Mr. Potato Head

I had just been DYING to make these cookies but because of orders and all of the colors involved, I decided to put it off until my most recent craft fair. Since I learned at the last fair I didn't need to make 100 cookies, I only made 3 designs and less than 20 to sell. I had a slide show up that showcased some of my work and so I figured all I really wanted to do was get my name out. Although I was tired from the Christmas party the night before, I had a nice time talking to the people around me and giving out my business cards that my beautiful mom and Marin gave me. I had to hand cut all of the pieces to this cookie set because there were no cutters that would work. It took extra time, but at least I got them looking juuuuust the way I wanted.

I don't know why but as a kid I always turned his nose vertically. There are so many other parts to be done!

Christmas Party

We had a great but BUSY weekend! Last Friday we had a Christmas party at the Hard Rock Casino with Joe's co-workers. I thought I was so cool because I won $55 off the slot machines with my free $25 play money. Joe totally showed me up when he won twice that on a slot machine. I don't gamble because I don't like the idea of just giving my money away for nothing, but since it was free money I was all about it! The best part of the event was that we got to dress up. I'm getting to know a lot of the other wives (I'm the only girlfriend) and so each time we all get together it's more and more fun! We totally lost track of time and before we knew it... we got in the car to go home and it was 2:30 am!!!!! I had to get up at 7 to go to a craft fair where I was selling my cookies as a vendor. Needless to say, I was tired the next day. It was all totally worth it though. 

Santa Cookies

I would love to take credit for the idea of turning a cupcake cutter into Santa, but unfortunately I can't. Wasn't my idea. Boo. That being said, my Santa does differ from the one I saw, so I guess you could say it is inspired and I'm ok with that one! I finally had time and the inspiration yesterday to make Christmas cookies and so I did! Joe requested that I make snowmen so he got to decorate all of them!

It's been a while!

I feel like I have hardly been posting on here. I have been doing cookies but they are all cookies you've seen, so there is no point in posting! I think I'm going to get my Xmas kicks out tomorrow, though, when Joe goes to do "guy stuff" with dudes at work. I started my new job working for Farmer's Insurance and so far it's pretty good. Obviously I have a huge learning curve to get around but all in all it's not bad. Last weekend Joe and I went to an "Ugly Christmas Sweater" party with people he works with. It was a great time. 

Joe, Jett, and I went to Goodwill to find some clothes. Joe found a pair of red pants (grandma style)... no offense, grandma, an itchy green sweater, and a pair of women's gold shoes. I found a red turtleneck and got creative in the vest section and found a great snowman vest. I was pretty pumped about my find. After we checked out and got home, Joe decided to try on my vest (with no shirt) and decided that HE wanted it. Being the loving girlfriend I am, I obliged him and doned his SUPER itchy sweater that... let's face it... wasn't even that Christmas-y. There was a "prize" for whoever had the ugliest outfit. I wasn't going for ugly. I was going for ugly-cute and Joe stole my look. I had no chance of winning. Joe promised, "I'll share my prize with you if I win."

Yes, Joe did win the contest. I think it's mostly because he was wearing all women's clothing from head to toe. Honestly, I would have never won in that sweater vest.

 If you'll notice... I'm not wearing my red turtleneck either. I gave it to Jett.... so I wore 0% of my Goodwill purchase.

The prize, you ask? Oh... it's so grand. At this moment it is standing proudly in front of our fireplace...

I just let Joe keep the prize for himself.....

Thanksgiving Break

I call it Thanksgiving "Break" because that's the only kind of Thanksgiving I've ever had. It doesn't really count as a break this year because I've been (cough) unemployed for about 6 months. Well... technically 3. So for me it was just a chance to get home and eat delicious food and visit all of the people I have been missing for the past 6 months. I got to see almost everyone I wanted to, the only thing I could have wished for was having more time with each and every one of them! Unfortunately I have no Thanksgiving cookies to post. For some reason, that just really didn't entice me. I did make horse cookies and purse cookies.... as well as tractors/pigs/and Haule trucks for a couple orders but NO turkeys. And really, I was ok with that. I don't really like how turkey tastes and I'm not crazy about brown. Fortunately enough I am super excited for Christmas! I have been pinning away Christmas cookie ideas and thinking of some on my own. I was am so ready for the holiday that when I got home from the airport Joe and I immediately went out and bought a tree and lights! Christmas cookies will be up soon... :)

