Before I proceed with all the holiday baking stuff, I'm going to take a brief yoga divergence. Last night in my yoga class, I was able to do chaturangas the proper way. Not on my knees, not by cheating by sliding on my stomach, but by using my arm muscles to balance and support myself all the way from plank to updog. A couple months ago, one of the yoga instructors demonstrated the proper way to do chaturangas, and I doubted that I would ever have the upper body strength to properly complete the pose. So, I'm pretty excited that I'm able to do chaturangas now.
Okay, now on to the baking. I will be the first to admit that the holiday baking got a little out of hand this year. I blame it on all the grading. So grading is my least favorite thing to do, and I need to take a lot of breaks to get through it. I have a method to my madness: I sort all of my exams into 3 piles according to discussion section, and then I divide each pile into thirds so that I don't grade more than 8 or 9 exams at a time. (This is a trick that I learned from TS, who recommends dividing exams into groups of 10.) After I grade a pile of exams, I allow myself to take a break and do something fun. Usually, something fun is reading a magazine, eating a snack, reading a blog, or checking my Facebook account. Apparently, this time around, the fun activity was baking.
First up: Gingerbread White Chocolate Blondies from the Martha Stewart Cookie Book. Now, Martha Stewart is a little high maintenance, but these blondies were so easy to make. They are absolutely fantastic! When they were cool enough to cut into, I did a taste test and I could not stop eating these (this is pretty uncharacteristic of me).
Next up: This is a recipe from my Grandma C. I don't remember her making these and I don't remember eating them, but my grandma assured me that I have eaten them and that I do like them. I'm not sure what these are called (Jelly Cookies?), but these are a butter cookie rolled in walnuts with apricot preserves in the center. They are really simple, and they taste really good. Grandma, as usual, was right: I really like these cookies.
Okay, now on to the baking. I will be the first to admit that the holiday baking got a little out of hand this year. I blame it on all the grading. So grading is my least favorite thing to do, and I need to take a lot of breaks to get through it. I have a method to my madness: I sort all of my exams into 3 piles according to discussion section, and then I divide each pile into thirds so that I don't grade more than 8 or 9 exams at a time. (This is a trick that I learned from TS, who recommends dividing exams into groups of 10.) After I grade a pile of exams, I allow myself to take a break and do something fun. Usually, something fun is reading a magazine, eating a snack, reading a blog, or checking my Facebook account. Apparently, this time around, the fun activity was baking.
First up: Gingerbread White Chocolate Blondies from the Martha Stewart Cookie Book. Now, Martha Stewart is a little high maintenance, but these blondies were so easy to make. They are absolutely fantastic! When they were cool enough to cut into, I did a taste test and I could not stop eating these (this is pretty uncharacteristic of me).
Next up: This is a recipe from my Grandma C. I don't remember her making these and I don't remember eating them, but my grandma assured me that I have eaten them and that I do like them. I'm not sure what these are called (Jelly Cookies?), but these are a butter cookie rolled in walnuts with apricot preserves in the center. They are really simple, and they taste really good. Grandma, as usual, was right: I really like these cookies.
Finally: it would not be Christmas without sugar cookies. These are a family recipe, but I don't know where it came from. Maybe from one of my aunts. Anyway, this is probably the only time in which I use frosting from a can. This is how we did it when I was growing up, so why mess with tradition? This time, I kept things simple, and I didn't get out the food coloring to make multicolored frosting. 
I also made more peanut butter blossoms, and I made peanut clusters. I got some neat-o treat bags so that I could share these with my friends, professors, and others in the department. I was not, however, able to part with the candy cane cookies. 
2 comments:
1) Congrats on the arm strength!
2) We make those jelly cookies, but we call them kolacky (pronounced koh-lach-kee). Yay for the Polish :)
the pb clusters were my favorites, though all of them are just too good not to finish in one sitting
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