Cookies: Version 2 (ME WANT COOKIES!)

Hi Athena and Zoe! (That was for you!!)

Maybe the Cookie Monster should come to our house! This past Wednesday, my good friend Kathy came over and we had the 2nd Annual Cookie Baking Extravaganza. (Scroll to the bottom of that post for a photo of last years haul!) We don't just bake three or four varieties. No, that won't do. We baked a grand total of 19 varieties of cookies! People, NINETEEN!!! This was bright and early, around 8:00 am. Kathy was just unloading her stash of doughs, icings, toppings and supplies. My Kathy just might be the most organized gal I know. Hi Kathy!!! =) She inspires me. See? Those are all my bowls along the back counter and on the left side of the island. Have I mentioned how much I love my island? Cuz I really do. It is a bakers dream. Anyway, once we get started, we don't stop. I'm not kidding. We mix, roll, cut, bake, sprinkle, ice, stack, etc. Oh, and we taste. A cookie from each batch is split in half and we critique. Sometimes, we have to re-test a cookie...for quality control purposes only. Heh heh.

There isn't a lot of time for photos. We're just too busy. But these little gems were my most anticipated cookie on my list. They are Lemony BonBon's. Just the name alone makes my mouth water. So, you start with a pre-roasted pecan half. And then lay them good side down on the baking mat (and if you're me, you make sure they're all laying in the same direction!...kinda like the hangers! Hi Missy Laura!) I digress.

Next, you place one of the rolled balls of dough on top of the roasted pecan... ...and squash it flat with the bottom of a glass dipped in sugar. Bake, cool, slather with lemon icing and... YEEEAHHHHHH!!!! For a girl that likes lemon, these did not disappoint. I think this recipe will be on next years list for sure.

These are Zesty Lime Shortbread. AKA: Pain in the Ass Butt to Come Up With A Lot of Lime Zest But So So Worth It Shortbread And this was less than half of these! Yummy!

Now, lest you think we have only idyllic, perfect cookies to show for our efforts, I offer you these: Ummm...that is a dozen cookies. Ummmm...they tasted really good. Ummm...okay, I can't come up with anything else redeeming about these. And while they were Kathy's recipe this year, I have to say that I had a similar Fail last year with a similar recipe. They ended up with Earl Grey ganache sandwiched between them but were so delicate, it almost wasn't worth it. I know...I lost you after "ganache" didn't I?

All in all, it was the perfect day of baking. Until about 5:00 when our feet and backs were aching from NOT SITTING DOWN ALL DAY and we headed to the Roadhouse for dinner with the menfolk. Hayley came with and snarfed down her dinner before heading off to Confirmation at church. After dinner, we went back to the house for another hour or two of final icing and packaging. If you got some of the cookies, we hope you enjoyed them. It is truly our labor of love and we have a ball doing it. And no doubt, Kathy and I will be hunting down new recipes and cookie cutters for the 3rd Annual Cookie Baking Extravaganza!

Meanwhile, we woke up to the first flakes of snow this morning! It's been falling steady this morning...nothing too heavy but it sure does make everything so pretty!

Have a lovely day and stay warm! Even you SoCal folks down there!

The little lights are not twinkling...

Anyone who knows a Liebel is well aware that most of us cannot get through the period from Thanksgiving to Christmas without peppering our conversations with choice lines from the collective Liebel favorite holiday film "Christmas Vacation." It simply cannot be done. And truth be told, it doesn't even have to be the holidays. It has become Liebel-speak. And so introduces this years version of the gingerbread houses. And the little lights are not twinkling...because I couldn't find little lights. What is the crafting world coming to??? Is it too much to ask that Michaels keep on carrying the little strings of lights for me??? I guess it is...I guess IT IS.

My grandpa was an old German baker and these are made from his secret recipe for gingerbread. Honeycake, as he called it. I grew up watching my mama make the little houses and then I got to help decorate them. For a full recap of the entire process involved, go HERE (Step 1) and HERE (Step 2) and HERE (Step 3!) This house if for my friend, Holly. I put one of the houses up for bid in the Silent Auction for our Sports Booster Club (GO COUGS!!!) and Holly very sweetly camped out at that table to make sure she got the final bid for a little gingerbread house. I just sent her an email letting her know that her fresh prize is ready for delivery.

