I’ve decided to forgo voting this month and make Meltaways. They came in second last month, and they’ll make a great Valentine’s Day sugar cookie.
[ photo from Landee See, Landee Do ]
But if you want to participate in the voting for March, here is the poll:
You voted, and the winner of the cookie for this month’s Cookie of the Month Club subscription was chocolate covered ritz peanut butter sandwiches, or as my family calls them: Bark cookies.
For the record, I really wanted to make Meltaways. Buuut I know my dad and Grandpa will really love getting a big package of these babies.
Also, mind didn’t turn out as pretty as Spoon Fork Bacon’s rendition (photo above). But, I used dark chocolate instead of almond bark and whole wheat crackers. They taste the same, and they’re covered in chocolate, so nobody is ever going to be able to tell I healthed these up a little bit. A little bit. They are still chocolate covered ritz crackers with peanut butter.
If you’re interested in making these, you don’t put much peanut butter on the inside. A little dab will do you. Same with the chocolate. And using a double boiler (or my makeshift double boiler — hot water in a pan with my pyrex bowl of chocolate on top) is the best method to keep the viscosity of the chocolate good for dipping.
I made about 60 of these. For the record, I ate 4.
In case anybody is counting, these are 4 points +. Per cookie. Try not to eat more than one. 
I have a problem. I’ve pinned too many cookies on Pinterest.
I have so many I want to try.
The good news is that I can’t eat most of them (gluten) and I gave my dad and grandpa a “cookie of the month” subscription for Christmas. Which means I’m making a batch of cookies to mail to them every month this year.
Now which cookie should I make? Can you help me out? I can’t decide. Vote for the one I should make.
If I get a lot of participation with the voting this month, I might turn this into a giveaway (as in you’ll get your own bunch of cookies mailed to you as well). This is going to be a monthly voting conundrum I feel.
The Contenders
Chocolate Ritz Peanut Butter Cookies (we call them bark cookies)
White Chocolate Topped Gingerbread Cookies
The Voting
Voting closes on January 10. I’ll announce what cookie won on January 15.
My friend, Steph, had a cookie decorating party yesterday. I got pretty stoked about this because I LOVE DECORATING COOKIES — as long as I’m not baking them or making the frosting. 
I brought my sprinkles and my gel food coloring and we got down to business with some mulled apple cider. Oh, and Mr. Barnabus Stinson also joined us for some fun. He was pretty entertaining in his adorable holiday sweater.
And, of course, the first cookie I finished ever-so-meticulously was absolutely perfect.
Here’s a collection of the rest of our cookies. I really like Elizabeth (Steph’s sister-in-law)’s tie-die ornament. Very cool!
I ended up with a whole plate of snowflakes. And the broken cookies were decorated like they were maimed … as you can see with the reindeer and gingerbread man.
And my gluten-free cookies weren’t roll-outs, but they were delicious. They were pretty sad looking, but tasty nonetheless.
This reminds me that I didn’t ever blog about the cookies I decorated a few Christmases back. I think this was a blog only for running at that point. Here are the awesome cookies I decorated with the random frostings I whipped up (there was sour cream, cream cheese and anything that was available in the fridge in that frosting).
So I got this …
… from Bethany Sew&Sew — in the mail. Today.
AND
Mark got these …
[spatula]
… from his sister for his birthday.
Thus, this weekend, the most nerdtastic baking session will occur.
So I love Pinterest. Did I ever mention that? I have a ton of boards, but one that’s always growing is my dessert board. So many naughty decadent things on there that I will probably never make.
I present to you the most naughty-looking desserts that I’ve got pinned for possible future binging.
I’m currently in love with a local creamery — Picket Fence Creamery.
Although their website is in comic sans *hisssssssssssss*, their ice cream is beyond amazing. But you have to know how to eat it.
That sounds silly. But hear me out. It’s really hard and kind of icy if it’s completely frozen. So you have to let it thaw JUST A BIT. Then it’s like homemade ice cream. And if you’ve ever had homemade ice cream, you know that this ice cream is amazing.