Sugar Cookie Recipe

Ok... so I toiled with the idea of putting my recipe on here for a while and finally decided that I needed to. I thought "pay it forward". It's not like I came up with this recipe on my own or that it's a family secret I'm not allowed to share (which by the way it drives me CRAZY when someone says they won't share their "secret" recipe or "secret" ingredient). I don't think I'll ever be like that. Now.. I did have to tweak this because of the high altitude but it should work for you. This dough is awesome to work with and if you're like me... when you want to get something done you need to do it at exactly the time you feel like doing it. So the beauty of this recipe is that there's no waiting... you don't even have to refrigerate it AND it doesn't get all sticky to you or your countertop! Perfect! This recipe is DOUBLED so if you don't need to make this many cookies then 1/2 everything!!!! This recipe will make 4-5 dozen cookies depending on size.

4 sticks softened butter

3 cups powdered sugar

2 eggs

6 tsp flavoring (I use 4 almond and 2 vanilla)

6 cups flour (this is where high altitude changes it. I made it with 4 1/5 cups before I moved)

2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder (this is also something I had to adjust. The original recipe uses 3-4 tsp!)

 

 

 

 

Add your butter and powdered sugar to the mixing bowl... START OUT SLOW. I cut my butter and then pulse the mixer on and off several times until they start to become more incorporated... otherwise powdered sugar is going to fly everywhere... just trust me on this one!

 

Combine until nice and creamy

 

In a separate bowl combine eggs and flavoring

 

Thoroughly mix and add to butter mixture. Mix until batter looks like this...

 

 In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt. Stir and slowly add to butter mixture. When you're adding flour spoonful by spoonful because your mixture doesn't have a very large opening, do you ever get impatient and just dump 1/2 the flour in? Yeah... me either.

 

 

Your mixer is probably going to have to work pretty hard to get everything combined so I always crank mine on high after a while .... especially when I have doubled the recipe.

 

When everything is combined, your dough shouldn't be very sticky. You should be able to press your fingers into the dough and not have any stick to your fingers. If it is sticking to you, just add more flour until it doesn't stick. Start with 1/8- 1/4 cup more.

 

While your dough is setting up go ahead and wash the dishes, get your supplies ready, and line your baking sheets with parchment paper. It is much easier to scrape your dough off of parchment paper than it is the counter... feels more sanitary too

 

Dough will be sticky enough that it will cling to your roling pin without some flour on top! Sugar cookie dough is meant to take on more flour, so don't worry! Also... After I have rolled out my dough and cut shapes from it 2-3 times I add fresh dough to the dough that has been folded and floured several times.

Roll out to 1/4 inch thickness (this is where those handy-dandy yellow spacers on my rolling pin come in handy)

 

See? The dough pulls right away and you have a nice clean edge! (Don't forget to flour your cookie cutter initially or the dough will stick to it and ruin your shape.

 

 

Bake at a 400 degrees (slightly higher for high altitude) for 4-5 minutes (this is getting really picky but I bake mine for 4 min and 15 seconds for normal sizes of 2-3 inches). Of course you know your oven. You really shouldn't have a lot of browning on the cookie. Of course... longer for bigger cookies and shorter for smaller cookies. EXPERIMENT! That's how everyone perfects a recipe.





 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No Cutter? No Problem!

I recently got an order for 5 dozen cookies in the shape of a number 1. Simple enough, right? Well... it turns out that most stores around here only have that number in a very small size. I have two and they are both only about 1-1.5" tall. The order was for numbers that were 3-4 inches long. I scoped out amazon and found the perfect cutter there for $13. But I needed it for this order within a day. The shipping plus the cutter would have been almost $50! That's when I decided that I needed to get creative. I went to Walmart and bought a large piece of oak tag paper, drew out a number 1... FREEHAND because I don't have a printer... and ta-da! I had to hand cut 60 cookies. It took a couple hours to complete the process but I had my good friend, Lauren, on the phone and so she helped the time pass. To cut out the cookie this way all I had to do was line the counter with wax paper, lay the oak tag one on my rolled out dough, and take a small knife and cut along the line. Here's how they turned out!

Very simple, but this was a blessing since I had to do 60 of them. It really didn't take long! In the order my customer requested fushcia and a "curry" yellow from the paper source, They were pretty close!

