Christmas Sugar Cookies!

Today is the perfect kind of day to stay in and make holiday cookies! Last Saturday Wil and I made these delicious Chewy Sugar Cookies. I got the recipe from Real Simple. Here's the recipe and how we made them! (Nutritional info is at the bottom...but I highly suggest just ignoring that and eating them)

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions

Heat oven to 350° F. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt

Using an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugars on medium-high speed until fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. One at a time, beat in the eggs, then add the vanilla. Reduce speed to low and gradually add the flour mixture, mixing until just combined (do not overmix)

Drop heaping tablespoonfuls of the dough onto baking sheets, spacing them 2 inches apart.

• We added fun Christmas food confetti from Target too.

Bake, rotating the baking sheets halfway through, until the cookies are golden, 12 to 15 minutes.

 Don't overcook them, they'll be more crisp instead of chewy once they're cooled.

• Cool slightly on the baking sheets, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely. Store the cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days. If your house is anything like mine they won't last anywhere near that long though!
• 
  
• Makes 36 cookies| Hands-On Time: 30m | Total Time: 1hr 10m

Nutritional Information

• Per ServingServing Size: 1 cookie
• Calories 117Calories From Fat 45

• Fat  5g
• Sat Fat  3g
• Cholesterol  24mg
• Sodium  51mg
• Protein  1g
• Carbohydrate  17g
• Sugar  11g
• Fiber  0g
• Iron  0mg
• Calcium  8mg

thanksgiving family fun

I know I'm late posting this...someday I'll get better at posting things as they happen instead of a couple weeks after the fact.

Over Thanksgiving Wil and I went to my grandmother's to be with my immediate family. She lives in this little itty bitty town a couple hours southwest of Chicago. This is a one stoplight kind of town. So, we do really fun things like play jenga and phase ten....and watch lots of football.

Quote of all of the games comes from my sister Betsy, "I love jenga because there isn't one winner, there's one LOSER."

We also took our family pictures. Mom and Dad send out a 4x6" of our family as a postcard every year. This year, Wil was our photographer. Next year he'll be in the picture!

We also goofed around then and took other silly pictures.

Follow along with my day-to-day here.

engagement session with arlina!

We went to Texas last month for the A&M game versus Nebraska (GIG EM!), for me to meet our wedding officiant (who is awesome), to get some family time with Wil's parents, to see friends, and to take our engagement pictures!

The trip was incredible, and I got to snap a couple quick pics while Arlina was taking pictures of my ring hanging from a tree branch.

and this is just one of us she took on my camera (to be used as a prop for her picture)

I absolutely cannot wait to get the rest of our pictures back...she's just sent a teaser three so far and I'm dying! I will absolutely some of the pictures when we get them. But until then, you can see her website here and blog here.

And as always more of my pictures here.

absinthe

The same night we sous vide turkey  our friend Brian came over, and brought his awesome new absinthe set! I don't know if you've ever seen one of these, but it drips one drop of water at a time onto a cube of sugar through a special spoon into the glass. The whole process is really fun. Here are just a couple pictures...

first go at sous vide

For Thanksgiving this year, I thought I would sous vide our turkey. This is just documentation of the practice run. (I didn't want to poison my relatives) Here are some pretty pictures about how we did it. Oh, I should mention that we followed Chef Grant and Nick's instructions from the youtube videos here and here and recipe from Alinea Mosaic here.

So we started with a full turkey and thawed it in the sink full of water for 24 hours, draining it and refilling it with room temp water every couple hours. (Wil handled all of this) When it came time to actually start cooking, I took the biggest knife we have and hacked it into pieces that would fit in the freezer bags.

we cut up a stick of butter and placed into each bag

then we added a bunch of sage and thyme

time to add the turkey! and seal tightly (this is a two person job getting as much air out as possible)

place the bags into the stock pot

and keep the temperature at 170 F for two and a half to three hours. (we did three hours)

while waiting: get really hungry and eat cookies. find bliss.

Results: one of the bags broke. please note, if this happens, just throw away the contents. 

The turkey in the bag that did not break was really good though, very moist throughout, and naturally flavorful. We are really excited to try out cooking other things this way as well!