Christmas Cookies

 

I spent last weekend baking Christmas cookies.  Pictured here are the decorated sugar cookies (Wilton pans and Wilton recipe).  I've made these cookies for several years but I've never actually frosted them before, but this year I decided to take the plunge and do it.  I was sending some to my youngest, who lives in Michigan, so I wasn't so sure how well the frosted one would travel, but they actually arrived mostly intact.  He got them today and sent me a picture.

The icing on the trees got a little smooshed, but other than that I think they did well.  I had the frosted ones on top of the box and used some left over quilt batting strips for cushioning.  And I told them at the post office that it was fragile.  Overall, a much better experience than in 2020 when it took almost a month for his cookies to arrive.

Whole Wheat Bread

In addition to all the sewing I did today, I also baked a loaf of whole wheat bread!  I got the recipe from King Arthur Flour's website.  I haven't tried it yet, so I have no idea how it actually turned out.  It smelled really good while it was cooking, though.  I used the maple syrup option in the ingredients, so it will theoretically have a hint of maple to the taste.  Fingers crossed!

The plan for the bread, or at least part of it, is to make avocado toast with a fried egg for breakfast in the morning.  It sounds yummy.  Hopefully it actually will be.

My first quiche

I decided to try my hand at making quiche a few days ago.  I really like spinach quiche and I'm trying to get more spinach in my diet, so I thought it would be a good thing to try.  I found a recipe at Once Upon A Chef, bought the ingredients, and voila -- spinach quiche.  I used a smoked Gruyere in the recipe and two of my sons thought it had bacon in it, even though it doesn't.  It was really yummy.

Pickles

For several years now, if I make enough cucumbers in my garden, I make homemade pickles.  This year we had a cool, cloudy, and wet summer, and my garden did terribly!  I didn't have any dill pickles left from last year either.  I had bought a jar of dill chips at the store, and I used them, but they just aren't the same as homemade.  Not only is the flavor different, when I went to Walmart, I couldn't find any normal, round, dill pickle chips.  They were either "ovals", which in some cases means sliced the long way instead of the short way on the pickle, or they were spicy.  I didn't want any of that, so I gave up on store bought pickles, and bought cucumbers instead.

Usually Walmart's either doesn't have pickling cucumbers or else the ones they have are all beaten up and shriveled.  But yesterday they actually had several pounds worth and they actually looked good and fresh.  So I bought them and made homemade pickles with them.  They didn't seem to have any wax on them, so hopefully they will turn out good.  The only problem is, with dill pickles they need to sit for a couple weeks before you use them.  So I still won't have usable pickles for a while, but hopefully it will be worth the wait.

Fresh Blueberries and Lemon Blueberry Bread

This is the bowl of blueberries I picked yesterday morning.  My blueberry bush is producing very well this year.  I decided to bake some bread with one cup of the blueberries.  It turned out pretty good so I decided to share a picture, and the recipe.

Lemon Blueberry Bread

1/3 cup butter, melted
1 cup sugar
3 Tbsp lemon juice
2 eggs
1-1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk
2 Tbsp grated lemon peel (or 1 Tbsp lemon extract)
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1 cup fresh blueberries

Glaze:
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1/3 cup sugar

In a large mixing bowl, beat butter, sugar, juice and eggs.  In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt.  Stir flour mixture into egg mixture alternately with milk.  Fold in lemon peel, pecans, and blueberries.  Pour into a greased 8 in. x 4 in. x 2 in. loaf pan.  Bake at 350 F for 60 - 70 minutes or until bread tests done.  Cool in pan for 10 minutes.  Meanwhile, combine glaze ingredients.  Remove bread from pan and drizzle with glaze.  Cool on a wire rack.  Yield: 1 loaf

Note:  I added more sugar to the glaze, because it seemed too thin.  I also heated the glaze to dissolve the sugar and then cooled it back down before drizzling it on the bread.