Holiday Cookie Exchange

Christmas Cookies (frosted with sprinkles)

I have been out of the loop for awhile. I believe Thanksgiving took me away from the blog and now I've been focusing on Christmas! I've had a lot of recipes cooking in my kitchen these days. Just made the home made Mac N' Cheese again yesterday (this time for the kids lunch). The entire batch was eaten in two meals (it makes a great side dish if preparing a quick "left over" dinner night)!

My friend Wendy had a Cookie Exchange party this past week which kicked my holiday baking into high gear (thanks for the push Wendy)! I baked peanut butter cookies with the hershey kisses in the middle (yum). The Cookie Exchange party is a wonderful idea especially if you aren't in the mood to dedicate hours in the kitchen to baking cookies for the holidays. It's pretty simple; you commit to baking 6 dozen of the same variety of cookie and in exchange you go to the party and help yourself to 6 dozen varieties of everyone elses baked goods. Although if you actually think that the cookies will last you until Christmas.....think again! You have to have a lot of will power. My husband alone has probably already eaten 3 dozen on his own :) I plan on dedicating some time next week to bake more cookies with the kids over holiday break.

Well, next week we are also preparing for the big feast (The Italian Traditional 7 fish feast for Christmas Eve Dinner). We will spend the entire day on December 23rd cooking and preparing the feast for December 24th celebration. It's a huge ordeal and it takes a lot of cooks in the kitchen (if you want a chance to sample and write down recipes, because my Mother does it all my memory (No Recipes...it's something about Italians and not using recipes....That's how I cook so cooking from a recipe takes some getting used to).

I usually purchase cook books for the beautiful photography and rarely take charge and cook a recipe they have offered. BUT lately I have changed my tune and I'm getting better about trying out recipes that may be outside of my comfort zone (it's actually very fun and really stretches my array of meal selections).

Like I said I'm committed to trying out new recipes at least once a week for the next year (so far so good)! Since the weather has finally turned cold I plan on dusting off my slow cooker and testing out some new recipes that I received last Christmas from the slow cooker cook book (come back soon to check out my progress)!

Happy Holidays to you and your loved ones. Stay warm, sip hot cocoa and enjoy the season!