Happy Halloween!

Halloween is probably my most favorite holiday.  It should be more fun with children though, right?  So why am I muttering f-bombs under my breath and wanting to pull out my hair?  Halloween has become a two day affair in this household.  We had our daycare party yesterday, visited Great Grandma and Grandma yesterday (and her new puppy).  Then today visited the other Great Grandma, two Aunties' houses and Grandma and the puppy again.  Thank God for nap time.  I'm exhausted and Halloween hasn't even started.  Only four more hours till their bedtime.

#215 Chocolate Chip Mint Cookies
As I reflect on how busy I am as I collapse into bed, and lay awake at 4 am (a nightly occurence) I decide this is the perfect time to start investigating an addition to our house.  Because 4 am decisions are by far the best.
So Auntie Sarah came over - the same Auntie who conceived up the castle/shed/play structure  - to help us plan what we might need in an addition and possible ways to do that.
So Joey and I whipped up this short-cut creation to have for dessert.  A chocolate chip cookie mix with a junior mint melted on top.

#216 Favorite Frosted Brownies
It's Halloween party time at my brother's house.  Not sure if I blogged about this or not before - his house caught fire last year (shortly after the Halloween party); it was set (on accident) by their masonry (as they remodeled their house).  So this year's Halloween costume: Mike was the masonry and I was the fire.
So I'm running out of Halloween themed cookies from the book.  So I took a brownie that calls for decorating sprinkles and put Halloween themed sprinkles on.  It counts.  Except, after spending the day making the brownies, preparing the batter for #217, going to a neighborhood Halloween party and then preparing my fire costume; we got to the party and I realized I forgot the brownies.
So we've had Halloween themed brownies here at the house for the last week.

My Elephant and Peanut

My "Fire" hands

#217 Spice Cookies with Pumpkin Dip
Another batch I would've never made and the world would've missed out.  This cookie gets a first round bye.  This is a Big Batch Bonanza cookie (20 dozen) and the staff at my school ate them all.  Enough said.  Recipe below.

1 1/2 cups butter, softenend

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1/2 cup molasses

4 cups flour

4 tsp baking soda

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp each ground ginger and cloves

1 tsp salt

Dip:

1 pkg (8 oz) cream cheese, softened

2 cups pumpkin pie filling

2 cups confectioners' sugar

1/2 to 1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 to 1/2 tsp ground ginger

In a very large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Add the molasses; mix well.  Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and salt; add to creamed mixture and mix well.  Cover and refrigerate overnight.

Shape into 1/2 in. balls; roll in sugar.  Place 2 in. apart on ungreased baking sheets.  Bake at 375 for 6 minutes or until edges begin to brown.  Cool for 2 minutes before removing to a wire rack.

For dip, beat cream cheese in a large bowl until smooth.  Add pumpkin pie filling; beat well.  Add sugar, cinnamon and ginger; beat until smooth.  Serve with cookies.  Store leftover dip in the refrigerator. 

It's just a castle

So we've been building a play set in the yard.  Just your typical play set - a 120 square foot/8 foot high castle complete with turrets, guard towers, a rock wall, cargo net, and twirly slide.  Attached by bridge to tree house/platform with slides, climbing stairs, fireman pole and whatever else we can think of attaching.  When your sister is an international award winning tree house designer, you don't do typical.
So for the past few weekends, we've had the work crew here building.  So I made some cookies, naturally.

#213 Chewy Peanut Butter Crisps
You can't go wrong with chocolate and peanut butter.  But these were made a little differently.  The recipe called for only peanut butter, sugar, evaporated milk, cornstarch and chocolate chips.  They still rated high, but they weren't my favorite peanut butter/chocolate treat.

#214 Frosted Banana Bars
Tomorrow is the annual craft show at church - gotta put a plug in for that.  I can't say if these are good or bad yet - I have to go to the show tomorrow, pay my $1.50 to get the bar that I made, then I can rate them.  I hope they're worth a buck fifty.



See our castle below.  And, oh, the castle, it's a shed (that you can play on the top of).