2 days until Christmas…
It seems appropriate to finish off my cookie plates with classic treats that are as good today as they were when my great-grandma made them. These are the sorts of treats that most American kids grew up eating. I am not sure I remember a single Christmas without Sugar Cookies and peanut brittle. 
Being a very modern woman, I’ve dabbled in other types of brittle. We’ve made bacon almond brittle with hints of rosemary and chilis. We’ve tried pecan brittle with a bit of orange rind. I’ve even tried to make brittle in the off-season. Somehow, though, we always find our way back to peanut brittle. It’s crunchy and caramel-y. It’s chunky, salty, and sweet. This is better than the weird boxes of peanut brittle you can pick up at the drug store. It’s worth risking the burns. 
Another thing to note, I had a heck of a time finding appropriate peanuts to put in the brittle. I just wanted some Spanish peanuts. I feel like I used to see them all over, but I went to a couple of different stores and didn’t see them. I used cocktail peanuts instead, lightly salted. 
There are an insane amount of sugar cookie recipes available. This one is one that you should not make according to the recipe. If you follow the recipe, the thing you make will be a sweet quiche-y sort of thing. It will not be cookies. The recipe is missing flour. I don’t know how the proofreader missed that. After consulting various cookbooks, I determined that for the amount of fat and eggs in the recipe, about 5 cups of flour was the right amount. I was slightly wrong. I think 4 1/2 would’ve been better. I added a couple of tablespoons of milk to hold everything together.
The best part of making sugar cookies is decorating them afterwards. We cheated this year and bought cookie frosting. I get a break on this one, I made 6 different kinds of cookies and 6 different kinds of candy in 2 days. It allowed me to sit down with the kids and decorate with minimal clean up after. The kids love to decorate cookies. They are getting quite accomplished at it. There was some marbling going on and some fancy sugar work.
That wraps up the cookie plate for this year. Plates were taken to neighbors, plates were taken to work. We are going to need to have people over to help us eat the rest of them.
I swear I am not just rambling about eggnog, I actually have a point. Nutmeg cookie rolls. YUM. A nice little stick of a cookie with rum and nutmeg flavors. I was hoping that this recipe would be nutmeg-y enough to be a suitable replacement for the drink and thus save me some room in the refrigerator. The verdict is that it’s just not quite creamy enough. These cookies are crisp and sweet. The nutmeg is sort of a warm afterthought. You can smell it as you bite into them, but it’s not the first flavor in your mouth. I decorated these with melted white chocolate and some red things to make them look festive. I think they kind of look like matches. Whatever.
Now, divinity. I’m sure if you read through cookbooks the way I do, you have seen recipes for divinity, but you may not know what it is. Imagine if meringue cookies and marshmallow fluff had a baby. Divinity is light fluffy clouds of vanilla flavor. They have a bit of a brittleness about them like the crunch of your feet on grass after the first frost. But instead of being cold, it’s warm and gentle. It’s not exactly sticky, but it’s kind of got the memory of being sticky. Nuts are optional here. I figured I had enough nutty things on my cookie tray and more would just make it unbalanced. 
Ok, so if you’ve made it through making butterscotch and anise candy, you may already know that making candy can be hard. Molten sugar is HOT! And sticky. And it will burn the crap out of you if you let it touch your skin. Cold water will harden the candy and help with the burn, but you need to act quickly. Anything that is over 200 degrees is going to hurt. Sticky things are worse. BE CAREFUL when pouring the hot syrup into the egg whites. Pouring slowly will lessen the chances of hot liquid splattering up at you. Scrape down the sides as necessary. When it is time to spoon out the warm candy, work quickly. It gets harder to scoop as it cools.
Growing up we went to a church that had a phenomenal Christmas bazaar every year. There were certain things that could not be missed. In the tearoom, you could sit and drink hot cider and eat a selection of Christmas cookies and cream puffs stuffed with chicken salad. There were the baked beans. Sadly that recipe didn’t make it into the church cookbook. I’ve been attempted to recreate the beans. My mom had the recipe at one point, but it might’ve gotten lost in a move. The beans were that good. 
You could tell it was time for the bazaar weeks ahead of time. The familiar fragrances of the church, the incense, Murphy’s oil soap, old wood, and beeswax, would start to become entwined with the smell of sugar and anise. 
At the bazaar, a cut glass punch bowl would be piled high with baggies full of jewel-like red and green candies. My siblings and I would always make sure that my mom bought at least one bag. There were a few years where I would bring my own money to secure my own bag. Anise is one of those flavors that not everyone likes. I get it. But it takes me back to those days of helping in the tearoom, exploring all the goodies, conversations in the kitchen with the “old” church ladies. And the color is so pretty and this anise flavor isn’t very strong. It’s more of the suggestion of anise than a powerful anise flavor. 