Dressing up Gingy

I am starting to realize that I LOVE dressing up gingerbread men. You can turn them into any person or hero! You can make them look realistic enough without taking away the "gingerbread man" effect! I've done plenty of superheros, but I was super excited when I got an email about doing a gingerbread man order that I could be even more creative in. She asked me to make 2 dozen gingerbread men cookies.... however I wanted. Since the order was for two different people, I thought.... two different themes!

Joe's Talent

Tonight I was decorating some zebra print cookies for an order and I had a huge gingerbread man that I thawed out in the freezer. When I was finished with my cookies I had some leftover frosting and decided the gingerbread man did not need to be re-frozen so I asked Joe, "Hey, I have a cookie leftover, do you wanna decorate it?" His response? "YES! YES!" Haha. He practically flew out of his seat. He loves it when I have leftover cookies and icing so he can get creative. Like always.. he did a really good job.

 

I should also note... that Dierks has finally taken a liking to Joe. Probably because he finally took my advice and stopped chasing the cat around the apartmet. They are pretty good friends now :).

Craft Fair Success!

Last night I spent a good 6 hours making 50 more cookies for the craft sale thinking that I wasn't going to have enough. BOY was I wrong!!! Although I only sold 20 cookies and pretty much broke even with my sales... I gave out a lot of business cards! The Hello Kitty cookies were the biggest hit, followed but Spiderman and Darth Vader. I had a great time with Joe and he was sweet enough to go get us lunch and sit patiently from 9-5 during the hours of the fair. It was nice to get some feedback on my cookies and have so many people ask questions about orders! Hopefully I will be getting more local orders soon. Joe insisted on taking my picture at the table, so here it is. Also.. I'm sure you're wondering what I did with all those leftover cookies. I gave some away to people around me but the majority of them were donated to the church youth group to enjoy tomorrow (that was Joe's idea). Like I always say "what a guy!"

Cookies for Sale!

About a month ago I got a message on Etsy from a lady that is heading a craft sale at her church here in Albuquerque. She asked if I'd like to be a part of it and sell my cookies, and I just couldn't pass up that opportunity! Thanks to my beautiful mother and my bestie, Marin, I now I have PLENTY of business cards to hand out as well! I decided to take on the challenge of making enough cookies for this craft sale stress free. I have no idea how many I need to bring so my goal was 100. I believe that after tonight I'm somewhere around 80-something. I thought that would be enough. Along with that I'm going to have a slideshow and of course, my cards to give out. The church also asked that I donate something to be auctioned off so I thought it'd be a great time to try out cookie pops. It was a success. Since I planned on making so many cookies I decided that super detailed (my favorite) would not be a good choice. If I was going to make this many cookies in one week then they would have to be quick and easy. The cookie designs that made the list are....

• Hello Kitty (third time trying to make them and I finally succeeded)
• T-Rex
• Stegosaur
• baseballs
• basketballs
• butterflies
• hearts
• alien faces (of course this was Joe's suggestion)
• zebra print
• leopard print
• Spiderman faces
• ladybugs
• pumpkins
• Darth Vader

Am I missing any? Oh yeah, I guess the flowers for the flower cookie pops! WHEW! I know that looks like a lot, but I tried my best to combine colors so I wouldn't have to over do it. That was actually how I tackled this whole thing... thinking about which colors could be used on multiple designs that would be easy. Still.... I have about every color in the rainbow on my cookies. Now... a lot of these cookies you've seen before so I'm only posting the ones I was really proud of.

Joe helped me to figure out how to do this last night at Michael's Craft Store. I think it turned out neat! And surprisingly sturdy!

Bittersweet

Tonight Joe and I officially said our "goodbyes" to our loving, Harrison. I found a loving family online that had 2 dogs and 3 little girls to just love him to death. He will never be alone now and he will have plenty of love that Joe and I weren't able to give him. It was absolutely heartbreaking to drive away, but we managed to do it and I think in the end we made the right choice. This was so much better than taking him to a shelter. Now he has a chance with another family that even invited us to visit whenever we wanted. Sometimes loving someone (or somedog) means being selfless and giving them what they need, even if it breaks your heart.

