Entries Tagged as 'cookie'

First Annual Cookie and Tree Trimming Party

December 10th, 2007 · 13 Comments


Erin & Hixx (photo by Erin)

Erin’s Peanut Butter Kisses
Erin’s Peanut Butter Kisses

Rachelle’s Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzels
Rachelle’s Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzels

On Saturday I hosted a cookie party. My mom, sister-in-law, cousin, nieces, Dallas’ aunts, and some of my girlfriends all came over. Each brought several dozen cookies, which we laid out and sampled over the course of a few hours.


Hixx, Laura, Olivia (Photo by Erin)


Olivia, Stephanie (Photo by Erin)

Stephanie & Jessica
Stephanie & Jessica

I served some baba ganoush (Dallas and I love the Whole Foods brand of it and surprisingly, so did my niece Stephanie who’d never had baba ganoush before), sun-dried tomato hummus, veggies, crackers, pretzels and cheeses to try to counter-balance the sweets. We all, especially my niece Jess, enjoyed spiced cider (spiked or not) that my mom helped make from a Chicagoist recipe.

Mary’s Bacon ~n~ Eggs
Mary’s Bacon ~n~ Eggs


Hixx (Photo by Erin)


Frosty! (Photo by Erin)

We passed the time talking and eating and listening to holiday music and trimming the tree and watching Frosty the Snowman/Frosty Returns on TV. After a couple hours of sampling all the cookies and candies, we each voted on the one we liked best.


Margaret (Photo by Erin)

Margaret’s Cookies
Margaret’s Cookies

These are all the tasty treats we sampled:

  • Rachelle’s Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Pretzels (pictured above)
  • Rachelle’s Seven Layer Bars
  • Rachelle’s Lemon Spritz Cookies
  • Hixx‘s Cookie Bars
  • Mary’s White Cranberries
  • Mary’s Christmas Rings
  • Mary’s Bacon ~n~ Eggs (pictured above)
  • Mary’s Special K Bars
  • Erin‘s Peanut Butter Kisses (pictured above)
  • Naoko’s Half-Dipped Cookies
  • Naoko’s Japanese Cookies
  • Laura H.’s Peanut Butter Blossoms
  • Gail’s Oatmeal Cookies
  • Kelly’s Almond Spritz
  • Kelly’s Jelly Rolls
  • Kelly’s Peanut Butters
  • Olivia‘s Jammy Pecan Thumbprints
  • Olivia‘s Coco-Nutella Nuggets
  • Laura O.‘s Cranberry Bars with Struesel Topping
  • Amanda’s Peanut Butter Balls
  • Amanda, Stephanie, & Jessica’s Frosted Cut Out Cookies
  • Margaret‘s Oatmeal-Chocolate-Dried Cherry-Pecan Awesomes (pictured above)


Rachelle (Photo by Erin)

Cookie Votes
Cookie Votes

Tied for second place were Kelly’s Jelly Rolls, Olivia’s Jammy Pecan Thumbprints and Mary’s White Chocolate Cranberries. Laura O. won the top prize (a holiday spatula and Betty Crocker’s Cooky Book) with her Cranberry Bars with Struesel Topping.


Laura (Photo by Erin)


Hixx, Laura, Olivia, Kelly (Photo by Erin)

Laura, the winner
Laura, the winner!

I didn’t take too many photos, and the ones I did weren’t of the people at the party.. I need to get better at that sometimes.. but Erin has some photos of friends who attended.

Cookies
Cookies!

Cookies
More Cookies!

Between this party and my company holiday party, I’m getting into the spirit now. I think my cookie party was a success. Everyone said they had a great time, so I’ll probably try to do it again next year, with a few modifications. Namely, you MUST take home as many cookies as you bring. I have about 500 cookies in my kitchen right now because everyone was being all polite about not taking too much home. Also, I think each person should just make one thing. There were several of us who made more than one candy or cookie and it did turn out to be a bit overwhelming to try to sample everything.

Christmas Tree
Christmas Tree 2007

Note: In 2010 I finally got around to updating this post with some of Erin’s photos from the party. She had more photos of the people who attended.

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Whisky Dinner @ David Burke’s Primehouse

August 31st, 2007 · 3 Comments

Talisker

Singleton

Amuse Bouche

Last week Wednesday, before I went to California and before my family was visiting, Chuck and I met up with Alpana Singh and her husband Charles Blackstone at a wine tasting she was hosting at Osteria Via Stato. Afterwards she had made dinner arrangements for us at David Burke’s Primehouse and also invited Martin Duffy, a whisky expert.

