merry christmas!

christmas cookies, round 1

This year I decided to switch a few things up in the Christmas cookie department. For starters, I decided to make them earlier, thinking I would get ahead of things (I think I made these 3 weeks ago now). That was a mistake, which I will not repeat again. The cookies have since all been eaten and now I am forced making them again just a few days before Christmas. The second change was to switch up the variety this year, and that was a good decision. I still made the usual Monster Cookies and Frosted Sugar Cookies, but I added a Salty Chocolate Caramel Butter Cookie, and an unnamed cookie, which for now I will deem the Gerbs Cluster (but that is subject to change).

For the Salty Chocolate Caramel Butter Cookie Recipe, go here (and to see a pic, because hers looked infinitely better than mine). I will say that they were an incredible amount of work, and I'm not entirely sure they were worth it. Although if you are looking to eat some raw chocolate cookie dough, then you should definitely make this, it was d.e.l.i.c.i.o.u.s. on it's own, it's when you started the tedious task of spreading the caramel, combined with the rolling, that this cookie might not be worth it for some.

Now, on to my own creation, the Gerbs Cluster©. 

My favorite Christmas cookie is the peanut cluster. And while I absolutely love it- the simple salty and sweet combo- I admit it can be a little boring. So I decided to rev it up a little bit this year and made chocolate dipped peanut-caramel-krispie clusters. They are soooo good. David even agrees, and he is not easy to please when it comes to Christmas cookies. If you want to make them here is what you need:

-1 (14oz) package of caramels
-3 tablespoons water
-1 bag of chocolate chips
-1.5 cups of cocktail or dry roasted peanuts (cocktail is preferable, just make sure under NO circumstances that you use spanish)
-1.5-2 cups of Rice Krispies
-1.5 teaspoons shortening/ butter (optional)

Simply melt the caramels in the microwave (or in a double boiler if you are fancy) combined with the water. Once smooth stir in the peanuts and krispies. Then place tablespoon sized dollops on a parchment-paper lined baking sheet. Allow to harden. Meanwhile melt the chocolate chips with the butter/ shortening if so desired. I found the dipping process to take longer than expected so I would not melt all the chocolate at once. Then dunk each caramel cluster in the chocolate until completely covered and return to the parchment lined tray. Once again, allow to harden then enjoy!

Above is how I made them the first time, I think with this next round I will try doing a chocolate chip/ almond bark combo to coat the clusters instead of straight up chocolate so they are more reminiscent of my beloved peanut clusters. Of course, I will let  you know which variety I/ David likes better.

**After trying both ways, the verdict on the cluster is that they are better dipped in plain, melted semi-sweet chocolate chips**

And for good measure here is a picture of SOME of the 170+ monster cookies Syd and I made.... and fyi we 3/4ed the recipe!

Time to get going on round 2 if we want to have cookies for Christmas, along with the 1,372 other things on the to-do list before the celebrating begins.

1 down, 5 to go

Christmas part 1 happened at the Hauge household tonight- the part where David brings home all the loot he gets from his students.

Who says being a teacher is a thankless job?

Now, only 5 more celebrations to go….

decking the halls

We got our tree on Sunday and thus all the boxes of Christmas decorations came out of the attic. It was too discouraging to take down all the pictures and knick-knacks I had just unpacked from the move, so I only put up about a quarter of our decorations. Here is a sneak peek:

If you like the printables, you can find the downloads here and here.

winter wonderland

Here's what it looks like to get a Christmas tree in 10.5 inches of snow. Ain't it thrilling? 

See what I did there? And by the way,the assistant (to the) photographer in the house is to blame for that blurry pic down there.

  

comfort food

Now that there's oh about eleven inches of snow on the ground, it's the perfect time to indulge in some comfort food. And one of the best is homemade grilled cheese and tomato soup. This meal is a few weeks old for us, but it's probably the perfect time to whip it out again (remember all the snow). We made this recipe here, which unfortunately, wasn't as good as this one we've tried in the past, but I suppose canned tomatoes versus real will do that (but it was still quite tasty). For the sandwiches, we made improv grilled-cheeses from the leftover baguette I had made.

FYI- Laptop isn't working again (maybe after 6.5 years it is finally time to consider a new one), so you will have to wait til tomorrow to see our snowfall pics. And for all you guys in the MN area, drive safe today!

winston shaming

Winston thought he could help me paint the bathroom…

cube

I mentioned on Friday that I needed to begin organizing and purging files around the office before the move/ switch- but that's not all I have to do in preparation for next session. I have to pack up (and clean the crumbs from) my entire cube as well as my Reps offices because we have to move down 2 floors. My Reps offices and file cabinets are all packed up- in fact they have already been painted, and the new Rep has moved into one of them. Which means that now I have to focus on getting my stuff packed so I am ready to go at a moments notice. 

This got me a little sentimental about my cube. It was my first "real job" desk, and even though at first it was a nuisance to be isolated from other staffers, it proved to be in the perfect spot (perfect because it was right between both of my Reps' offices which meant we could all shout from our desks, and perfect because I could listen to music without having to use headphones because I had no coworkers nearby); it was the place I learned how to respond to constituent emails and request drafts of legislation; where I ate lunch almost every day for the past two years and where I hid Winston when I didn't want to leave him at home.

And so, to document these memories, and to share with you all who haven't seen where I work, I give you pictures of my cube. Most days it was not this messy (remember I am purging through everything I/ my two Reps accumulated in the last 2-6 years), so bear that in mind (some busy days may have gotten a little out of hand, similar to these pics though).

 

I'm sure gonna miss it up here on the 5th floor, but I am excited to see where my new space will be and to have a freshly cleaned and organized (and decorated) cube. And if all goes well, in 2 years, I'll be back up here.

weekend recap

You can blame my dentist for yesterday's lack of post- stupid, necessary teeth-cleaning. But good news on that front- no cavities!

But in more interesting news, here is a little recap of our weekend.

For starters, it did not include as much celebrating as I had hoped. There was no special dinner or Christmas shopping, but there were projects done around the house, which is probably better in the long run.

I spent most of the weekend going up and down this thing, aka, we mudded, sanded, scraped, and painted our bathroom. It should be wrapped up tonight when I finish the trim around the window and door (I saved the worst for last).

Saturday David and I worked Monster Jam at the dome. It wasn't quite as lucrative as I had hoped, but it was only an hour and a half of work, and if you can ignore the noise and the smell of exhaust it is kinda fun, and certainly good people watching (and by people, I mean mostly 10 year old boys hopped up on Mountain Dew).

Sunday's activities included rescuing a cat from our roof after a neighbor knocked on our door to inform us there it up out there (how did it get up there?!). We lured it towards the window with some cold meat, where David snagged it up and put it on our porch (we thought it was our neighbor's cat so we didn't want to let it loose outside). It meowed loudly for awhile and then just disappeared from the porch... hopefully it found it's way home ok. What is it with this neighborhood and cats?!

Other fun-filled activities consisted of taking advantage of the nice weather by cleaning up the yard some more and going on a run, setting mouse traps to try and catch whatever is making that scratching noise in the crawl space, lots of video games, trying out a new tasty pasta recipe (try it, I highly recommend it), and of course, a trip to home depot where I picked up some new paint.

I betcha wish you knew where that paint was going to go, don't ya?