My favorite flavor is their thin mint, which is — you guessed it — mint with girl scout cookies in it. YUM. I also love their vanilla because it tastes just like my grandparents’ homemade ice cream that they used to make for summer birthdays.
Their ice cream is at both Fareways in Ames as well as the HyVees and Wheatsfield. Not sure where it is in Des Moines but I’m guessing similar locations.
I’ve been making these cookies for years, but I think I made my best batch EVER last time I made them.
The original recipe is here, but this is my modified more awesome (and more healthy) recipe.
3/4 c Natural Peanut Butter
1/4 c butter, softened
1 c dark brown sugar
2 egg whites
1 t vanilla
1.5 t baking soda
2 1/4 c rolled oats
1 c organic 70% cocoa chips
WARNING: making a gingerbread house may sound like fun. IT IS NOT.
My beau somehow talked me into making a gingerbread house with him — although, he still claims it was MY idea. We spent the better part of last Sunday making this monstrosity from baking to assembling, to frosting.
Did I mention he’s an engineer and I’m a designer? So this house was going to be a really cool house. Or so the plans laid it out that way.
He didn’t want just a plain house — it had to have an addition. I also wanted to go gung ho and do all sorts of cool piping, but that didn’t happen as I was exhausted by the time we got the damn thing to hold together.
Also — if you bake things, they change form. Something I didn’t think about going into this.
Regardless, here is our house. And I’ve got a template for the pieces here for you for FREE. If you dare.
The backside of our house was kind of sad-looking.
The side of the house refused to stay put. It collapsed 3-4 times before I finally just put a bunch of empty bottles around it to hold it up.
And here is the side. Kind of cute, but frustrating!
I couldn’t wait to blog about this, so I’m blogging on the 25th, but this won’t go public until the 27th. :) That way the surprise isn’t spoiled!
My girlies from high school and I are going to Chicago this weekend and we decided to surprise Adria by turning one of our nights into a bachelorette party — laid back of course.
Adria’s friend, Magan who she knows through craftster.org swaps made stenciled t-shirts and I made a crown and sash (which turned into a lei instead) and “naughty” cookies. I originally was going to make a patchwork sash but couldn’t decide how long to make it since Adria is a good 5-7 inches taller than me. I also was going to make “party peters” but couldn’t find the appropriate cookie cutter and was tired of going into porn shops looking for one. I decided to use a cookie cutter I already had and use my imagination to come up with something almost as good. I came up with “party panties” instead.
Here’s the crown — I made fabric flowers from leftover fabric from this quilt using this tutorial and added rhinestones and used some dimensional fabric paint (aka puff paint for those of you around when it was rampant in the ’90s)
As you well know, I have absolutely no patience for anything. So the above photos have wet paint. The silver swirls will dry as translucent with silver glitter.
And here is the lei. Also made from fabric flowers.
Also note my medal from the Des Moines Marathon and the Capital Pursuit 10-Miler. Not that they’re as pretty or exciting, but I thought I’d point them out because it’s going to be a long while before I get another one of either of those!
AND here are my Party Panties. :) They totally did NOT turn out the way I wanted them to. Mostly because I, again, have no patience and wanted to make the frosting when I was on my lunch break on Monday and accidentally added too much milk in my haste. Frosting=runny. I didn’t have $ or time to get more powdered sugar from the store, nor did I want a bag of that lying around my cupboards (you’d be amazed at what I can concoct when I want something sweet)…so I froze the frosting and dealt with it. The yellow was some store-bought that I had in the freezer. If I could do it again (which I’m sure I will) I’d frost all the panties white first then go back and add all the fun colors. There’s just not enough frosting on the cookies. I might even go as far as to frost them all skin-toned first so there’s more frosting coverage. Oh well.
YAY. I’m soooo excited for this weekend. I’m probably having a blast as you’re reading this. I’ve never pre-blogged before.
