Baby, it's cold outside. So let's bake.

This is the first year I've done serious holiday baking, and I'm seeing the effect on the scale in rising numbers. I run four to six days a week, and it's not helping.

I will happily part with some of the goodies tonight at a cookie exchange party my friend is hosting. But I know that I will come home with goodies as well. It's an exchange, after all.

For those of you who will see me when I go home to Minnesota for Christmas, expect to receive baked goods. Unless I've eaten them all. If that happens, you can expect me to ask you to join me for a run.

Here are a few looks at what I made for the cookie exchange. They're "healthy" ginger snaps. For the recipe, click here.

Losing streak.

Like in life, you win some and you lose some in the kitchen. Today, I'm on a losing streak.

It started during my trip to the grocery store to pick up my list of baking ingredients. I couldn't find molasses in the baking aisle. It was out of stock there, but there were small jars of molasses in the kosher section. I brought the molasses home, excited to make my first ever ginger snaps, only to consult my recipe and learn that I needed a cup. The jar contains only seven tablespoons. It takes 16 tablespoons to equal one cup (I didn't know this offhand; I had to look it up.).

I decided the ginger snaps could wait until tomorrow and that I would embark on the project of making sugar cookie cutouts with frosting, as well as almond bark dipped pretzels. The cutouts were easy enough, and the dough is resting in the fridge for a few hours. The process of melting the bark and dipping the pretzels went well, too. Until it didn't.


I thought red sprinkles added nice holidazzle. But I wanted to be bold. So with my recently purchased food coloring, I added a few drops of green dye to the almond bark. Umm, yeah, if you want to trash your almond bark, this is the way to do it. The dye thickened the bark so that it would no longer coat the pretzels. (As I type this, Ben is digging into my already small supply of dipped pretzels. I didn't think he liked vanilla almond bark.)



I'm headed to a different grocery store for more vanilla and chocolate almond bark. And a big-butt jar of molasses. Plus ingredients for Ben's fancy toffee. And maybe some sanity. I wonder what aisle it's in.

The Cookie Exchange.

***I hope Indie has a forgiving heart. Poor guy is very sensitive to sound and hated, if you couldn't tell by the photo, wearing the antlers.

Happy holidays!

I am going over the list of holiday goodies I plan to bake this week while listening to Christmas music -- how appropriate -- and this is what I have come up with:

--almond bark dipped pretzels
--ginger snaps
--sugar cutouts
--another batch of caramels (maybe next week)

A normal person might think this is plenty of baking. But I have significant free time being unemployed, and I'd like to take advantage of my sorry state. I might not get such precious free time for baking again in the near future.

I've signed up for various cookie countdowns for inspiration. If you'd like to be similarly inspired, go here and here.

Random.

I am considering applying for an unpaid, very part-time internship in public radio.

I baked blueberry muffins (the kind with the strudel on top) yesterday. They were of the box variety. My husband enjoyed them and said I'm a great homemaker.

We had our first guests this weekend since moving here. We spent a rainy afternoon in downtown Chicago, saw a drag show for free at Northwestern, ate really bad food, drank too many beers in Wrigleyville, strolled the beach, enjoyed steak in a red-wine sauce with shallots at home, and saw a scary movie. We have guests visiting through mid-November. Apparently no one wants to brave the Chicago winter.

In one week, I start my writing class at the Newberry Library. I'm petrified but also very, very excited. I have a notebook next to my bed so I can write down essay ideas as they come to me. I think I may have one or two decent ideas.

I got the dry heaves after a 7.5-mile run with Ben yesterday afternoon. The heaves sucked; the run was excellent. Nothing better than running on a mild October day when the streets are lined with trees with gold leaves. Ben and I have never run more than 3 or 4 miles together because I'm usually too slow for him. That was not the case yesterday. Being unemployed = a lot of time for running. Attending MBA school = few opportunities to run.