Post-holidays, Back to reality..

I was hoping to start the year off all refreshed and energized after a nice, luxurious two weeks off. Instead, I seem to be having issues with back-to-reality-blahs. I guess those two weeks spoiled me pretty good; sitting at work all day has been leaving me really antsy now. But more than work, after a week of visiting and constant people around, it’s been a bit of an adjustment getting back to my daily life with weeknights on my own, since Steve is back to traveling this week.

The highlight of the holidays was definitely having so much time with my favorite people. Steve and I are lucky that we grew up in hometowns separated by just a two hour drive, which means we get to stop by both places over the holidays. We had a good week of visiting. We saw many friends and family in a short time ~ the important people, the ones we don’t get to see frequently enough. Lots of family, and old high school friends, and college friends – with a couple new additions in the form of tiny people, as I guess we are hitting that stage in our lives now. Despite all our life changes, it is so good to see old friends and have it feel just as it did, the last time.

my nephew excited after learning to dunk with his new basketball hoop

Christmas is more fun with babies around :)

It was also nice just to have a small break from the city and be back to our more rural roots. There, it felt peaceful to watch the snow fall gently and blanket the world in white. The snow seemed like just an item of decor; an accessory for the winter, with its glittering white expanse across the yard (a yard – a large one, with two ponds, the likes of which is unseen here in the city). So funny being in a place where getting around just means getting in the car and perhaps driving a bit slower if the snow plows haven’t gotten there yet. It’s so different from the inconvenience snow becomes in the city.

 slightly different from the view out of our back window in the city!

Still, after the week of traveling, it was so nice coming home and having some quiet time to ourselves back in our condo. I always cherish the time we have together, just the two of us. There is this restful comfort of being in each other’s company and the simple pleasures we can get from some quiet nights with books, movies and Christmas Ale.

mmmmmmmm........ a Christmas classic ;)

On New Year’s Eve, we spent a good part of the day doing some reorganizing in our closet. Not sure how much you can see form these pictures, but we have a big closet in the second bedroom that serves to store all our excess stuff… it tends to get pretty messy after awhile. So Steve had the genius thought to shift things around to a more efficient configuration (he is good at that… I think he got the 3-d spacial skills which I seem to be missing much of the time). This meant moving the huge Ikea bookcase (actually the second one of these that we own, thanks to good deals on Craigslist!) – and of course, taking everything off of said bookcase, giving us the opportunity to throw out a lot of unnecessary items.

 [closet before: those plastic drawers blocked off a lot of the space, making it hard to get to the shelves]

[closet after: shifted the bookcase to the left and moved filing cabinets/drawers in the space on the right. makes more sense... and it's now a walk-in closet again!]

All this was done while listening to my favorite dance-y Pandora station; with the new-found space from the rearrangement, we had quite the dance party in the closet ;) Afterwards, we went to a New Year’s Eve party with some of our Chicago friends and drank champagne and stayed out til 3; guess we still have a little partying left in us.

Anyway – those were just a few of the highlights from the holidays. Of course it is hard going back to reality after that! Hopefully I will get back in the swing of things quickly enough… I am thankful that we were able to have such a great Christmas break this year.

Christmas Baking Blitz: Results!

Merry Christmas Eve! If your family is like mine, you have already loaded up on plenty of Christmas goodies… get ready for some more of the virtual variety, with the results of my Christmas baking blitz!

First up: espresso shortbread cookies. I had not attempted shortbread cookies before, and found that they were pretty fun to make! I used this recipe, which yields delicate shortbread with a strong coffee flavor. I went with the recommendation to use a toffee chocolate bar, and think the flavor combination worked quite well.

I also really liked the suggestion to roll out the dough inside a ziplock bag – this helps keep things nice and rectangular. Being the engineer that I am, I followed the “measure with a ruler” directions closely.. and was excited by the nice even results.

to make sure I cut these evenly, I marked notches in the dough on all four sides...

then I used a thin cutting board as a straight edge, lined up on the notches.

Mmmm.. matrix of cookie dough!

The results may be the closest I've gotten to matching the picture on the recipe's webpage~

I boxed these guys up to give as homemade Christmas gifts - let's hope the recipients like them too!


Next was gingerbread men. These are a favorite of ours - in past years we used a recipe that somewhat “cheated”, in that it did not use molasses. But this year I wanted to try the traditional version. Since our preference is for softer cookies, I went with this recipe that I found that mentioned it produces soft gingerbread instead of crispy. So I rounded up some blackstrap molasses and dark brown sugar from Whole Foods, and gave it a whirl. I really like the resulting dark dough, and the finished product is indeed nice and soft, with a rich spicy flavor thanks to the molasses.

