Spritz!

I made the first batch of Christmas cookies the other day... and they were SPRITZ. They freeze very well, so they're put away now... These are my mama's favorite, so I'm trying to save them for her!

Mainly because they freeze well... and because I love my cookie press.

I have a Williams-Sonoma press I got as a wedding present, and I LOVE it. The recipe inside the box is very easy to follow and I haven't had any problems with the press working when I've used this recipe. The dough does need to be room temperature... I usually set out my butter and eggs a few hours before starting.

pretty little snowflakes.

Christmas trees :)

Recipe:

• 16 tbsp. butter (2 sticks!)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 1/2 cups sifted AP flour

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Make sure everything's at room temperature!
2. In your mixer, beat the butter and sugar together on high speed for about two minutes, until light and fluffy. 
3. Add egg, vanilla, and salt. Continue beating until well mixed, about one minute. 
4. Reduce speed to low. Add the flour. Beat ONLY one minute, just until blended. 
5. Fill your cookie press with the dough. Follow the instructions in the box to press them onto an ungreased sheet.
6. Bake 11-12 minutes until light golden brown. Put the entire baking sheet on a cooling rack for five minutes. Then transfer your cookies to another cooling rack. Decorate as you wish :)

an assortment...

This morning, my husband (aka the BEST Husband EVER)  took me to Trader Joe's (aka my favorite grocery store EVER). We bought a few things, but I mostly just like to look. They didn't have the cranberry apple pie filling I was looking for... so we got some cranberries and I'm going to try and figure out how to put those in one of the apple pie fillings... we'll see how it goes :)

I also found some of my favorite Christmas cookies... candy cane joe-joe's.... YES, PLEASE.

And then, I found this recipe for candy cane joe-joe's bark. Sounds amazing. I'm going to try and save this box of delicious until Christmas with my Mama's family. I know Lydia will appreciate these cookies.

After Trader Joe's, we also went to Whole Foods, which is coincidentally right across the parking lot. It was my first time at Whole Foods... it kind of reminded me of Wegman's, but much more expensive. We marveled at all of the pretty food there: 

But ended up only buying two bottles of Swedish soda that they used to sell at Ikea but have since stopped. Apple and pomegranate... yum!

And then we came home and had to stop at Food Lion... (three grocery stores in three hours... my dream come true) for milk... One of AJ's co-workers brought in a sweet potato pie a few weeks ago and he's been raving about it since then... he doesn't even like sweet potatoes so it must have been good. Our local Food Lion has had the Mrs. Smith's pies on sale for a little over $3 and I've been looking at them all week... trying to decide if I should buy it...

Well, with AJ with me today, we decided to buy it. We just baked for 30 minutes and ate. It was so good. It was my first time trying it... I'm impressed. I love sweet potatoes in anything though ;)

Yummy! Have a wonderful weekend.