clearly isn't falling for the framing. Viv uses her skills as a hacker to narrow down the list of suspects and a new character is introduced who offers a clue for Viv.

I enjoyed the book and getting to know Viv better. If you love a good Christmas mystery, pick this one up!

View all my reviews

Mom, What's Different About These Cookies?

Adventures in Cookie Baking Day 11 reporting for duty.

BMO has been surprisingly enthused about my cookie baking.  In the past he has had a strong preference for only two types of cookies.  He only cared for the eating of chocolate chip cookies and those Keebler cookies--the shortbread ones with the stripes.  Outside of that he's been patently disinterested in cookie consumption.

However, this holiday season he has embraced all that cookies has to offer and has tried--and dare I say, enjoyed every type of cookie I have made.  He has expanded his cookie horizons and now appreciates how much better homemade cookies with plenty of butter are compared to their factory-made counterparts. I mean those factory cookies don't even have a smidgen of trans-fats anymore!

On this the 11th day of Cookie making, I made small monster cookies.  Technically monster cookies are supposed to be rather large. So it's probably an oxymoron to call these 1 1/2 inch diameter cookies- 'monster.'

There are lots and lots of variations on monster cookies, you can make them with or without flour, with butter or with margarine (why though?).

I found and like this recipe.  It has a nice cheat, you use a boxed cake mix as the base.  Obviously I used butter instead of margarine--and because I believe peanut butter is an essential part of the monster cookie experience--I used 1/2 cup of butter and 1/2 a cup of creamy peanut butter.  I also used 1 cup of oats vrs 1/2 a cup.  Also, I substituted 1 cup of red and green chocolate candies instead of walnuts.  Basically, I really altered the recipe.  In any case.  The results were satisfactory for BMO and now the freezer is overflowing with cookies.

I still have a pound of butter, chocolate chips, mint chocolate candies, dried cranberries, and chopped hazelnuts, on hand- so more cookies to come!  I'm thinking I've got to make some more Spritz cookies since Youngest Child took all those to a bake sale and a shortbread cookie?  Decisions, Decisions.

xoxo

Do you make cookies?

I do, but only for the holidays. And hey, guess what? 

Holidays are here. Yippee!  I have a short attention span for making cookies, so I need fast recipes.  Too bad I don't get bored with eating the cookies...That's a topic for another day.

Here at Tastefully Simple we have Citrus Sugar Cookies this year, just add and egg and butter.
Speaking of eggs, I have to share, if you like to eat cookie dough, use egg substitute and you don't have to worry about the salmonella!

Bonus on the cookies is that $1 goes toward Share Our Strength to help end childhood hunger  in America.  Recently there have been reductions in the SNAP benefits, so now more than ever ever $1 helps.

For my open house I dipped the Citrus Sugar Cookies in White Chocolate.  Here you can see them a bit.

 Mine pale in comparison to the awesomeness to be found on our Tastefully Simple blog! How yummy do these look?

If you hope over to tsrecipes.com you can see the recipe, it doesn't look too hard, I think I'll give it a try. How about you?  Do you enjoy cookie making?  cookie sharing? or cookie eating?