This is the second of the three houses I made this year. Cute yes, but the little lights are not twinkling.

I have got to find little strings of lights. Obviously.

This is the last of the houses...errrhhh...houses and trailer! Can you stand it??? This little darling is for a friend of Dan's. He's a sweet old man that lives right on one of the prettiest lakes around here. He has this cute little trailer and the most amazing trees, plants and bushes surrounding it. He invited us over to fish off of his dock one day. The fishing wasn't so good but it sure was fun to sit in the sun with a margarita and a fishing pole, watching the bald eagles soaring above and listening to fishing stories with friends. So this is my ode to Bud...my rendition of his charming trailer with a little bit of Lake Shoecraft thrown in for authenticity.

HI BUD!!! Thanks for the fun afternoon fishing off your dock! =)

And now if you'll excuse me, I have to eat so I can take my back pill!!! (See, I told you it couldn't be done!!!)

Cookies: Version 1

First of all, a happy photo. This is my dishtowel drawer. I know….sigh. This is just one of those things that makes me smile. And yes, I really do keep them folded and stacked all orderly like that. My own mother laughed at me when she saw me folding my dishtowels just so. What can I say? Happy. Once December hits, the everyday towels switch places with the holiday ones. Admit it: Looking at that photo brings a smile to your face, doesn’t it? =)

Now, on to the cookies. The ORCA program that Hayley attends is Oceanography-based, so when I came across fish-shaped cookie cutters, I knew we had to make cookies for teacher gifts.

Then I found little fishie plates and about died of The Cute right there in the store! Hayley and I decorated these little babies last night. It’s time consuming and a little messy, but the end result is worth it.And for all the kitty fans out there: This is what I have to go through to get a photo. I think its pretty obvious that our MollyMo didn’t get the memo about kitties staying off the counter. Tsk tsk.

Do You Fon-Due?

What better way to celebrate the kindness of good friends... ...than to gather 'round vats of hot oil and cook an assortment of meats???

It all started when we were talking with our friends, Ken and Kathy Christiansen. (Hayley is good friends with their daughter Karen, and Kathy and I have discovered a kinship based on A LOT of similarities. And we have that good old Catholic connection going! And all the guys are at the Pistol Range right now, so there's that!) Anyway, we mentioned fondue and all agreed we should do it sometime. Well, long story short, our new friends loaned us their 4-wheel drive vehicle to get us through the recent "Great Snow of 2008." You know, the one where more snow fell on the PNW region than anyone can EVER remember? Yeah, that one. So, as a small gesture of thanks, we invited their family over for a fondue feast. Filet, lobster, scallops, shrimp, chicken, pork and mushrooms all took their turn in the hot oil jacuzzi's (better known as the fonduzzi.) Then, they were slathered with horsey, dill, deviled, lemon butter, cocktail and Asian sauces. Oh and there was classic Swiss fondue, which is basically a cheese/wine melt and you dip chunks of french bread into that. Yeahhhhhh!

We thought the kids would prefer chicken strips and Dano's home fries, but really, they would have been just as happy with fondue for their dinner. They eventually headed back upstairs for more Guitar Hero World Tour, but did come back downstairs for this: That is Swiss Chocolate Fondue. From a recipe circa 1973...that cracks me up! Basically, it is cream and chocolate and a dash of liqueur...with hunks of banana, pound cake and rice krispie balls for dippins'.

Take a moment....

Now, I do apologize for the lack of photos. But honestly, it is really hard to hold a camera when you're holding a fondue fork in each hand! Trust me.

Ken, Kathy, Rob and Karen, thank you so much for lending us your truck and for a really fun evening!

I Posted the Wrong Photo...

This is the entire Roadhouse.

I can't believe I posted the wrong photo of the gingerbread Roadhouse! So, instead of swapping the photo out (which entails basically doing the whole post over again) I will just post it here. It's just too cute not to share! I think I originally did the close-up version so the "smoke" in the smoking area would be visible. Anyway, enjoy! The rest of the post is below.

The Big Gingerbread Reveal

Sigh. Here is our house. I save all the decorations from our house every year and then pile them on the next year. Overkill? Perhaps. But we wouldn't have it any other way. So, how do we get here?

Remember this? All baked up, edges evened out and stacked up ready to assemble. One of them is longer than the others. You'll see why later on.