Since those days I have helped 2 churches start their Christmas bazaars. One turned into an event with a fancy wine and cheese night and silent auction. The other is an amalgamation of sewn crafts, canned food, lefsa, fresh bread, herb butters. I was the official bread maker for years. 
Ok, enough of the sentimental drivel and let’s get to cookies.
I have made many, many versions of pumpkin muffins over the years. They are one of my kids’ all time favorite treats. We cheat and substitute the raisins with chocolate chips. My kids tend to not prefer raisins. And there are only so many times a week that I can put them into something before someone starts to complain. (Wait until we get into the sour cream raisin pie and the raisin sauce and raisin dumplings.) They never have the same reaction to chocolate chips for some strange reason.
You get what I’m saying, right? There are lots of reasons to make pumpkin muffins other than leftover pumpkin. You know, like you like good food, you are hungry, a good song comes on the radio and you want to dance in the kitchen, but feel like you should be productive at the same time, or you want to reward your husband for investigating the gross dead animal smell in the basement (and want to cover up the smell). 
Whatever the reason…or for none at all. Make a batch of pumpkin muffins with chocolate chips. Leave the raisins for other things. 
There was the Thanksgiving where my brother-in-law’s friend discovered the song “Alice’s Restaurant.” I think every time he opened his mouth for that visit, the first word that came out was “Kid…”. If you know the song, you’ll know how this was said. If you don’t, I suggest looking it up.
For me, Thanksgiving has always been a pie holiday. Sure, there may be other desserts, but they don’t count the same way pie does. March 14th seems like less of a pie holiday than Thanksgiving. It’s tradition to leave the table, stomach groaning only to be lured back by someone bringing out the pie.
It took a me a long time to appreciate pumpkin pie. It always smelled so good and I loved all the flavors (despite my rant against pumpkin pie spice when it was apple season), but the texture was never my thing. It was too soft, too slimy, too spongy, something. I knew that I was bucking tradition by not eating it, but my mom made such wonderful other pies. I have fond memories of a black bottomed pecan pie.
This recipe for pumpkin pie is my go to. I found it in my great-grandma’s box of recipes and included it in the book I made for my grandma. It makes a heavily spiced thin pie filling.
I think I compare myself to my mom. She always makes beautiful pie crusts.
It’s that moment that made this more of a champion apple pie than the fact that I was able to solve my pie crust issues.
Atypically, this pie does not call for any pie spices. Not a drop of cinnamon in the whole thing. It is still delicious. Maybe it’s because I picked the apples myself and froze them. Maybe because the recipe won some award or other. But I’m guessing it has a lot to do with those sweet little fingers poking through mine to create the gorgeous crust.
While brandy slush is good, I think this version is even better. It seems a little mellower and a little less acidy. The Southern Comfort adds a bit of extra fruitiness that isn’t captured with the more traditional recipe. It’s sweet, but not too sweet. It’s cold. It’s delicious. It doesn’t give you the same sort of cold headache as a frozen margarita will. Best of all, this recipe is super easy. It has green tea in it, so just think of all the antioxidants. 
A truly authentic slush experience involves first purchasing one of those 5 quarts pails of ice cream. When the ice cream is gone, the void in your freezer can either be filled with another 5 quarts of ice cream or the same pail refilled with slush. I mean, it’s up to you to do what you think is best, but I have found that pints of really good ice cream are much easier to find room for.
The table runner was one of my Grandma’s. It seems seasonally appropriate and it makes me smile.
We air-popped rainbow colored popcorn for the popcorn.
The teacup is an amazing piece of Wedgwood that I found at Goodwill with 2 saucers for less than $3. They matched another saucer I found at a different thrift shop for 60 cents.
The cherry meringue pie is the one on the top. It is one of the best pies I’ve ever put into my mouth. I feel like there should be some sort of fanfare before I give you the recipe for this fantastic thing.
I just made this pie crust in my food processor. I didn’t feel like getting my hands in it. Not that it really mattered because by the time I got everything kneaded and in the fridge, my hands were covered in dough anyway.
I have no idea what makes this coffeecake Syrian as opposed to any other nationality. I keep meaning to ask my colleague, but never have the recipe with me at work. I expect it’s got something to do with the cinnamon. Or perhaps is just called Syrian because someone thought it sounded fancy. 
I love this coffeecake. It’s cinnamony and nutty with a sort of firm crust underneath the cake. The pecans add such a beautiful crunch to it. It’s simple and basic, but completely wonderful.
