Thursday, December 08, 2005

Just Call Me Betty

...Crocker, that is. Or something like that :) Who'da thunk?

I got the cookie-baking bug this week--had several new recipes I wanted to try. I figured if I made up plates for our neighbors, it'd be an easy way to be a friendly neighbor over the holidays, and to get rid of them after I'd baked them (goodness knows I do not need all those cookies in the apartment for me to eat!)

Roughly sixteen dozen cookies later...the picture above shows most of the fruit of my labor :) I made Steve's family recipe for frosted sugar cookies; key lime white chocolate meltaways; peanut butter/Hershey's Kiss cookies; chocolate mint cookies; and my grandma's famous buttermilk cookies. Yum!

I'm learning, slowly, to try and let go of my perfectionism. I think part of the reason I've gotten so anxious and frustrated about cooking in the past is because I expect everything to turn out exactly right the first time. When in reality, cooking--especially trying new recipes--is often a process of trial and error.

So, when the first round of chocolate mint cookies were AWFUL (they spread all over the place, making them crispy, and they were disgustingly greasy), I tried to cut myself some slack. I looked for a different recipe online (I followed all the directions exactly, so I do think part of the problem was the recipe, not me) and bought new ingredients, telling myself "this is part of the learning process" rather than, "way to go, now you're spending more money on ingredients." And the second version turned out great!

3 comments:

Jules said...

Look how domestic you have become! Those look soooo yummy! Mike and I are baking next week...Mmmmm.

pk said...

Where's my plate?

The Chinlund Family said...

Those look great! Jess Schmerse and I went nuts baking today, although I'm not sure ours looked as pretty as yours do! Hope you have a wonderful Christmas!