Chocolate Candy Cane Cookies

I found these cookies on the kraft canada website 2 years ago and found they were super easy and store great.

This is what you will need to make them:
1 package (250 g)                  cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup                                margarine or butter, softened
1 cup                                   sugar
2 tsp                                    vanilla
2 1/2 cups                            flour
1/2 tsp                                 baking soda
4 squares                              Baker's Semi Sweet Chocolate, melted
1 package(6 squares)             Baker's White chocolate, melted
12                                       candy canes, crushed

1.  Heat oven to 350 degrees F
2.  Beat first four ingredients together until well blended.  This takes about 3 minutes with my mixer.
3.  Add flour and baking soda.  While that is mixing melt the semi sweet chocolate in the microwave.  5 seconds on high usually works the best.  Make sure to stir well.
4.  Add melted semi sweet chocolate to dough mixture.

5.  Shape tablespoonfuls of dough into 52 balls.  I used my small cookie scoop for this.

6.  Roll each dough into 3 inch ropes.  Mine varied in size.  Curve the top into a hook to look like a candy cane.

Christy, my lovely sous chef

My husband crushing the candy canes for us since we couldn't seem to break them with the hammer

7.  Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until light brown.  Cool on cookie sheets for 5 minutes.  Transfer to wire cooling rack.
8.  I wait about an hour or so before decorating these cookies.

9.  Melt white chocolate in microwave.  Then drizzle the white chocolate over the cookies.  I do about 5 cookies at a time so that I can sprinkle the crushed candy canes over them while the chocolate is setting and it stays better

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Butter Tarts & Mincemeat Tarts

Butter Tarts are my favourite Christmas treat.  I have always used my mom`s basic recipe.

2/3 cup   melted butter or margarine
2   cups  packed brown sugar
2   cups  raisins - i use sultana raisins
2         beaten eggs
2   tsp   vanilla
4   Tbsp  milk
30        tart shells

1. mix all ingredients together
2. spoon into tart shells
3. bake at 375 degrees until pastry becomes light brown - usually 10 to 12 minutes depending on your oven.

All the yummy ingredients!

Tart shells waiting to be filled

I filled them a little too full.  Always remember to line your cookie sheets with tin foil or parchment paper when making tarts to catch the spillage.

Nothing better than a warm butter tart fresh out of the oven

Had some filling left after making 90 tarts so I decided to try making a pie!

Mincemeat tarts are not my favourite thing to make or even eat but my husband and grandfather love them so I make them.  It is the simplest Christmas tart I make.  I am not one to even attempt to try and make my own mincemeat filling...by the way why is it called mincemeat?  I know it has lard in it....gross!  I just buy a jar of it and scoop it into shells and bake til the pastry is brown.  The oven is set at 375 just like the butter tarts.

Christmas Baking 2010

Merry Christmas from my house to yours!
This year I decided to tackle the Christmas baking in one day...well that turned into 3 days.  It was well worth it though.  I used old family recipes and new recipes found on my favourite websites.  Everything tasted yummy and there were few accidents.  I had two wonderful sous chefs - my friend Christy and my husband, Robert.
The recipes that I will be blogging are: butter tarts, mincemeat tarts, sugar cookies, cinnamon stars, nuts & bolts, white chocolate nuts & bolts, chocolate candy canes and graham break aways.  I hope you enjoy the recipes and try them out next year.

Sausage Minestrone Soup

Here I go with blog #1!
I decided to try a recipe from one of my favourite magazines - Woman's World.  I buy it every week for it's recipes and cake ideas.  I found this recipe in the September 27th, 2010 edition and decided to give it a whirl.  We love soup for dinner and I am always looking for new soup recipes.  The only thing I will do differently next time is NOT cook the noodles in the soup like it says to do.  I never do with my other soups but I was following the recipe for the first time.  We had the soup for dinner and I used the Dempster's brown and go loaves.  They are great!

Oops forgot to thaw the Italian sausages the night before so into a cold water bath they went while I got everything together and chopped the vegetables.  It took about an hour to get them soft to the touch so I could cook them.

I used homemade canned tomatoes that my Mom and I did this year.

Instead of using spray cooking oil I used Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

Recipes says to brown the sausage links first.  Next time I am going to brown them more.

I added fresh garlic to the chopped vegetables.  The recipe called for canned tomatoes with basil, garlic and oregano so I just added the spices to the mixture.

The smell of the sausage and vegetables sauteing together was mouth watering.

I put everything into a slow cooker because I thought hubby wouldn't be home for a while and he actually came home as I was taking this picture.  I then just set the slow cooker for 4 hours and waited.

The next time I will omit this step and cook the noodles by themselves in a chicken broth.  They disintegrated in the broth and made the soup almost stew like.

My new love...heat and serve baguette from Dempster's.

The finished product.

Welcome to my blog!

Welcome to my blog!

I am new to this and was encouraged by my friend the The Copy Cat cook.  I will try to post as often as I can.