Iced Eggnog Cookies - FAIL

Nothing says Christmas more than Eggnog (and Brandy). When I saw this recipe, I knew it was meant for my making! Screeeeech to a halt here..... now, I consider myself a pretty good baker, never really had any "fails" if you will. Well I consider these to be an absolute FAIL. The cookies tasted fairly good*, eh not my favorite, but the formula is terrible. The cookies spread out and look like pancakes, they crumble apart whether you wait 1 minute for them to cool or 5. Let's just say these will be limited edition in our house and will be discontinued. I can say this is the only cookie I just threw the batter away before I finished. I really have no idea what happened with these cookies, needless to say, I don't even think they are worth trying again!

So as you can see, this isn't really a recipe blog post today, but a Merry Christmas Fail :) Thank goodness I made some BOMB Snickerdoodle Bread today too, or the whole day might have been a fail!

* In Stephen's professional cookie eating opinion, the cookies were actually really good. He loved the flavor of the "spice cookies" :) So eggnog maybe didn't come through as much, but they were Stephen approved.

DIY Christmas Tutu

For our Christmas pictures this year, I had really wanted to make a red skirt and put a bunch of bows all over it. Well that didn't really work out, so I opted to make my own tulle skirt! I think it turned out adorable, and although tedious, it was super easy!! I got the spools of tulle from Michael's (about $3.99 for glitter tulle and $2.99 for regular), and I purchased 3/4 inch no-roll elastic. I also had purchased enough elastic to perfectly measure around Stephen's neck, so I made him a bow tie! Here is how I did it...

1. Laid out all my supplies (tulle, elastic, thread to sew elastic, needles, measuring tape).
2. Measured my waist and subtracted 2 inches so it would fit snug
3. Measured how long I would want the skirt to go, I picked mid thigh. 
4. Measure out one piece of tulle (remember to double the measurement to your knee since you will be folding the tulle in half)
5. Cut all your pieces at once using your first piece as a guide
6. Fold tulle in half and loop around elastic and pull through. Make sure when you create the knots, they are all on the same side. 
7. Continue all the way around your elastic
8. Viola!! 

Here is a tutorial I found that has pictures for the step by step process :) 

Cranberry Brie Phyllo Cups

Stephen and I had our Christmas party this past weekend and among a bunch of other amazing dishes that were brought to the party, I made some Cranberry Brie cups as an appetizer. I found this recipe online (surprisingly not on Pinterest, but I can't even remember where). They were SO good! They had the potential to be a major fail, considering they were supposed to be in the oven about 6-8 minutes and I forgot about them and they ended up in there about 30 minutes, but even being in the oven WAY too long they were great!! These are probably the simplest appetizer I have EVER made. And they look kinda fancy :)

mini phyllo cups (I used 3 boxes of 15 each)

1 can whole cranberry sauce

1 cup pecans chopped

1 round of brie cheese

Directions: 

• Remove the peel from the brie cheese, careful not to waste too much (or any) of the delicious cheese underneath. 
• Chop pecans (you could also use walnuts, the original recipe called for them, but I thought pecans had a bit more flavor)
• Remove cranberry from can and stir to loosen it all up, add the pecans and stir. 
• Place the cups on a baking sheet
• Put a small piece of brie in each one, then put a dollop of the cranberry mix
• Cook in the oven about 6-10 minutes. Want the cheese to just start to melt and the cups (that are precooked) to warm and get crisp!
• Devour! 

Sweet Potato (or Yam) Casserole

Happy Thanksgiving!! I am a little late with this post, but had to get this awesome recipe up. Yams/Sweet Potato dishes are pretty much my favorite dish at Thanksgiving. This year, I wanted to make a recipe my friend Amber gave me. She made this at our last Christmas party and it was delicious. I definitely recommend this dish, I made a couple minor changes to quantity so I could serve the crowd I was feeding, but the idea is the same.  I will be making it again for our Christmas Eve dinner with Stephen's family :)

5-6 cups mashed sweet potatoes or yams (I prefer the orange color)

3/4 cup milk

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

3 eggs

1 stick of butter, cut into small pieces

Topping:

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup flour (I used AP gluten free)

1/2 cup butter

2 cups pecans, chopped roughly

Directions:

• Peel and boil sweet potatoes. 
• Once drained, mash sweet potatoes and add all of the top ingredients and mix until smooth and creamy.
• Put in a 9 x 13 inch baking dish. 
• Melt the butter for the topping and mix all of the topping ingredients together and put over the top of the sweet potatoes. 
• Cover with foil and bake for about 30 minutes at 350 degrees. 
• Remove the foil and bake another 30 minutes until everything is bubbling. 
• Serve up next to your favorite main dish!