Baking for Christmas

Most everything I made for Christmas came out pretty well... sugar cookies, brown sugar shortbread, crepes with caramel banana sauce, chicken wing dip, chocolate chipped brownies...

I actually had a bomb, too... I tried to make a Bouche de Noel (that cake that looks like a Yule log) and one came out fair, but the other one looked like a Butcher de Noel... worse than a blob. Well, being my parents' daughter, I salvaged it and made it into 'cake pops'.  (the cookies are my mom's sugar cookie recipe half dipped in the chocolate... Christmas Milanos!)

Cake pops are easy... it consists of the following process:  smashing the cake up, stirring it up into a cakey-frostingy mass, rolling it up into 1 1/2 inch balls, freezing these and sticking them (jabbing a lollipop stick into them), and dipping them into melted chocolate. Easy. Rich. Cool looking!

Baking and cooking are two thing I enjoy doing... I don't get a chance to cook much since my husband's so good at it and has the time to. I often come home to a wonderful savory tortellini soup, meatballs Caselle, enchiladas or some other favorite.

I used to miss cooking, for my family... I'd done it meal after meal for many many years... and I cooked for us for awhile... and when I didn't anymore, I had to settle into a different place... adjust to being the cooked for, not the cook. Its partly burying pride, partly moving on to another chapter in my life, partly allowing someone to take care of me... accepting the gift of food prepared for me.

I think I still miss cooking for my family, but it's ok that I'm not.  I make cake pops. And crepes. And chicken wing dip.