This year, I am lucky enough to avoid the massive house cleaning and hours of cooking.  To be honest, I like the cooking part — just not the massive house cleaning on top of that!  My only homemade contribution to the Thanksgiving dinner this year will be the mince meat pie.  This is my father-in-laws favorite.  Our local Fareway store has the best fresh mince meat during the holiday season.  So I just combine that with my mother’s pie crust recipe.  Enjoy your day, and don’t stress about the cooking!

Good Pie Crust

2/3 c Crisco oil
1/3 c milk
2 1/4 c flour
1t salt
Pour oil and milk into mixing bowl. Add flour and salt into liquids and stir with fork into dough that clings
together and cleans the bowl. Pick up dough and work until smooth. Divide dough and shape into 2 flat rounds.
Roll out between sheets of waxed paper for 2 9″ pie shells or one double pie crust. Bake as usual. 375 degrees for 15 min
then at 350 degrees until browned.

Last night we were having dinner with some friends.  One had been to my annual cookie party and one had not.  Rob, who had not, had done a cookie party a year or so ago and made about 20 kinds.  So, after he had stayed up until 2am for several nights in a row leading up to the party, he was informed that I baked my cookies in advance and froze them to keep them fresh.  Believe it or not, it works. 

If you know me, you know I go through an amazing amount of zippy bags during cookie season.  I also focus on shirt boxes because they fit in my freezer best.  I learned the art of freezing cookies from my Mom.  She would bake while we were at school and we would come home to absolutely no dirty dishes and no cookies in sight.  On Christmas Eve, cookies would magically appear on a platter and we would have to wait for them to defrost before we could eat them.  Nothing like biting into a semi frozen Christmas cookie…ahh the memories. 

I have refined the freezing process to a greater degree due to the amount of cookies I bake.  I have found that stored in a zippy bag inside the shirt boxes keeps them fresher and avoids the cookies from picking up flavors from the other cookies.  I do try to put peanut butter cookies together in the box when I can, but I never mix flavors inside the zippy bag.  I learned that the hard way one year when using a huge airtight container that I put all mixed cookies into.  They all started to taste the same after a while. 

When using a strong flavoring like peppermint, you may want to double bag the cookies and not put anything else in the same box.   Sometimes this is a factor with coffee flavored cookies as well.  Generally, if you can still smell the ingredient after the cookie is in a sealed bag, you want to double bag it. 

My storage process works like this.  Once the cookies are done, I quick freeze a plate at a time and start loading the bags.  This is primarily for drop cookies without any special frosting, or jam in them.  I use one zippy bag and fill it up 2 – 3 layers on top of each other, the full length of the bag.  How many depends on the cookie itself.  Then I seal that bag.  I turn the box around and do a 1/2 of a bag of the cookie that filles up the balance of the shirt box.  Then the box is closed and the cookie is written on the spine and the top for easy identification.  Voila!  Ready for the freezer.

I am blessed to have a full size standing deep freeze in my basement where I store cookies.  I get it cleaned out in the fall so it is ready to receive the onslaught of cookies.  Since I use my frozen butter as we bake along, that evens itself out.   I usually bring up my cookies from the freezer either the night before or early the morning of my party to give them time to defrost.  I just put them on a table and they defrost in their boxes and bags. 

So, you have your cookie list done, your ingredients bought.  Think about how nice it would be to do some baking early on cold, rainy days and not feel the pressure of baking cookies the night before you need them.  Make your freezer your friend.

I ordered this book for my Kindle, and I couldn’t put it down.  The premise of the “5 minutes” is that you have the dough made up and waiting for you in the refrigerator.   You then take it out, shape it, allow it to rest for 40 minutes, meanwhile you set your oven to come on in 20 minutes to preheat to 450 degrees by the 40 minutes of resting time is happening.  Then, you bake it on your preheated baking stone in your oven with a pan of water for 30 minutes.  I have made the basic recipe twice, now.  My daughter asked me, “When are you going to make that bread again?”  I guess my answer is, “More often!”

This also works well camping, I am told — as you can make a flatbread naan in a griddle over a campfire or camp stove. I’m also thinking that I might try the bread in the camp oven.

Egg Puffs

Originally uploaded by improvisationalgourmet

My older daughter came home from school one day and said, “Mom, you have to make these egg things!” I asked her about them. She explained, “You make them like pancakes, and put bacon in them.” Her friend, a picky eater, would only eat these for lunch — and they were cold.

Deciding that egg “pancakes” seemed like too much trouble, I got out the sandwich maker, spun six eggs in the Ninja blender with a little milk, then poured the eggs into the heated sandwich maker. I then sprinkled a little bacon in each one (the kind of real bacon bits that you buy already done for you). I didn’t really time them, I just took them out when the sandwich maker started opening up (I never latch it).

They are so easy, and such a big hit for us; and yes, we eat them cold if there are any leftover.

I like mine with a little sprinkle of cheese, and maybe some salsa — but they’re good plain, too.

Time to bake the donuts – no, wait, that’s an old television ad. Time to make the cookies, Even though it’s October, it’s not too early to start the planning for the holiday baking. In my case, it’s not too early to actually START the holiday baking, but more on that another time.

I like to start with a list of what I am going to bake this year. I list all of the usual cookies I bake and then start searching for recipes of new ones. When looking for new recipes, I try to balance the flavors and colors with what I am already planning on baking. In my case, chocolate and peanut butter are favorite ingredients and I force myself to look for recipes with spice, cranberry, fruit flavors and bright colors to them. The table can look boring when it is all shades of brown.

Because I use so much butter, flour and sugar each year, I watch for the sales at the grocery stores. The best deal is when butter is on sale. I freeze my butter. Hit the sales during the late summer and early fall and you will have the basics to get started.

Other things I have on hand are zip-lock style of storage bags, shirt boxes, and parchment paper. If I ever stop baking, the zip lock storage bag stock will drop. Just this weekend I was able to start my stock of shirt boxes, so now I can move forward on some cookies waiting to be baked. Zippy bags and shirt boxes are how I store my cookies in anticipation of my big party. Each cookie will get placed in a zippy bag and layered in shirt boxes. Then I label the shirt boxes in sharpie on the top and on the front with what cookie is inside. When the cookies are stacked in the freezer, I can read the front spines. When they are waiting to be placed on platters, I can read the tops. Makes for easy re-loading of the cookies during a party.

Parchment paper is a staple at my house. We use it under cookies, frozen pizzas, other baked goods and all kinds of things.

Once I have my list, staples, and storage needs ready I review each recipe for other ingredients. Then, I make a list of how many types of spices, chips, nuts and extracts I may need. This way I can start to add ingredients every time we go to the store and I don’t have to buy everything all at once.

This year, I made my list in September so that I could get a jump on the baking. Most people don’t need to start as early as I do, but it is still better than being at the store the night before a cookie exchange trying to figure out what to buy.

Try it this year…make a list of the 5 cookies you need to bake. Add a new one or two and get ready to get ready. It makes a difference.