Big Bang Theory Cookies

I got a request from a high school friend about making some Big Bang cookies for her husband's birthday! She wanted some to go along with the card she got him and I hate to admit this but I don't watch the show... so I did some homework online and came up with these!

Goodbye, Harrison

I say this with a heavy heart and an even heavier conscience, but Joe and I have decided that Harrison needs to go back to the shelter. We have toyed with the idea for a couple of weeks now and it's finally time. He is so wonderful when we're home. Obedient, loving, and so sweet.. but we just cannot handle is separation anxiety any longer. In the grand scheme of things he is by far not the worse case scenario of dogs with this anxiety but for our small apartment, it is too much. We actually videotaped him on Saturday when we went to lunch and did some shopping. What we saw made us finally decide to do what is best for him. He spend 2 1/2 hours roaming, whining, pawing and biting at the door, and ripping the rubber off the bottom of the door. With me starting work soon, he would be left alone much more than he is now and we DID try several things before deciding to call it quits. Puzzle toys, bones, long walks before we leave, trying to get him to be alone when we're home, leaving the tv on, Thundershirt, and I called the help hotline a couple of times. After we were referred to a specialist that cost $300-500 for a visit, we realized that was not an option. He deserves better and obviously needs something we are not giving him. We think he would be much better off with a yard to distract him during the day and with a family that was home almost all of the time. We love him and we will miss him but in the end we need to do what is best for him and for us. Tomorrow is going to be hard, but we will all get through it and in the end it's what needs to be done. I'm sure I'll cry .... I already have several times!

Monster Cookie Bars

If you have a ridiculous sweet tooth... you need to make these ASAP.... and don't you DARE calculate the calories ( I did that once and was absolutely horrified, yet it didn't stop me from scarfing them down). These are so horrible for you, but soooo horribly good.

1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 stick butter
2 tsp baking soda
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups peanut butter
4 1/2 cups quick cooking oats
1 bag M&Ms
1 bag chocolate chips

Mix together softened butter and sugars. Blend in eggs and baking soda. Add in peanut butter until mixture is creamy. Next add your oats a cup at a time and mix by hand (and that doesn't literally mean your hand is what mixes it... use a spatula. Yes, I did that... and Lauren can attest. Not my finest moment.) Finally add in your bags M&Ms and chocolate chips and stir.

Thoroughly spray a 9 x 13 pan with non-stick cooking spray and bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes. Do not cut into them until they are completely cooled... you will have a gooey mess on your hands. Don't overbake!

ENJOY!!!!!

1920s Themed Cookies

Joe's aunt contacted me about a month ago asking for a special request. Her friend was having a 1920s themed birthday party and she was hoping I could come up with some cookies for her party. I got my biggest order yet of ONE HUNDRED cookies! Now... I seriously planned this out day to day and made sure that I gave myself enough time and I budgeted my time well. Not once did I stress over these cookies (and that is really saying something). I'm pretty happy with the end result! My personal favorite cookies are the ones with the feather headband. :) I can't wait to get a kopykake projector so I can start doing fun words and very detailed designs!

Surprise!

"Joe has been full of surprises the past week. One day I got the mail only to find a package with a Batman apron in it that he ordered for me! I get four all over myself and in practically every crack and crevice of our kitchen (if you pulled out the oven you could back an entire batch of cookies with all the flour that has fallen down there). Well my clothes will forever remain flourless thanks to this thoughtful gift!

As if THAT wasn't enough. The same day this picture was taken Joe snuck out of a store we were shopping in at the mall and I didn't notice. I didn't have a clue, in fact, I was waiting for him by the fitting rooms for a while because I thought he was trying on jeans when he disappeared. After a few mintues some shoes caught my eye so when I saw him a while later and he explained he couldn't find any jeans I didn't think anything of it. Then just as we were walking out of the mall I heard this weird crinkling sound coming from him when he walked. I put my hand on his back and said "something on you is making a weird sound" and  I did I felt something... in a bag. Engagement ring? Haha... no. He pulled out Jason Aldean's new cd from being under his shirt and handed it to me. What a guy.... what a guy!

Halloween Cookies

I have literally been looking forward to making Halloween themed cookies for a few months now and I finally got to fullfill my urge today and I still have more I want to do. Frankensteins were the cookies I was looking forward to doing the most but when all was said and done, the Mummies turned out better than I had imagined they would! Anywho... here they are!