Yum Yum

I had a great time "Baking" cookies with my children. Most of what we did was strictly stove top so we could avoid using our tempramental oven that requires us to set the temperature 25 degrees below the called for baking time and turn the pan around half way through baking so that the whole pan cooks evenly.

By far the tastiest were the haystacks. They confused my citified 14yo terribly. She kept insisting they were supposed to be square. I explained that those were bales of hay, but she wasn't convinced. Here is our recipe, which is a complilation of a bunch:

2 cups of chow mein noodles

1 cup of butterscotch chips

1/2 cup of peanutbutter

1/2 cup (more if desired) of peanuts

1/4 cup (more if desired) of chocolate chips.

Melt the butterscotch and chocolate chips with the peanut butter. Add the chow mien noodles and peanuts. Toss to coat. Spoon out small mounds on parchment paper (or tinfoil in a pinch) let them dry and pack them off to the neighbors for oodles of complements.

We also had rice crispy treats with Christmas M&Ms - very tasty and festive looking.

For those big on candy canes, we dipped mini ones in melted chocolate chips and then sprinkled tiny candy balls over the the top. I've heard you can paraffin wax to make the chocolate dry shiny, but I couldn't find any.

The best part from my perspective was that made just enough for the neighbors so there wasn't a ton of sweets around to tempt me. The only "problem" was the number of neighbors who reciprocated with cookies they had made!

I'm still working away on the hat. I should have been done, but I messed something up somewhere and didn't catch it for a few rows. I had to frog bag further than I wanted and then it took me awhile to figure out where I was because it's a lace pattern. Still, I like the pattern and Malabrigo is so nice to work with I don't mind too much.