2009 Christmas Baking!

I have begun baking for the season. This year I have made the persimmon bars that are posted here and a yearly fav is Pumpkin and White Chocolate Chip Cookies that I pass to the neighbors!

White Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 cup unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
1 cup solid pack pumpkin pie puree
2 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 cups white chocolate chips
1 cup chopped pecans
1 tsp All Spice
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Directions
1.In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, pumpkin pie spice and baking soda.
2.In a medium bowl, with an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar. Beat in pumpkin pie puree. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. Beat in the flour mixture until just combined. Stir in the white chocolate, spices and pecans.
3.Drop dough by rounded tablespoon 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 300 degrees F (150 degrees C) for 20-22 minutes until just set.

. . . still working on that pantry!

For dinner last night we had breakfast for dinner!

Belgian Waffles
Fried Potatoes
Biscuits and Saugage Gravy
Breakfast Sausage
Fruit

I made waffles out of all the mix and froze two big bags for an easy toaster plunge for an easy breakfast.

You guessed It! Guess what's for dinner tonight?

Leftovers...whatever we want!

. . . . isn't it amazing how a smell can trigger memories

Tonight for dinner my husband and I cooked together. I was slicing red and Yukon Gold potatoes. First in half and then slices that only go about 1/2 through. I place them in real melted butter in the family-sized cast iron skillet that is my favorite.

Ummm! The smell of melted butter in the pan reminds me of Sandy. An amazing person who had a huge impact upon my childhood. There are many years that if I had not had her support I am not sure that I would have done so well. Melted butter with eggs frying in real butter (I came from a home of Oleo).....or....crispy golden cornmeal mush purchased from the local Safeway Food Store fried in butter and topped with Karo Syrup for breakfast!

First tastes that tasted so good. . . memorable.

Sandy was a surrogate mother of sorts to me. She was encouraging and creative. She was a divorced mother of three wonderful children that in my heart have always been closer than my own family to me. She lived only two or three houses from my own childhood home. I would be her babysitter and she would be a model to me.

She loved her children from the depths of her soul and I believe that they knew that. That she would make room in her heart... and later in her home for me...is bound in the fiber of who I have become.

Certainly none of us choose the families that we are born into but the families that we create in our lives can lift us up, nuture us, feed our souls, and heal our broken places.

She made room for me. I was not her child.

I grew up and I have aquired extra children who have taught me lessons and opened my heart in wonderful magical ways!

I lift my dinner glass to Sandy and I absolutely cherish everything that she gave with a loving heart to me!