Somehow the holidays always surprise me with how quickly they arrive. Luckily, the only thing I have to do before Christmas is bake.

And bake I have. Here’s what I’ve made so far:

Peanut Butter Blossoms
Lemon Shortbread Coins, from The Essential Baker by Carole Bloom
Spiced Sugar Coins, from The Essential Baker by Carole Bloom
Hazelnut-Chocolate Chip Cookies, from The All-American Dessert Book by Nancy Baggett (modified)
Lemon Snowflake Cookies, from The All-American Dessert Book by Nancy Baggett (these were a mess to make)
Pumpkin Whoopie Pies, from The All-American Dessert Book by Nancy Baggett
King Arthur’s Special Roll-Out Sugar Cookies, from The King Arthur Flour Cookie Book
Sour Cream Nutmeg Sugar Cookies, from Christmas Cookies
Cranberry-Caramel Bars, from Christmas Cookies (modified)
Lemon Cornmeal Shortbread Bars, from The Best of Fine Cooking: Cookies
Giant Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies, from The Best of Fine Cooking: Cookies (modified to be not giant)
Peanut Butter & Chocolate Shortbread Bars, from The Best of Fine Cooking: Cookies

I still need to decorate the sugar cookies and make the pumpkin and sweet potato pies, and Michael is still planning on making peanut butter fudge.

Now before you think I’ve completely lost my mind, I did give cookies to my co-workers for Christmas, and will give them to some others tomorrow.

AND I didn’t bake up the full recipes for some of the cookies. So I’ve got frozen dough I can bake at any time. Yum!

Lemon Snowflake Cookies

Lemon Coins

Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies (with coconut, pecans, and white “chocolate”)

Sugar Cookies

I hate Monday.

This is a stupid way to start my vacation.

I’m pretty sure it is going to require chocolate cookies to repair this batch of Monday damage.

Have a blessed Hanukkah.

Happy Winter Solstice!

And it’s time to start baking!

Happy Birthday Natalie!

(Image totally stolen from her father’s Picassa album)

We had ourselves some kitty insanity here at the Random Household.

My friend Diana makes treats for everyone’s pets at Christmas, and her cat treats are stuffed with home grown catnip.

The cats–especially Kat–love these treats.

Kit gets the catnip treat only after Kat was forcibly removed from the room.

Catnip toy! Catnip toy! Catnip toy!

OMG CATNIP!

I’m a frequent buyer from Amazon, so we get a lot of packages delivered by UPS. I’ve actually really liked the guy that delivered packages for the past couple years–he laughs when I scramble madly to the front door yelling, “LOOT! LOOT! LOOT FOR ME!”

However, we seem to have gotten a different driver in the past couple months.

A driver who decided that instead of leaving packages against the house where they’d be hidden, and on the deck, where they’d be sheltered from the weather, he’d leave them on the side door (Grandmom’s door), which has only a small cover. Which meant that for the past couple weeks we’ve come home to find packages sitting in the snow.

Michael called Friday, and they said they’d make a note of it. Tuesday–the day of the snow and rain and bad traffic–we came home (very late) to find my book sitting in the snow.

So I called back today to ask if they could make a note not to leave packages on the side porch.

Not only was the woman I spoke with very polite and helpful, I actually got a call back later in the afternoon from the local manager(?) apologizing for any inconvenience and stating the packages will certainly be left on the front deck in the future, because it is UPS policy to leave packages out of the elements and out of sight.

He was also extremely nice.

I have to say that although finding packages exposed to the elements was upsetting, I was very pleased with their response to my call.

So thank you UPS for taking responsibility.

Go!

You’ll probably be unsurprised to learn that I was a klutz as a kid.

What brings this up is that for some unknown reason I remembered “black drawing salve” this evening.

I got a lot of splinters (worst was when I filled both hands with splinters from playing with an old broom handle.) Occasionally when they couldn’t get the splinters out, my parents would put black drawing salve on the area, and then would remove the splinter later.

What I remember most is that it stank like you wouldn’t believe, and I never really felt that it did any good.

Surprisingly, when I googled drawing salve, I got about 45k results, with the top ones saying how it’s still around because it really works.

So I’m now curious as to whether my memory is incorrect. It’s possible that 1) all the episodes with splinters ran together so it just felt like it didn’t work because I was always getting splinters dug out of my hands or 2) my parents didn’t leave it on long enough for it to work. (I must have been four of five during my most vivid memories. Can’t imagine how difficult it must have been to keep something like that on my hands.)

So, I’ve been looking at my sidebar, and I think I need some more reviews.

Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to review me (Michelle), and post it on your blog. If I like your review, I’ll post an excerpt and link to it.

Gina, you’re already on the sidebar, from a comment a couple years ago. :)

To clarify, I have never every seen traffic backed up this far ever. For locals, the Med Center PRT is straight ahead.

This is an insane amount of traffic. I keep walking out of my office to look at the traffic it’s so unbelievable.

Glad I have the option to walk home.

Here is a reposting of my bread pudding recipe, just for Vince.

Actually, I’ve changed a few things, which is why I’m reposting and not just linking to the old post.

Bread Pudding
Leftover bread, cut into cubes (I used a whole loaf of whole wheat “Italian” bread–the cup or so I didn’t use went to the birds.)
3 cups milk (We used soy milk for Grandmom)
1/2 cup sugar
4 tbsp butter
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup minced apple
3 eggs

Heat oven to 350 F and then butter a medium sized casserole dish.

In a saucepan, heat milk, butter, sugar, and cinnamon until the butter melts. In a bowl, beat eggs. Remove milk mixture from heat, and then mix in eggs.

In a large bowl, mix everything together and then dump into casserole dish. Alternatively, put bread and apples into casserole dish and then pour milk and egg mixture over bread.

Bake at 350 F for 45- 60 minutes, or until knife comes out clean.

(adapted from How to Cook Everything)

Whiskey Sauce
8 tbs butter
1 cup sugar
4 tbsp whiskey
2 tbsp water
1/4 tsp nutmeg
salt
1 egg

Melt butter in saucepan. Add sugar, whiskey, water, nutmeg, and salt. Heat over low heat until sugar is dissolved. Beat egg and whisk into whiskey sauce. Raise heat to medium, and stir gently until sauce thickens. Remove from heat.

(from The Joy of Cooking)

Spoon hot bread pudding into bowl. Add scoop of vanilla ice cream. Spoon hot whiskey sauce over everything. Eat.

NOTE: Grandmom has hers with soy ice cream and loves it.