You can't assemble an edible gingerbread house without Royal Icing. After years of making this, I truly believe it is an art form. If the icing is not right, as in too thick or too thin, there is lots of unsavory language in the kitchen while the houses are being assembled. Trust me on this. I grew up with it....and I am carrying on the "tradition." But, if the icing is good, it is a thing of beauty. I make my icing tubes out of freezer paper. That plastic lining is a lifesaver.

I found a lovely pastry tube with all the fancy tips, and in a weak moment, I bought it. Meh. This is the last time you will see the fancy-schmancy pastry tube. Anyway, the windows have to be attached and allowed to dry before any real construction can take place.

Now, the actual construction takes many hands and those hands cannot be holding cameras while holding the pieces. So, fast forward.......

You can see the house in the back has no roof. The order goes: Front and side. Other side. Back. Then the two roof pieces. Usually about that time, I am thinking, often out loud, "These look horrible!! Not a GOOD YEAR!" (Josie Grandma, does this sound at all familiar??) You see, it is a PROCESS. Like any process, you have to trust in the final vision. They just don't look that cute while they are being put together.

This is my subcontractor, Hayley. (Well, these are her hands.) I wouldn't dare try to decorate these little gems without her help. She would shoot me. And then never speak to me again. I can't have that, so she does a lot of the decorating. This is her friend Karen's house.

And here is our Bobo with the finished Christiansen house! We're not thinking the houses are horrible anymore!

See, they go from ugly ducklings to cute swans! We include a little light to insert in the back to provide yummy light through the door and windows.

This is Molly, our kitty. She only gets to go outside in our gingerbread world!

We have a snowman. And the mailman leaves presents outside the door!

That's me...standing in the doorway. Teehee. Can I just say it was a pretty good year for icicles? (Another familiar term for Josie Grandma!)

And Santa and Rudolph hang out on the roof. Can you stand it???

This is The Roadhouse Bar and Grill. They've kind of adopted Dano as their own. It's his Joe Josts of the PNW. That is his car there in the middle.

I thought they deserved a little gingerbread replica of the Roadhouse. It came complete with the fenced-in smoking area and neon pub signs. Normally, recipients love the houses and they gush over them. This might have been the best reception ever. The women in the Roadhouse went nuts, but the male owner and male manager pretty much acted like little boys on Christmas morning! I love it. It is why I make these little houses year after year!

So that is the story of our gingerbread houses. There is just one drawback to having a house made of gingerbread. The mice enjoy them as much as us people do!

I know. =)

I can't stand it either!

Gingerbread Contractor

Can you stand it??? Another new blog post! So, I'm going to have to do this in two parts because there are just too many pictures of the Gingerbread House process and I don't want anyone to lose interest. Okay? Okay. Here goes...

Everything is all ready to go here. The dough, baking sheets (brand spankin' new unwarpable Cuisinart pans...that will come into play very soon!) rolling pin, pattern pieces, scraper, etc.

I just have to add here that when we were looking at homes to buy, I may have done a little jig when I saw this granite island. I mean, to a girl who rolls out gingerbread dough every year, this island sealed the deal. Just had to share that tidbit.

So, we place a hunk of dough on the heavenly slab of granite and start rolling. This dough is a rollers dream.

See? All flat and even. {{sigh}}

Okay, I use the scraper to cut out the pieces. This is a roof. I'll need two for each house. I am a gingerbread contractor. We came up with that name the other day. I like it!

Next, pan by pan, the pieces are baked. Do you like my new non-warping pans? Can I share with you my horror when after only 3 1/2 minutes of the very first pan baking, I heard the lovely wrenching WARPING ping in the oven. Nice.

Gingerbread contractors do not like it when their roofs (rooves??? I'm going with roofs.) are warped. Or maybe it is the homeowners that don't like their roofs warped. Either way, this sight really pissed me off. Sorry, just keepin' it real folks. I was ready to march back into Costco with my unwarpable pans and have a chat. But then, the pans unwarped. Just like that. Maybe they were afraid of my wrath? We'll never know. They've not warped since that baking day, so I'll move on.

This is where the pieces cool. Those little pieces are various cookies that I bake to keep the wolves (aka: my children) from chewing on the house pieces. Actually, they like to eat the raw dough, so I got up early to bake these.

My gingerbread Santa always presides over the baking.