Third on the list were chocolate peppermint bark cookies, inspired by my fondness for peppermint hot chocolate. I didn’t actually find peppermint bark in the store, and didn’t have time to make my own, so instead I used Hershey’s candy cane kisses ~ white chocolate with peppermint bits. I through in a few chocolate chips as well. Result: tasty peppermint chocolatey goodness!

Finally – the best for last: orange cranberry bars. I liked the look of this recipe, which looked a tad healthier with its inclusion of almond meal and cranberries. I chose to zest it up a bit with some grated orange peel. The result: light, citrusy bars with tart cranberries, an addictive flavor combination. And the fact that it’s the healthiest of the recipes I tried makes me wonder if my taste preferences have changed after attempting to eat lighter over the years. Regardless, this one was my definite favorite.

That concludes this year's baking adventure. Now that the cookies are made, gifts bought and wrapped, and traveling complete after the 8 hr drive yesterday, I am ready for Christmas celebrations ~ dinner with my dad's family tonight followed by Midnight Mass, and then dinner with my mom's family tomorrow... then Sunday it's on to the in-laws! Hope everyone enjoys a merry, restful holiday!

Improving Baking Efficiency

When it comes to baking Christmas cookies, some years I am all about baking up batches of our traditional favorites. Then there are years like this year, where I want to experiment with new recipes. I read a number of baking blogs so it’s hard not to get enticed by all the amazing-looking treats baked by the pros. This year, I found it really hard to narrow down my recipe choices into something manageable – so many tasty options! Thus, I currently find myself in the midst of a Christmas baking blitz ~ in the works are espresso shortbread cookies, orange cranberry bars, possibly peppermint bark cookies, and gingerbread men.

For anyone else who is baking up a storm in the few days left before Christmas, I thought I’d post a few easy baking efficiency tips that I’ve found over the years.

• If you are making multiple cookies in a short period of time, I find it useful to mix up the dough one day, refrigerate overnight, and bake the next day. Many recipes call for chilling the dough anyway, and by splitting up the mixing and baking processes, it makes things a bit more manageable.
• For the mixing day, keep the sink filled with soapy water for dirty bowls/measuring cups/etc. You can put them in to soak as you go, making the washing process go faster.
• Usually butter needs to be softened to room temperature. I like to slice up the appropriate amount I need and put it on a plate to sit out for a bit. Slicing it into smaller pieces helps speed up the softening time.
• Invest in parchment paper! For a long time, I would see baking bloggers post recipes that specified using parchment paper, and didn’t know what that was exactly. I finally bought some and it definitely helps simplify the baking process. Basically, it’s non-stick paper (kind of like wax paper) designed for baking. You tear off a piece the size of your cookie sheet, put it on the sheet, and put the cookies directly on the paper. This eliminates the need for greasing, makes it really quick to transfer cookies to cooling racks (as you can slide the paper sheet directly over), and best of all – no washing cookie trays in between batches!

Hope to post some updates of the final results a bit later!

free Christmas tunes

This past weekend I’ve started on my kick of listening to Christmas music to set the mood of the season. I have my old favorites (I will never get tired of the Nutcracker suite!), though it can get old listening to the same songs over and over. Pandora works well sometimes, but for me it has been a bit hit-or-miss in terms of holiday music ~ the station I quickly made while wrapping gifts yesterday was pretty good, but for some reason when I tried listening to it at work today, it kept playing really annoying songs.

To add some new material to my playlist, I was excited to find some free mp3 Christmas music downloads offered by iTunes and Amazon. These are also a bit hit-or-miss, but there are some good ones ~ the iTunes album includes some of my favorites like Sarah McLachlan’s "Silent Night" and "Greensleeves" from the Charlie Brown Christmas, as well as some I hadn’t heard that were quite good, like Wheezer’s “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”. I was also amused to find Stephen Colbert’s “Another Christmas Song”. I didn’t download all of the Amazon mp3s, but I did like the Jars of Clay version of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”. If you are looking for some new Christmas songs, check it out – the price is definitely right!

decking the halls

Can you believe there are less than 2 weeks til Christmas?? We had a productive weekend here~ Friday night consisted of pizza and a movie, followed by hot chocolate with peppermint schnaps and tree trimming! Our condo is becoming more and more Christmasy :)

This is our little tree - there isn't much extra space in our condo so we make do with this little guy. But he is a good size for the space.

 Saturday we went downtown to check off more of our shopping, amidst the crowds on Michigan Avenue. We are almost done now! And I even managed to start wrapping some gifts to put under the tree.. I don’t think I’ve ever started the wrapping so early; usually I’m trying to finish it on Christmas eve, or even Christmas morning… I feel so ahead of the game now, plus putting the wrapped presents out makes things look even more festive.

Tomorrow begins the last full week of work of the year, with holiday parties on Wednesday and Thursday – gotta love this festive season and all the merry-making that entails!