Happy Hour: Muddled Cranberry Orange Old Fashioned

I like to make cocktails a lot more than I like to drink them.  I understand a lot of people out there are the opposite, and that's great!  I need someone to give my concoctions to.

We have people over quite a bit and when you're a guest at our house, I will gladly mix you up something special and after years of accumulating piece-by-piece, I feel like we are pretty well-equipped in the 'bar' to make you just about anything you want.  The problem arises when I am at someone else's house.

Sometimes it feels like I am the only person that owns a muddler!  I have had to crush herbs with the handle of a wooden spoon and even just squished them between my fingers, which works, but not very well.

It's a whole lot nicer, and easier if you have a real muddler.  One that's made for squishing fruit and bruising herbs.  One that looks cool and fits in your hand well, like the Arctic Chill one is a bonus.

For this cocktail, you're really going to need one.  Other recipes you might be able to get away without, but I don't think there's any way to crush raw cranberries without one (challenge?).

I've never had a wooden muddler, but I've heard that they can start to dry out and flake off which really doesn't sound much better than the wooden spoon option. Sure, they're a little cheaper than the Arctic Chill muddler, but I prefer not to give my guests splinters. This one has a fairly large nylon head with a bunch of little bumps to break down the herbs and fruit and it's easy to push on because of the shape of the handle.  And the most important part: it looks good sitting on your bar!

Now for the festive, easy-to-drink cocktail!

This post was sponsored by Arctic Chill, but the opinions are my own.

7 Christmas Cookie Recipes

When we were little and would go up to the farm every year for Christmas, everyone brought cookies.  There were way too many to ever fit in the fridges or even on the counter and tabletops, so they all stayed outside on the screened-in porch.

You had to go brave the cold in your socks to get one.  We were pretty brave though.  We would eat every single caramel cup before Christmas day.  

My parents, grandparents, great-grandma, aunts, uncles, cousins and sisters all knew that I was making frequent trips to that side of the house, but even still, I was pretty sneaky, so I don't think anyone really knows just how many I ate.

I still love Christmas cookies but now I don't have to sneak them.  Takes some of the fun out of it to be totally honest with you.  Maybe I'll recapture some of that childhood Christmas magic if I start stuffing cookies in my pockets this year!

1. Vanilla Bean Snickerdoodles

2. Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

3. Lemon Glazed Ginger Cookies

4. Pecan Fingers

5. Molasses Cookies

6. Frosted Sugar Cookies

7. Chocolate Chip Meringues

Cheesy Green Bean Casserole

Green beans were one of the few vegetables my sisters and I could all agree on as 'the vegetable' when I was little - Darcie was a little picky.  Just the plain old canned version.  The ones that squeak against your teeth.

Actually, I still like them, but when you're asked to bring the beans to a Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner, you can't really just show up with a can.  Well, you can and if you did, you'd be my hero, but if you're like me, you feel the pressure.

And while I like canned green beans just fine, I felt like using the fresh ones this go around.  I snapped off the ends of what felt like 80,000 green beans Thanksgiving morning and mixed them with some cheesy buttermilk ranch sauce.

Of course, you can't even call it a green bean casserole if it doesn't have the french fried onions.  So there's some of those mixed in with the panko bread crumbs and a little extra cheese for good measure.

If you want to switch up your sides a little bit for your Christmas dinner this year, this recipe is going to be the one.  It's different, but it's not too different.  It's the good kind of different.

365: Week 49

December 1 | I love it when Austin decides to make a batch of these.

Happy Hour: Spiked Ginger Apple Cider

The week following a holiday is always the worst week you'll ever have at work.

Even if nothing bad happens there, you've had a taste of what it'd be like to sleep in, not shower, watch movies all day and generally do nothing for an extended period of time.

So, when you have to go back to work - it's hard.

This week was hard.  Hard to stay motivated.  Hard to wake up at 5:30 each morning.  Hard to get to the gym.  Just hard.  Quite frankly, I had my doubts that Friday was ever going to come.

I don't know if I've truly understood the meaning behind the acronym TGIF, but I get it today.

Butternut Squash Kale Gnocchi

A few years ago, I got a set of nice pots and pans.  They were kind of an impulse buy back when Austin and I had 'real jobs' and, you know, money.

They're stainless and if you scratch them with a fork, you won't die form the Teflon.

And Austin hates them.  It's not the even cooking that he hates.  It's the cleaning.  So he doesn't use them at all.  Instead he has 2 pans - one small non-stick pan and a cast-iron skillet.  If it can't be cooked in one of those, it's probably not going to be cooked.

I guess some of his enthusiasm for 'his' pans has rubbed off, because now, I love it when I can make a whole meal in the cast-iron skillet (although this meal will work in any oven safe skillet).

Plus, one pan to clean up!  It can't get better than that!

Mocha Yule Log

It seems like I just can't get away from people that 'don't like pie.'  And I don't get it.  And really, I don't like that kind of talk towards pie.

To me, it's kind of like saying, 'I don't like vegetables,' or any other major food group.  I mean, have you tried all the types?

And don't tell me you don't like crust, because there are lots of types of crust.  Also, what part is it that offends your tastebuds?  The flakey, buttery, slightly sweet delicious part?

Every Thanksgiving we have the 'pie debate' and every year I come away baffled.  My confusion only heightens when people compare pie to cake.  They are totally different!  You cannot compare the two.  You just can't.

If you don't like cake either, you better just leave now.

I make a yule log every year and it's good.  Not to brag or anything, but it's really good.  The only problem is that it doesn't always turn out.  I can't quite figure out why it cracks some years and others it's fine, but that's what happens.  So then I have to turn it into a trifle.  Also delicious.

This year, I thought I'd try out a new recipe to see if it would roll into that perfect shape better and still taste amazing - and well, it did.  (I swear, I'm really a pretty humble person.)