Good morning girls! I have been up since 5 AM and guess what I am doing????? I am making fudge. Doesn't that sound yummy early in the morning? My arm is about to fall off from stirring, but I now have 6 beautiful lbs of fudge for Christmas to give to my kids. Tomorrow is Christmas cookie day. Wish Thomas could be here and decorate them with me. I think he would enjoy it. I loved to do it when I was a kid. My sugar cookies are better than mom's though, which were pretty heavy!
My older sister cannot bake either. She takes shortcuts to save money and I believe if it says butter, use butter, etc. I have this one cookie called Kieflies that I have told you guys about that I am not making this year. It has a lb of butter, lb of powder sugar, lemon ZEST from one lemon, ground walnuts, a dozen eggs (whites are for the filling and yolks for the cookie part) and a carton of sour cream. My sister uses store brand margarine, bottle lemon juice, PECANS and leaves out the sour cream. They are terrible! These are middle European cookies and are wonderful, but they need to be made the way the recipe calls for. Pecans ruin the filling and her dough, because she uses cheap oleo instead of butter and puts in lemon juice and leaves out the sour cream, is tough and bubbles up when it cooks. They are just gross and it is the one thing I refuse to even be nice about and eat. I have told her that if the cost is too much then don't make them. I only make them once a year and they DO make 10 dozen so I give them as gifts and to my children who beg for them every year. If you go to the farmers market in South Bend, you pay $8 a dozen for these cookies. I have seen them there. The little old Hungarian ladies sell them. I just don't take shortcuts unless it is something like choc chip cookies with nuts and you prefer pecans over walnuts. In that case, it doesn't hurt. I also make milk chocolate fudge instead of semi-sweet. It has such a wonderful flavor to it. If the choc chip type would effect how the fudge turned out, then I would make it straight arrow, but about 20 years ago I tried the milk chocolate and got such raves about it, it is all I use now. Of course, the stupid milk choc chips cost more! {{{GROAN}}} I got a deal on butter though. I got two cartons for the price of one AND a coupon at the commissary. It is another of my pickies. I only use Land of Lakes brand butter. It is THE best for baking I think.
Gail: Sounds like you are having fun shopping. Lord, I am glad I am all done with that. You should see all the crap we have to take down to the casino though, gifts, cookies, candy, more gifts, snacks, drinks, wine glasses, more gifts, clothes, dvd player, movies, laptop, etc etc etc.....
We are going for three days and you would think we are moving the house down there! We have dinner at the buffet, but we have late evening snacks when we open gifts and this year they are coming down at noon to go swimming so we will probably snack more. I will be so glad when Monday gets here and I can get Jack and I back on a strict weight loss program. I am miserable.
Jean: Woohoo, girl today is the day! Bet you will be glad to see the backside of that building today! Our kids got out yesterday and don't have to go back until I think it is the 9th? They are out of school here more than they are in.
You know, I don't understand all this pregnancy stuff. When we were growing up, if you were having sex, it was hard if not impossible to get contraceptives without your parents, but these days it is like give away candy and they still are too dumb to do something about it. I was about as naive as they come, but I knew what went where and what happened if it did. It is sickening to see.
I guess I better get going. I have some upstairs cleaning to do that I didn't get to yesterday.
Faye