coooooooooookeeeeeeeeez

Well, we haven't all the pix from the wedding events, but here's one that my brother took.

For Thanksgiving, which is usually the biggest holiday in my family, we have several traditions. We usually do up a bird, and then choose to do something else for Christmas. Another tradition my mom and I have is that we bake. We do all our cookies, pies, cakes, breads, and sticky~buns for the entire season Thanksgiving Weekend.

This Thanksgiving, my Jerry and I are staying here since it's not really a good time to be traveling for us. We're going to spend some time which he has off over the Christmas break out in Arkansas. So we thought we'd stay here this holiday. That way too, I can schedule my out~patient procedure for Monday morning, a week from today. Yea, me!

So last week, I went to WalMart and I bought about a hundred pounds' worth of turkeys. Four turkeys {two at sixty cents per pound and two at forty cents per pound, limit two, doncha know}, each between twenty and twenty~five pounds, and then too, we have one~pound tubes of ground turkey stocked up in the freezer. Saturday, Jerry took one of the turkeys out of the deep freeze and stuck it in the fridge. Wednesday night, he'll put it in the roaster and begin the slow process of cooking it. So then on Thanksgiving, we and a few others will sit down to eat around noon. Jerry's making his cornbread up now, so that come Wednesday, it will be ready to mix up for stuffing the bird!

Since I am not going to be with my mom for this first stage of cookie~baking {altho we will bake some closer to Christmas when in Arkansas}, and since a friend of mine and I have been trying to get together for ever, we decided yesterday to combine the visit and the cookie~baking. So we did. And boy, didn't we bake lots tho?

We did a double batch of each of three types: soft sugar cookies, oatmeal peanut butter cookies, and soft chocolate chip cookies. That's about four hundred and twenty~five cookies. My friend took some home with her, and Jerry's son and his wife took some home with them, and then I packed the rest in bags and tubs. I sent quite a few with Jerry to work today, and POOF! they were gone by noon.

The soft sugar cookies are so buttery smooth, mixed with the lovely crispitty crunchiness of granulated sugar, well, they are the ones that are most likely to disappear first. Plus we had some sugar lay~ons remaining from the 138 autumn orange, reds, yellows, and brown maple leaves that we'd used for our wedding cakes, so my friend affixed those to the center of the sugar cookies and they are so pretty, it almost made me hesitate to eat them.

Almost.

The oatmeal peanut butter cookies are so scrumptious, but very crumbly. My friend pointed out that sprinkled over vanilla ice~cream, they'd be extra yummy. And I'm sure she's right. In fact, I was thinking that I'd have me a big ole bowl for a treat. There goes any intention to lose the fifteen pounds I gained within the last two months prior to the wedding.

Oh! And we also added raisins to a portion of the oatmeal peanut butter cookies and that, omg, there is nothing healthy about these sinfully divine delights. Promise. *wink*

The Soft. Chocolate. Chip. Cookies. sigh. Well, these cookies call for pudding mix. I used three packages of chocolate, and one of cheesecake. They are so good, they make ya wanna moan and groan and make all sorts of faces of pleasure. The dough is chocolatey, the four cups of chocolate chips make each bite a lovely mix of smooth and crisp texture. It's so fine, you'll wanna bake extras.

Well, my next venture with cookies from scratch {as all these were} will involve my trying to make some with sweetner, versus sugar, since my Jerry is not really able to digest sugar without dire consequences like passing out &/or vomiting. He deserves some treats too!

I have the cheater~cookie fixings {dry cake mix and sour cream} and also have the stuff for a batch of bread. A batch usually yields three to five good sized loaves. I haven't made bread since this time last year, and now I have all my bread board, bowl, and other bread~things here. So, I'll be a busy lil bee for the next few days!

Hope your Thanksgiving week/ends are all good! Travel safely, eat lots, sleep lots, and enjoy yourself! *toodles*