A Potpourri of Decorated Christmas Cookies

I have enjoyed baking and decorating cookies the last few months now. I get a lot of enjoyment out of the challenge and the beauty of what I make. Others enjoy the tastiness. But this is the first time I went all out to decorate my Christmas Cookies in the most festive way I could.
 For me, it was an amazing ride as I tried a variety of different shapes, designs and colors. I was really pleased with the results, especially my little elf cookies, which were a  fun play on an upside down ice cream cone design I had used in the past. They really looked like Santa's little helpers. Very creative design , don't you think ?

                                    This is my first batch, star snowflakes.

                                             Next I have the Christmas Tree

                             storing in container layered with parchment paper.

                                                         bigger snowflakes

                                 big and small snowflakes ... different colors

                                                 tada!!! Elves ... aren't they cute/!!

                                                     FUN, FUN, FUN !!!

that time of the year ....

 Today marks the first day of Advent. It is during the Advent season we focus on anticipating Christ’s birth. We do our best to prepare ourselves spiritually during this special time leading up to Christmas. So we work with a grateful spirit as we prepare our home for this special time. We start by bringing out all the boxes with all the Christmas decorations. We put together a Christmas village with churches, barns, a theater, some village shops and houses with lighting so festive it makes you dream of a cozy white Christmas. We hung up wreaths and stockings with colored lighting to bring that holiday look of this special season. The house is warm and festive with Christmas music playing in the background and freshly baked goodies mixing wonderfully with the scented candles we both enjoy. It really is beginning to look, taste, smell and feel like Christmas !

 The pictures below are from a small batch of winter cookies to I made for our church's coffee fellowship this morning. I will take some more Christmas cookies pictures soon as I will be making more Christmas all during this Advent season. The next batch will look more 'Christmasy' than these !

The picture below is of a couple of wreaths I repurposed into one very festive Advent wreath wreath that I display at our front entrance way to our living room. What do you think ? Pretty nice, right ?

one more reason to be Thankful ... Cookies

I am so thankful for the many blessings God has given me 'every day in every way' ... "Blessed Beyond Belief" is my mantra. It is a great way to start each day.  And here is another reason to be thankful;  I get to bake more wonderful batches of cookies to help bring in this festive and joyful Thanksgiving holiday. It was a joy to ice these cookies .. it definitely make me smile :)   and I hope my tasters will enjoy them as much as I did making them. Let's us give Thanks to the Lord !!!

cupcake cookies

Trying on Cupcake cookies and posting pictures including 3 floral cookies.

Ice Cream Cookies

Here I am trying out my new ice cream cookie cutter. I am quite happy that these turned out really well for my first attempt. I love it when a plan comes together because many times it does not :) What do you think ?

this girl runs on Cupcakes and Jesus

 "This girl runs on Cupcakes and Jesus" was an artistic and creative gift from Ella and her mom, Nicole. It inspired me to make a batch of cupcakes for the Fall Fest at our church .I had so much fun making these cupcakes, and my camera loved them too ! Lots of great pictures to look at . I actually went ahead and bagged them individually and then tied them with pretty fall ribbons to give them an extra festive look.

Baby Blue Throw Quilt

I have been experimenting with some new designs lately. Contemporary and original is what I am going for. Symmetrical is nice but I am looking for something different.
  Blue is not my first choice in color, but since I decide to make a baby boy quilt, I have kept blue as the main color. It's a small quilt measuring 30 X 30, but hey it's for a baby, right ? So it could be used as either a blanket or a wall hang quilt.

                                       Check out my free hand quilting!

Spicy Malaysian Chicken with homegrown veggies

Summer is great time to indulge with fresh produces. The last few days, we are so blessed to get so much fresh homegrown vegetables from our church's friend and my husband's colleague.

I decided to cook a dish of Malaysian chicken curry with some of these homegrown goodies.

