Edible Pennies

   We had a close call this year with the possibility of not being able to celebrate Christmas properly and traditionally as I was unable to find the recipe for Peppermint Pennies! It quite traumatic and was a very close shave.
   We could not get hold of "Christmas Cookie Master Tradition Keeper" Auntie Em. She has all the traditions safely saved up her sleeve and can whip up an excellent Peppermint Penny and 6 other Christmas Cookie varieties in the time it has taken me to type this post.
    Luckily Grandma saved the day. A quick call, a quick search in the recipe box and we were set with the recipe hastily written on a scrap of paper, no wonder I had lost it in the first place.
   This project took pretty much the whole day and we did not eat dinner till 8 o'clock that night as (for some reason) no one was hungry till then and the cookies were hogging the oven.
Before you take on this project with small children or even on your own be warned you have to mix, chill, cook, cool, ice, cool as well as follow the recipe.
   We had fun, the boys did an excellent job and were very serious about this Christmas Tradition. Which is a very serious business, the making of sweets at Christmas time is of Utmost Importance in our house.        
    The eating of sweets is also very serious and Christmasilly Joyous.

We kept our priorities in order here, Washing Hands, Wearing Aprons and using lots and lots of Butter.

We made sure to lick the beaters, bowls, spoons, icing, spatulas, fingers and counter.

100% Perfection, 100% Focus, 100% Delicious.

Peppermint Pennies

1cup Butter

2cups Brown Sugar

2 Eggs

2tsp Vanilla

2 2/3cups Flour

1/2cup Cocoa

1tsp Baking Powder

1/4tsp Salt 

Beat butter and sugar till creamy and "fluffy". Add eggs and vanilla beat again. Add all the rest of the ingredients and mix till well combined. Chill in the fridge for an hour or two or until you feel inclined to roll the dough into walnut sized balls and place on a greased cookie sheet, flatten slightly with your palm so your pennies don't start rolling around. Bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. Let Cool before Icing and sandwiching together so that 2 cookies end up equaling one cookie so make lots or eat less, I suggest making lots!

Peppermint Icing

1/4-1/3 cup butter

3-4 TBSP milk

enough Icing Sugar to make frosting 

1/8-1/4 tsp peppermint extract

3-4 drops green food coloring

As you can probably tell I didn't measure any ingredients for the icing, sometimes I leave it white and I think it tastes equally good but according to the boys they taste better with green icing .

It's Halloweenish, not Halloweenie! Part 2

   Halloween Tradition number two: A new mythical way to stretch the truth to your children! Well actually there is no truth involved but it is just so much fun to have an excuse to totally pull their leg and get away with it.
  The Halloween Witch has been invented, not by me so I can't take all the credit but I think I did a good job giving her some personality as well as getting rid of all the Halloween candy by the 3rd of November and no the boys did not eat it all and neither did I as a matter of fact!
  The Halloween Witch comes to your porch on the night of the 31st, 1st or 2nd. Three chances. You leave out your candy and she eats it and leaves you a gift but being a witch at heart and not caring if you are happy or sad about your gift she will leave you whatever she wants or thinks she should to get you to leave your candy out again next year.
   The boys figured their candy was worth 10 dollars each, as if they could go out on the corner and sell it but according to them that is beside the point. I told them they could probably count on a Hotwheels car or a book or some socks. There was much deliberating yesterday as to if it was worth it or not and the myriad of things they hopped she would leave and what she could leave for it to be worth it and how many years they would give her a chance for. We skimped a bit on the Witches loot as we saved all the hard candies for December for our candy plastered Gingerbread Houses we always make.
  In the end the candy went out on the porch and in the morning the boys ran down and checked but there was great disappointment as the candy pumpkin was still full of candy and there was only a black garbage bag out there, so of course being a good mother I said, "Don't touch the bag!" And explained that if she didn't take the candy then maybe she was playing a trick on them and the bag could be full of snakes or spiders or slugs. Then of course no one would touch the bag and the anxiety of it all was just to much with much nail biting and looking out the window and walking around it and talk of smashing it with a shovel to which I replied that it may be something good and then they might wreck it, finally brave boy who loves candy more than anyone around here decided that if the witch didn't want the candy that he would just take it instead but picking it up realized it was just all the wrappers in the pumpkin and no candy was indeed left. They were still wary of the garbage bag but I told them if the candy was gone she probably left them something good or at least not horrid so they resorted to kicking the bag a bit and I would have given anything to have had it jump in the air but as there were only socks and books inside it just stayed put.
   Turns out the Halloween Witch left the baby some nice warm winter socks and the boys each got a Christmas Sticker, coloring book apparently donated to the Witch by Santa himself as she is prone to giving out apples or toothbrushes as Halloween "tricks"
   So even though they were secretly wishing that she would leave them the Lego Death Star or at the very least a 60 dollar set what child in their right mind is going to complain about a gift left by the Halloween Witch which was donated by Santa Clause a mere 7 weeks before Christmas! Needless to say they have only good things to say about getting a Christmas Book.

