In the Mail

I finally got all my holiday cards sent out yesterday. I am hand delivering some of them over

the next few days, so hopefully everyone has theirs by the end of next week. I was going to mail them on Thursday, but I couldn't complete the 20 minute walk to the store. I turned around at the 12 minute mark as the 35km/hr (22mph) wind was blowing -17°C (1°F) cold in my face. I had sunglasses on, and even so, tears formed in my eyes. Luckily yesterday was wind free, though it was -20°C (-4°F) and felt like -27°C (-16°F). It was a really lovely walk, actually, as the sun was out and it almost felt warm on the way home.**


**Calling -27°C warm in any respect, proves that I am indeed Canadian.

Tim Hortons Treats #FoodPicFriday

I have a thing for the gingerbread men from Tim Hortons. The cookie has a great flavour and the icing faces are made of my favourite kind of icing. It is crunchy and sweet and I always save the face for last. Mmmm... Timmies might serve these year round (but with less holiday colours) but I only remember them in December. Luckily I manage to eat more than enough around Christmas to last me the whole year through.

At the drive thru the other day, John made me call over from the passenger side to order my treat, as he said "gingerbread man" is way cuter when I say it. Probably true. He got his standard, Boston Cream, but with a little holiday cheer on top.

Sometimes Turkey Happens... And It's The Best!

Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving in October, so it's been almost two long months since I had a home made turkey dinner. I hadn't made one of my own in over a year and I was itching to roast one and take advantage of having a fridge full of leftovers. It didn't help that the U.S. celebrated their Thanksgiving a few weeks ago, and the news feeds on my Blogger, Twitter, and Happier were filled with countless photos of delicious turkey dinners with all the fixings. It was only a matter of time before I cooked one, and I knew there was no way I could wait for Christmas.

Luckily I had two turkeys in my freezer, so I made one earlier this week and had my sisters-in-law over. It was a good meal with great company and I even made pumpkin pie for dessert. Last night we enjoyed leftovers for supper and this morning I boiled up the turkey bones for some stock.

We used part of the stock tonight to make some home style turkey soup. Making a big pot of soup is one of my favourite ways to eat turkey leftovers. Plus the house smells amazing while the stock is boiling.

I also packed away 10 cups of turkey stock for the freezer. Sometime down the road we'll make some fresh soup and/or add it to other dishes for flavour.

Every time I make a turkey I remark at how far the meal goes. There really is so much joy that comes from one awesome bird.

Impulse Cookie Decorating

I had some leftover royal icing from my D20 cookies, so I picked up some Gingerbread men and sprinkles and decided to have a little fun.

Three dudes getting ready for sprinkles

My only goal for decorating these was to eat decorated cookies. So my inner child let loose and added all the icing and all the sprinkles (especially on the center guy).

No, these were not made by a small child.

Halfway through the third one, I realized my icing bag had sprung a leak. I wouldn't be able to keep icing leftovers from hardening, so I added what was left to my third man.  Mmmmmm.... only 35 calories...

Is he a (1) snowman? (2) mummy? (3) super delicious? (yes on 3!)

D20 Dice Cookies

I have been playing RPGs pretty regularly this year. Or I should say, as regularly as six adult schedules will allow. We played a continuing story over most of the sessions, with our characters slowly advancing in level. We also did a one off game where I was already high level and got to use a bow that shot four arrows at once. That was pretty cool.

I generally like to bake something for our gaming nights, and this week I finally made D20 dice cookies. After watching the Nerdy Nummies tutorial earlier this summer, I knew they were something that would eventually happen in my kitchen.

The D20 dice cookie requires a hexagon cookie cutter, but I couldn't find that shape at our baking supply store. I found a home made cookie cutter tutorial online, that used folded aluminum foil to make the shapes. I gave it a try and many folds later, I had myself a 5 inch hexagon cookie cutter.

Using a sugar cookie mix, I made the dough and sectioned it into three so I could dye it multiple colours. D&D dice are usually multi-coloured, so I wanted my cookies to be that too.

I rolled the dough to 1/4 inch thickness and used my home made cookie cutter to make the cookies. It made giant cookies! I was happy, as I wanted them nice and big so I could easily decorate them.

Using prepared royal icing, I sectioned my cookie faces into triangles and filled the triangles with numbers. 20 was always in the center. I only had enough dough to make 7 cookies. But they were 7 giant cookies, so that was okay.

 

These cookies were super fun to make, but the best part was sharing them with my gaming buddies. My friend Bryan took this action shot of his cookie while we were rolling up our characters.