The Baking: Sugar Cookies & Royal Icing

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For years, I have been laboring under the assumption that this recipe was my aunt's.  This year, I saw it in my Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook!  Scandalous!  The dough is very fragile, so the chill time is absolutely necessary.  Make sure you have similarly sized cookie cutters so the baking time is consistent.  The thing I like most about these cookies is that they bake up nice and soft, as opposed to a crunchy, shortbread-like cookie.

You can frost these using the royal icing recipe below or you can use baking sugar to decorate them before baking.  The sugar is definitely easier, but the icing is nice if you're looking for an art project.

The Baking: Haystacks

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I make these every Christmas.  The first time people see them, they are usually skeptical, but they taste awesome.  I always make them too big - they're really best if they're a little smaller since they are so rich, but the chow mein noodles cling together, so it's difficult to make them super small.  This is the recipe from the back of the Nestle butterscotch chip bag, omitting the marshmallows and increasing the noodles.

Twelve Beers of Christmas

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Between getting married, buying a place and starting school, the past few years have been chaotic swirl of activity. With everything going on (and the amount of money that flew out of our coffers) buying gifts for our friends was impractical, but we still wanted to do something for everyone. Luckily our friends like beer, and eating what we cook, so out of this the Twelve Beers of Christmas party was born.

Spending time with our friends and slowing down even for an evening was the best way we could think to celebrate the holidays and in its second year it is proving to be a great success.  Clare and I cook a bunch of heavy appetizers and we ask everyone to bring a different beer to share.  Then everyone votes for their favorite brew and the winner gets a prize.