Butter

Popover

Marty made special arrangements to bring his own high-end whiskys to dinner and spent a lot of time describing each one and educating us about whisky and scotch, how it’s made, how it tastes, the smell, where it comes from, it’s history, etc. I know some of the others at dinner knew more about whisky, but for me it was really a learning experience. I think whisky will have to be an acquired taste for me and I should probably keep at it, but I like trying new things and learning all about whisky that night was really fun for me.

Cold Seafood

Onion Ring Tower

I must also talk about David Burke’s Primehouse. It was divine. I don’t eat very much steak at all, but I thought it was fantastic. I loved the decor, the lighting, the tables, and of course the food. The service was pretty great, but because we had special arrangements, I can’t really speak for how it is on a regular night. I mean, David Burke himself came out to our table to say hello. Awesome.

Bone-In Filet

Caol Ila

Glenkinchie

One thing I really liked about Primehouse even before I set foot in the restaurant was the fact that the restaurant is named after a bull on a ranch in Kentucky that sires all of the cows who are then butchered to make the steaks used in David Burke’s restaurants. The bull’s name is Prime (and he has his own website here). It’s kind of morbid to think about, but I was really digging the fact that David Burke is so into his ingredients and that involved in knowing where they come from. Also, an interesting fact we learned that night: If Prime were to die today, there’s enough of him (his sperm?) in storage that they could continue making steaks with his lineage for about 50 years.

Lagavulin

Chocolate Mousse

Lollipop Tree

Here’s what it comes down to – David Burke’s Primehouse is pricey, but I thought it was really worth it. If you’re in Chicago and have a special occasion coming up and you love steak, why not try it out instead of the normal go-tos like Morton’s and Gibson’s?

Read Chuck’s post about our dinner on Chicagoist.

Cookies

Cake

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Making Cookies With Riley

December 16th, 2006 · 1 Comment

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Riley, Roscoe Village, Chicago

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Nancy Cutting Out Cookies, Roscoe Village, Chicago

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Riley Decorating Cookies, Roscoe Village, Chicago

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Rachelle & Nancy, Roscoe Village, Chicago

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Christmas Cookies, Roscoe Village, Chicago

Today Nancy, Regan and Riley came over and we made cookies and exchanged Christmas gifts. Riley was shy around Dallas at first but after about 10 minutes they were best friends again. She sure is getting big! Even though she’s tiny, which you don’t dare say to her because she’ll say she’s big. Luckily we’re going to a dinner party tonight and hosting a barbecue tomorrow so these cookies won’t stick around here too long!

The thing about making cut out cookies, it always seems like a great idea and the first 5 are fun but then after that you’re sick of it and you have like 4 dozen more cookies to go. Riley even got bored of it. Guess who ended up doing them all? This is the recipe I used for cookies and this the one I used for frosting. The frosting gets hard quickly, which is good for storage, but it we were losing the race to get the frosting on the cookies before it hardened. We had to keep putting it in the microwave. Both the cookies and the frosting taste really good, though. I wanted to make sure of that. I hate flavorless sugar cookies. Also, I learned a trick. If you spread Karo syrup on a cookie, all of the sprinkles will stick. A good way to clean up Riley’s big sprinkles accident. :)

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Gingerbread Cookies

January 9th, 2006 · 9 Comments

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This post should have gone up before Christmas, but it was part of some gifts so I didn’t want to ruin the surprise. I made these gingerbread cookies the same day I made Pecan Fingers and 7 Layer Bars. I’ve made gingerbread cookies in the past, but have usually made them in plain circles, gingersnaps, right? When I’ve made them in shapes, I’ve never decorated them, so it was kind of fun to make the frosting and use the redhots to make the cookies pretty.

Recipe below -
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Pecan Fingers

December 8th, 2005 · 10 Comments

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Another thing I baked last weekend were Pecan Fingers. After a failed attempt* and a call to my dad I finally got them to come out right. This is a Southern recipe from my dad’s side of the family. As a little kid, I can remember my relatives in Alabama having pecan trees in their yards.

* I’d forgotten how delicate the batter is in this recipe. On my first try the butter was really hard to I put it in the microwave for a few seconds. Big mistake! The second time I left it out and let it get soft by itself and the cookies turned out perfect.
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