Chocolate-Gingerbread Cookies

December 24, 2011

I’ve been on a ginger kick for a good year now. It helped me through rough days of morning sickness during my pregnancy. I’ve eaten ribbons and ribbons of it pickled at sushi joints. I’ve been sipping it in my green tea, and now it is helping me get through the holidays – in a cookie form.

With ginger on the brain, I’m itching to make these ginger snaps. I also read about an awesome ginger noodle soup that reminded me of this. If you like ginger as much as I do, then you should definitely bathe in it with this orange ginger soak (also happens to make a great homemade gift).

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Blackberry-Pear Pie Recipe

December 22, 2011

I love this pie. I don’t really do fruit pies, but this pie was pretty good considering…I don’t do fruit pies. Mark loves all pies. It’s more fun to bake stuff that I know he’ll enjoy. It also gave me an excuse to use my ceramic pie bird. The point of it is to release the steam while baking through its beak, instead of cutting slits in the dough. Pretty nifty, uh?

The blackberries stained the pears a sultry berry hue. The flavor has a subtle tartness, reminiscent of rhubarb pie.

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Fresh Cranberry Garland

December 17, 2011

When I was little, my sister and I would make a garland out of Kix cereal. This is a more grown-up version, I suppose.

And it’s prettier:)

What you’ll need:

Some thread

A sewing needle

Fresh Cranberries

Directions – Thread your needle leaving enough thread for the length of garland you want. Begin piercing cranberries and push them down the thread. Keep doing this until you reach the end of your thread, or until you run out of cranberries. Tie a big knot at each end to close it off.

Then drape your tree with your homemade cranberry garland!