So, do the scraps go in the trash? Do they go in my children's mouths? What does one do with all those scraps?

No. They are not really scraps. They are perfectly good to re-roll.

And the scraps are happy about this. See?

I hear your thoughts. "Diane has got WAY too much time on her hands." Shush.

Ahhhhh. That is a glorious, re-rolled sight.

In fact, the re-rolled dough behaves even better than the first rolled dough. Let's take a moment to take in this goodness, shall we?

Ohhhhhhmmmmmmmmm. Okay. Moving on.

Now, I don't want you all to think that my kitchen always looks neat and pristine. Because it doesn't. Gingerbread contracting is a messy, flour-y, spread out MESS. Behold:

But, that is what sponges and towels and elbow grease is for. Everything cleans up all nice and tidy and in the end, this is what you get:

A clean island with nicely stacked building supplies all trimmed and ready for assembling. It's a good thing.

Check back tomorrow for the final chapter in this Gingerbread story. It will be worth it. Meanwhile, this morning, I woke up to this:

I love this shot so much so I made it my new header photo. And then I got a wild hair and changed the background to a Christmas-y color. I'm not sold on it yet. =)

It is a stunningly beautiful day here in the PNW. And the hubs comes home from SoCal this afternoon. And we're heading to the Christiansen's for their holiday Open House tonight.

Truly a good day in this neighborhood!

I Had Help...

...wrapping Christmas gifts this morning.

In other news, I apologize again for abandoning my little blog here. No excuse. Just busy. And I was sick for a good seven days. Winter crud.

But seriously, we've been really busy.

Check it out:

1. Brian bowls an average of four days a week on a high school league. That is a lot of driving time. Trust me. But bowling is a story worthy of its own post and I'll get to all things bowling early next week. Trust me, it's THAT good!
2. Hayley was inducted in the National Honor Society last week. Smarty-pants.
3. She also had her high school volleyball awards night last week and then this past Tuesday night, she tried out and made her Club team again! Same coach (Hi Ron!) and some of the same girls from last year (Hi Hannah, Jodi, Kate, and Shelby!) But get this: Hayley (at a solid 5'10") is shorter than three of the new girls! Yowza...we gots ourselves a tall team! And oh, distressing news: This team was supposed to travel to Anaheim in April for the SoCal Qualifier and we were going to have the biggest cheering section (especially for an out of town team) because come on, between SoCal friends and family, we would have rocked the place and then there would have been Disneyland and........BUT NO! Due to a scheduling snafu, we will not be traveling to California. Instead, we will be traveling to....Minnesota. Sigh....I can't even talk about this right now. =(
4. Christmas decorating. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a decorating fool at Christmas time. I'm almost done...just have to do the wet bar, the powder room and finish up on a new valance over the kitchen sink! Oh, and our room. I'll post some photos next week. Then you will understand.
5. Then there was this:

Ahhh, Thanksgiving. We four PNW Liebels stayed home this year and cooked up a fresh little hen with all the trimmings. For the record, those rolls....YEAH! Everyone pretty much agreed they were the best part of dinner. Here is the recipe. You will not be disappointed. I promise.

About 10 mintues after dinner, while we were still loosening our belts, the kids stormed the kitchen demanding pie pie pie pie pie! This year, we asked the kids to decide what kind of pie they wanted. Hayley chose Coconut Cream and Brian chose Pumpkin, but I persuaded him to go with the Chocolate Cream. Again, no disappointments.

Feast your eyes:

Luscious. I made these. And yes, I made that chocolate curl. All by myself.

I'll give you a moment to take in the glory of pie.

All done? Okay, moving on.

Hayley and I got up very early the day after Thanksgiving and met up with our friends Karen and Kathy for some shopping fun. And a little IHOP noshing. Good stuff...we all agreed that we have a new girls tradition! Woohoo!

I'm going to leave you with this vision of manliness.

Can you stand it? That is my Hubs. Well, kinda sorta. It is his head. (teehee) But the fish really was that big. (Hi Crusher!)

My mad Photoshop skillz are gettin' pretty good, no? Just having a little fun (at Dano's request...)

Check back Saturday because tomorrow is gingerbread baking day and the flour is going to fly! And can I just express how happy I am that Top Chef is back on??? Anyone else???

~~~{{Doin' my happy dance....}}~~~