Christmas Cookies

I've been a busy girl this week. I make absurd amounts of cookies every year (97 dozen this year, yes, I am insane) so I can give them away. I like to have a variety so we can enjoy them but if I make this many kinds just for us it is too much. So I give heaps aways and keep enough for us to enjoy but not gain 300 lbs. by eating them.

Let's tour clockwise from the top.

Chocolate Mint Snow-top cookies: A friend brought me these when Limelette #1 was a toddler. Limelette had some weird intestinal thign going on and I had to collect stool samples for several days. My friend brought the dough to me, chilled and formed in the shape of a turd. It was a good laugh and they tasted really good after we baked the ...um....dough...I still giggle when I make them.

Peanut Butter cookies Loved 'em as a kid, love 'em still. 'Nuff said.

Old Fashioned Sugar Cookies A different friend gave me some of these one year and I loved them. They are light and have a really interesitng texture. I asked for her recipe, she was sweet enough to share.

Reese's Peanut Butter & Chocolate Chip cookies Recipe right off the bag. What can I say? I dig 'em.... a lot!

moving to the center......

Grandma K's Sandtarts I was on the hunt for the perfect cut-out cookie recipe for at least 10 years. It had to be thin and crispy, not cakey. It had to have nice flavor and have a dough that was not a nightmare to work with. A gazillion failed recipes later, I went to a Ladies Tea at my church and there in a basket, with the clouds parting to beam down a heavenly light upon these fabulous things, were the perfect cutout cookies. I asked who brought them, fell at her feet, and BEGGED for her recipe. She very graciously agreed to share her grandmother's heirloom recipe and proceeded to give me all the tricks of the recipe for obtaining perfection. She makes cakes for weddings and on 3 occasions she has asked me to make this recipe for a wedding telling me I am the only one outside her family who handles this recipe properly. I am honored that she'd share. I am delighted she thinks I do so well.

Chocolate Chip cookies Need I say more?

Russian Tea Cakes Time for MY grandmother's recipe. Nana made these every year. Everyone waited with great anticipation. When she died the duty fell to me to provide the family with this little delight. My mom asks for a double batch as her Christmas present every year. My kids inhale them. My husband casts a jaundiced glance if I am too generous in giving these away. For your own baking pleasure here is the recipe

Nana's Russian Teacakes
1 cup softened butter
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
2 1/4 cups flour
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cups finely chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 400 F. Cream sugar, butter, and vanilla. Blend in flour, then nuts. Chill dough. Roll into 1 inch balls. Bake 10-12 minutes or until set but not brown (the cookies do not spread). Roll in more powdered sugar while warm. Cool. Roll in sugar again.