Baking Weekend, Day Two

My laptop is back, though my jump drive is not, and for once I'm glad I'm behind on uploading my pictures from my camera, so I have pictures dating back from October.  *whew*

My girls and I had a great time during Day One of Baking Weekend, and it was hard to see them go.  The great thing about it is that I know that I'll see them again...and maybe next year, if everything goes just right, we'll have another little on in our troupe.  *sending good vibes to Robin's uterus - AI in just two days*

Day Two ended up just being family, which was wonderful!  We haven't had a "family-only" Baking Day in forever.  We were a cookie making machine.  It took us about six hours to add another six batches of Magic Window cookies and a couple of batches of gingerbread cookies.  Jay finished up his flourless chocolate cake with chocolate ganache.  I think that chefs give foods fancy names just so us home cooks will never attempt things like ganache.  Do you know what's in a ganache?  Heavy freakin' cream, butter, and chocolate.  That's what!  That's all.  WTF?  A fancy name like ganache should include some culinary magic, not a simple double boiler.  Cripes, even I can work a double boiler!

While we were baking away in the kitchen, having a great - and loud - time, the snow was gently falling outside.  Big, fluffy white flakes descending ever so softly from the sky.  It was beautiful.  We worried not about the snow fall, afterall, we're a Colorado family, born and raised.  What's a little snow?

Well, a little snow plus a little snow adds up to four fluffy inches pretty quickly.  What did we do?  We turned up the music, put on some chili for dinner and my sister made homemade tortillas.  And we kept baking.  And baking.  And baking.

By the end of the day, we were pretty well done with cookies.  Didn't really care to see another one.  And if that damn timer went off one more time, well, we couldn't be held accountable for our actions.  But this is what we had to show for it...

...quite a bounty.  It may not look like much, but at our mid-point my nephew counted up the number of cookies that we had and it went something like:

• 
  
  22 dozen Magic Window cookies
  
  
  
• 
  
  3 dozen chocolate chip toffee cookies
  
  
  
• 
  
  10 flourless chocolate cakes
  
  
  
• 
  
  8 dozen candy cane cookies
  
  
  
• 
  
  a couple-a dozen Neiman Marcus cookies
  
  
  
• 
  
  a dozen (or so) peanut butter thumbprint cookies
  
  
  
• 
  
  and some chocolate-y chinese haystack thingies that my mom makes every year.
  
  
  

Even though the baking was done, were we done?  Oh, no.  That would be too easy.  After everything was out of the oven, we had to pack up our platters (or in my case, shirt boxes) full of cookies for distribution.

My sister and her heathi strung their Magic Window cookies with ribbon so they can hang them on their tree.  Me?  Nope, I just eat them.  I don't bother hanging them on the tree anymore - I just cut out the middleman - and go straight to the mouth.

Colorado Car Starting Attire

It's been COLD recently.  Even for Colorado winter, it's cold.  So for your edification...a tutorial on proper Colorado Car Starting Attire.*

Let's start with the boots, worn for two reasons: 1) easy on/easy off function - no tracking snow through the house - 2) the snow has to be really deep to fall inside - while not warm, toasty feets, at least dry feets.

Next, the ever sexy running pants circa late 1980s (yes, I've had them that long).  Again, two reasons: 1) they slip down into the easy on/easy off boots, so no snow gets stuck in the cuff (so I'm short, I have to cuff my scrubs) and 2) I can go back in the house, kick off my boots and pull on my scrubs or jeans over the top and be toasty warm.

Big fluffy coat that covers my butt.  'Cause there ain't nothin' worse than a cold ass. (Not even a dumb one.)

Gloves.  Have you ever stuck your hand to the car in sub-freezing weather.  'Nuff said.

Dry hair is preferable, but not required if you don't mind frozen hair.  But it's just hair, it'll thaw.

Now, some of you who follow my Tales From The Trail blog may realize that the Car Starting Attire sounds very similar to the Bear's In The Dumpster Attire.  Very astute.  It varies only by the britches (flannel jammies vs. running pants) and the state of the hair (clean and combed vs. bed head).

*The pictures are a tad fuzzy because of the frost on the inside of the door - my eldest son was too wussy to open the door for the pictures.