It's Halloweenish, not Halloweenie! Part 1

   I am writing this post on Nate's "telephone" computer which always makes me lean way back in my chair and honestly I feel a bit intimidated by the huge screen glowing right in my face. At least I can look down at the tiny little keyboard and feel more at ease.  Nate you need some "goggly eyes" for this thing!
   We started two new traditions this year for Halloween.
First we had two nice, well behaved, very excited children over for a Halloween Dinner. Annie and her Cousin. Annie was so excited as it is just so, so exciting to be invited over for dinner when you are 10 years old. The boys and I decorated the table with black cloth and lace and all the gross creepy things they have collected over the years from past Halloweens, gooey slimy glow in the dark bugs of various sizes. Lots and lots of spiders, rats and centipedes. We had Candles and Bones and Pumpkins and a Menu stained with Blood (beet juice).

Menu:
Horse Pee (warm cinnamon apple cider)
Troll Noses with Snot (small rolls with butter)
Vampire Teeth (chopped carrot salad)
Chilled Dragon Blood Clots (cold roasted beets)
Spider Monkey Brains and Blood (spagetti with sauce) served in a pumpkin
Giant Rat Scat (grilled ground beef)


   The Horse Pee was very popular and everyone had lots of fun requesting dishes to be passed around the table by their real name so I had lots of requests to, "please pass the snot" and no one had to feel bad or rude if they didn't eat their blood clots or rat scat. Next time I will find something else for vampire teeth as we were eating chopped carrots all week. All in all it was a success and the baby drank three cups of horse pee, everyone had a good laugh when he started asking for, "horspee, more horspee" so of course he got more.

For dessert we had:
Tadpoles in Swamp Mud topped with Polar Bear Puke. (apple gingerbread cake topped with whipped cream)
Which was delicious and which I will be making again. Here is the recipe if you have recently been craving tadpoles
http://smittenkitchen.com/2009/11/gingerbread-apple-upside-down-cake/
I used extra apples and didn't do the whole upside down thing, I left the tadpoles under the mud.
I had to cook it for about an hour and a half too, who wants to eat crunchy tadpoles?

   We played Master Labryrinth and carved some amazing pumpkins.

   My son did not sleep well the night before, he was up for about 4 hours in the middle of the night so he spent most of the Halloween Party asleep on the couch or trying to stay awake to eat dinner as he was so excited for it and helped plan it and decorate. I thought he couldn't sleep for excitement in which case I was about to cancel Christmas but it turns out he was just terrified because unbeknowst to me Nate had left the radio on when they ran to the store to pick up some eggs for the cake the night before and apparently the news was talking about some robber getting beaten up in the kitchen by some guy. So good news for Ethan as Christmas will not get canceled, bad news for Nate as there is a big lump of coal heading his way.

P.S I use this link all the time and have never been disappointed which is more than I can say for all my cookbooks.
http://smittenkitchen.com/recipes/