Baking and Cooking

Here's a list of things I have baked or cooked in the last week:

Peanut Butter Star Cookies (the boys helped with this)
Lace Cookies
Puppy Chow
Peanut Butter Balls (the boys did most of this)
Spritz Cookies (they suck)
Sugar Cookies for the Festivitrees that we're putting together today
Shortbread drizzled with chocolate
Pretzels drizzeled with chocolate
Pretzels dipped in caramel and then rolled in a bunch of goodness
Toffee (Jen did this, I can't take credit but it was in my kitchen and I watched)
Church Windows
Friendship Soup mixes in a jar (22)
Cornbread Mixes in a jar (22)
Gingerbread (decided to forego the house and burned one pan after accusing Tim of turning off the timer when it was really me but we still have PLENTY)
Hot Cocoa Mix (3 LARGE batches that were bagged up for gifts)
Peppermint Meringues (which browned because the directions said to bake at 300 for an hour which is clearly way too long for that temperature which I discovered after consulting many other recipes after ours browned...grrr)
16, 1/2 pints of Chokecherry Syrup canned (spilled 4, 1/2 pints on the stove when it just erupted over the side of the pan. Tim cleaned it up...what a saint!)
Solstice Wishing Bread
Cocktail Buffalo Meatballs
Cocktail Sausages in BBQ Sauce
Sundried Tomato Pate
Crostini
Sundried Tomato and Roasted Red Pepper Bruschetta
Baked Brie wrapped in Puff Pastry
Double batch of my spaghetti sauce (with 2lbs of pasta - not homemade)
Horseradish-crusted steak roulade stuffed with roasted red peppers and provolone (Jen did the dirty work on this too)

The only thing I have left to do today is to make and can Peach Salsa.

Why all the baking? Well, for the second year in a row my friend Jen and I have made a bunch of goodies which we give to various people in our lives. Everyone loved it last year so we decided to do it again this year. We have a blast figuring out what we're going to make and how we're going to package everything. This year, we cut it tight on time and if my mom hadn't happened to be here and jumped in to help, we would have had to pull at least one all-nighter. Thanks mom! I also had to make some goodies just for our family and Tim's birthday was Friday. He likes Peanut Butter Balls for his birthday in lieu of a cake. I also did a sit-down dinner for 16 on his birthday and Jen came over and helped with that as well. Again, we probably wouldn't have made it if Matt and Angella hadn't shown up early and been willing to jump in and help. Thanks guys!

All-in-all, it was a great week. But I'm done now. I'm ready to relax and enjoy my family and the season with no more big baking or cooking projects...for a few days.

Seasons Eatings!