Easy Thanksgiving Turkey Cookies

Thanksgiving is almost here and everyone is making cute stuff for their tables.  Turkeys abound!  These are my favorite Thanksgiving decorations that are also tasty little cookie treats.  Kids love them!  Best of all - no baking or cooking of any kind - just assembly!  I originally posted this in 2011, but the recipe never gets old.

I love doing DIYs, but the best DIYs have pictures.  I'm going one step further here, and doing this DIY with JUST PICTURES.  Enough words - on with the directions:

Step 1:

Step 2:

Step 3:

Step 4:

Step 5:

TAA DAAA!

Turkeys quickly multiply . . .

until they are a flock!

BTW, you can use either the chocolate covered cherries or mint drops for the body.

cindy

Yeah, It's That Time Again

We interrupt your regularly scheduled diet of vegetables for . . . Girl Scout cookies!

Yikes!  Isn't it amazing that we will pay $4.00 for a small box of cookies?  But nothing tastes quite like these cookies.  Thin Mints, Tagalongs, Trefoils, Savannah Smiles, Do Si Dos, Samoas - ahhh.  

In our council this year is a little different.  Instead of taking orders in advance, we actually have the cookies on hand for cash and carry.  The trick is that we have to order them in advance and we're basically committed to whatever we order.  Good thing these cookies sell themselves.  Even so, we may be eating them (either the cost or the actual cookies).

I think it's funny to see how people react at Girl Scout cookie time.  I have a co-worker who claims these are like "crack".  She hides them from her kids so she can eat a box after they go to bed.  Another friend, looking for anyone selling cookies, bought a whole case of Thin Mints.  Closer to home, I keep finding $4.00 sitting next to the cases of cookies from my 12 year old son who is munching on Tagalongs.

So, the healthy vegetable thing is a little sidetracked, at least until we can get rid of the cookies.  (Sorry, healthy family members!)

cindy

Try It Tuesday - Butter-Flavored Brickle Drizzles

Recently, my daughter-who-no-longer-wants-to-be-mentioned-by-name brought home an old cookbook, "365 Favorite Brand Name Cookie Recipes."  In the spirit of autumn, we chose recipe #95, Butter-Flavored Brickle Drizzles.  It wasn't clear when this cookbook was written, but I would guess the 1980s.  There's no gluten-free, fat-free, "healthy" ingredients involved here.  I am writing the recipe exactly as it appears in the book, including references to things like "shortening"

Ingredients:

1 BUTTER FLAVOR CRISCO Stick or
1 cup BUTTER FLAVOR CRISCO all-vegetable shortening (this was the brand name part)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk (not evaporated milk)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3 cups quick-cooking oats uncooked
1 cup almond brickle chips (Heath Bar chips)

Drizzle:  1 cup milk chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease cookie sheet with shortening

Combine shortening, granulated sugar and brown sugar in large bowl.  Stir until well blended and creamy.  Stir in condensed milk and vanilla.  Mix well.

Combine flour, salt and baking soda in a separate bowl.  Stir into creamed mixture and stir in oats.

Shape dough into 1" balls.  Press tops into brickle chips.  Place, brickle side up on cookie sheet, 2" apart

Bake for 9-10 minutes until set but not brownd.  Remove to wire rack and cool.

For drizzle, place chocolate chips in resealable ziploc bag.  Microwave at medium (50%).  Knead bag after 1 minute.  Repeat until smooth.  (You can also do this by dipping the bag into hot water until the chocolate melts).  Cut tip of plastic bag and squeeze out chocolate in drizzles on the cookies.

These are really tasty cookies.  They are thin and crunchy and the combination of oatmeal and brickle chips reminds me of cold autumn days with the sweetness of pralines.  We didn't get to the drizzle, but they were good without them too.

A crunchy treat on an autumn kinda day.

cindy

Try it Tuesday - Lemon Crinkle Cookies

For those who follow Straddling the Gap on Facebook, I have been saving lots of those "Facebook" recipes to test out on my family (and you!).  I tried this recipe for Lemon Crinkle Cookies a couple of weeks ago.  These are FAST to make because they only have 4 ingredients and allegedly, they are low fat.

WARNING - My attempts at food photography suck.  No, really.  I would steal the picture from the recipe on Facebook but that would be blatantly wrong (and you would know it).  So, here are my pictures.  In my defense on these cookies, they didn't even make it off the cookie sheets except to go in my family's mouths!  For whatever it's worth these cookies were very pretty - yellow and well formed.

Here's the recipe:

1 box lemon cake mix
1 egg, slightly beaten
2 cups (8 oz container) Cool Whip
1/2 to 1 cup powdered sugar (enough to roll through)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Combine everything in large bow EXCEPT powdered sugar.  (I can confirm that, consistent with the Facebook recipe, the dough is sticky!)  Form dough into tablespoon size balls and roll in powdered sugar.  Place on greased cookie sheet.  Bake for 8 to 10 minutes until edges are golden.  You might want to consider even a little longer if they aren't getting too brown because these cookies don't get crispy.  Allow to cool.

So, how did they do?  The recipe yields about 2 dozen cookies and there were none left when we went to bed that night.  They are chewy more than crunchy but they are lemony and yummy.  I always try to have a "takeaway" thought of how I could do a better job next time with this recipe.  For this one, I would try baking it a little longer.  I'm curious to see how much crunchier I can get these cookies without burning them.  

These cookies are so easy and great for a quick desert or after school snack.  Thumbs up from me!

cindy

Fit Friday - One Day at a Time

I'm in an intentional holding pattern right now, just trying to maintain what I've lost for a while before I continue on down the road.  I should be talking more about exercising, but I'm still stuck on food.  I've had a couple days now where I haven't been eating as I should and I have gained a couple of pounds.  (This is why I weigh myself every day so it doesn't get out of hand.)

A friend of mine who has lost about 100 pounds recently put about 40 back on.  It's hard to watch that, especially when I remember how she worked out like a fiend to get that weight off.  She's getting back on the wagon, though, so I think she's a great example.  I have this success/failure mindset - if I haven't completely succeeded, I've totally failed.  This is a dangerous game in weight loss.  I'm trying to address this head on and stay positive.  As I told my friend, this weight gain is not a failure, just a temporary setback.  That sounds so much better.

With Valentine's Day and my husband's birthday, it's been tough not to eat lots of sugar (my cryptonite).  If it's there, I eat it and I feel compelled to eat it so it won't be there anymore.  Hmmm, two problems with this:  (1) I have an issue with "wasting" food; and (2) I have made myself the human garbage disposal.  So many of us grew up with the "clean your plate" mentality, it's just painful to throw things away until they turn green in the refrigerator (although I've never seen sweets do that at my house).  Those poor children in Bangladesh may be starving, but they definitely won't be eating that leftover cake in my refrigerator!  The first problem leads to the next - eat it so it will go away.  This causes binge eating for me - not good.  I think I need to practice throwing away sweet things and then escort them out of the house into the curbside garbage can.

This is all part of the process for me - understanding why I do what I do and addressing it - one day at a time.  After all, there are no failures, only setbacks.

Have a great week and be healthy!  I'm linked up at Fit Club.  Visit there on Mondays to read all of our stories.

cindy