This dish is very easy to made, in a small pot, stir together chicken, tomatoes and curry paste, cook over medium to high heat for 3 minutes.
Add milk, squash, stir and mix well, cover pot with lid, let it cook for 5 minutes.
Dish should be bubbly now, turn down heat to medium low, add okras and cover pot with lid and continue to let it simmer for another 10 minutes, toss in basil.
Serve over rice and black beans.

Ingredients:
2 Tbs Chicken/fish curry paste
1 lb chicken thighs (boneless and skinless), cut in bite size
2 whole tomatoes, cut in wedges
1 yellow squash,  cut in slices
7-10 okras, trim tips off
bunch of fresh basils
1/2 cup milk.

Floral Cookies

I made a batch of cookies and flooded them with pastel pink. I decided to try some simple floral designs... Though these are some what a little better than my previous decorated cookies ... I still need more practice to get better to perfect my cookie decorating results! ...still in my infancy on my decorating skill ... more like baby steps still, wishing I could make bigger leap next time :).

Vanilla Sour Cream Birthday Cake

My girlfriend's family is having a birthday party for her and we are invited. Their family parties are always festive events and I have volunteered to make my friend's birthday cake. ( I am so happy they asked me ). I needed to doubled the recipe for such a party. I made 2 layers of 12 inches each so I needed plenty of cake batter. I decided on using my Vanilla Sour Cream Cupcake recipe that I have had good success with before. They were great tasting cupcakes the first time so I am sure I will have a nice cake from this recipe as well.

Here are some pictures.

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Small Burgers

I love home made burgers and my husband is very good at grilling them. He made them smaller so that we have leftover for our weekday lunches :) This size is perfect for us. Tonight with our little burgers we had some delicious fresh corn on the cob and simple but tasty salad with fresh summer vegetables like tomatoes, cucumbers and cilantro... yummy, yummy yummy! This simple meal was clean, delicious and filling. My tummy is happy, I say! You should try them too.

Fish Cake Burger

I didn't want to spend too much time preparing lunch, so we put together  this simple and healthy lunch quick and easy . These are frozen fish cakes that we bought at Costco that are really tasty and easy to cook in a pan with a little bit of oil. They bring a nice variety to our lunches, especially when paired with a tossed salad, some thin slices of blue cheese and a fresh hard boiled egg... just the right amount to fill our hungry stomachs. Lunch is ready!

Grilled Chicken with Broccoli Florets Medley

My husband does most of the cooking when we are home together. We both like the taste of grilled meats and these grilled chicken breasts were perfectly marinated overnight with simple lime juice base. He added garlic, salt, pepper and Italian salad dressing and let it sit in the frig overnight. I decided to cook a veggie dish made from broccoli florets and some left over sweet peppers that had to be used before they went bad. I was able to quickly put together a tasty stir fry that really complimented the grilled chicken.

Direction on Veggie Dish:
2 bunch of broccoli (cut into florets)
8-10 mini peppers
1 small tomato
1 small chinese sausage ( you can use ham or any other meat if you prefer )
1 Tbs Thai Tom Yam sauce
1 cup water.

In a 12 inch skillet pan, pour water into pan and add all the chopped vegetables and chinese sausage.
Over medium to high heat, steam all the chopped vegetables and chinese sausage for 8 mins.
Stir and mix vegetables.
Turn heat to medium low, add Tom Yam sauce to the pan, continue to steam for another 5 mins.
Serve over Grilled Chicken.

Simple tasty, hearty and healthy dinner, yum!

Citrus Lime Cake

I was interested in  baking a citrus flavored cake. I really like lime flavoring but could only find recipes for a lemon flavored cake. Here is a really good recipe I found for lemon cake. I had to tweak it a little bit but the basic recipe really worked out very well. Tasted great, will make it again for sure.

Here are tweaks:
I used lime juice in place lemon juice and I used orange zest in place of lemon/lime zest.
Margarine was used in place of butter.

Lessons learned: Leave the cake completely cool before removing from the pan. I made the mistake of removing cake from pan while cake was still warm thus cake didn't come out clean and smooth from the pan.