Practice Round

I always like to test out recipes before I plan on serving them to a crowd of people. I hate trying something new the day of an event and finding out that the recipe is awful (or maybe I'm just awful at making it). This weekend I had some success and some failure, about what I would have expected.

First I made these Rosemary Pecan Shortbread cookies:

 They were supposed to have walnuts, but I was out of those - I thought the pecans worked great and I actually like pecans a bit better than walnuts anyway. I got the recipe for these from Louisa - the cooking instructor for the 6-week series I took at In Good Taste up in Lake Oswego. I also got the recipe for the Lemon Sandwich Cookies that I'll show you in a bit from her!

I tried to make the Brandy Snaps from The Pioneer Woman's website - this was my biggest failure. I'm not sure if I just didn't get good brandy, or if I flat out don't like brandy, or if my terrible oven was to blame. The oven can't seem to keep an even temperature and I kept burning the cookies. They are supposed to look like this:

Brandy Snaps - http://www.thepioneerwoman.com/

but mine ended up like this:

Burnt and oddly shaped things (I don't think you can call them cookies)

Needless to say, these were thrown away. I may attempt this recipe one more time using vanilla extract instead of brandy to see if it was just the brandy that I didn't like, but I don't have high hopes.

I also made some fudge - I'm not sure if I have ever made fudge before, but if I have it was probably when I was little and it was probably that marshmallow fluff kind that I wouldn't be able to eat now anyway.  I was nervous because the recipe reviews were really mixed - a lot of people said it was awful or that the recipe just didn't work for them and I certainly didn't want to stay up (all the way until 11:30!) making a fudge that would be terrible.I had forgotten how tedious candy making can be - it seemed like forever before the fudge reached the right temperature, and then I'm pretty sure it was actually forever before it cooled back down to the temperature at which I was allowed to start stirring it. As you can see, fudge and coffee were on the menu for breakfast this morning:

It turned out quite well! If anything I would say it was a little too soft, so next time I will make sure to bring it up a few degrees higher when it is cooking.

The final recipe I tried out this weekend were these Lemon Sandwich Cookies. Jonathan loves anything lemon, so I figured I had to try them for him. I'm not very good at judging measurements though and I think the cookies are probably about twice as thick as they really should be. Oh well - they still taste pretty good if I do say so. Thanks again to Louisa for this recipe as well! Here is the final result:

Oh! I almost forgot the most important part of the weekend - getting the Christmas tree! I love Christmas trees so much, and I haven't been able to get one for the past two years so this year I was very excited to be able to put one up! We went to a tree farm just up the road with our friends Sara and Brian. The place had three or four different kinds of trees so we spent a little time wandering trying to find which type we liked best. I preferred the Noble Firs and there weren't many big ones of those around which made it a little difficult. I think we ended up finding a very nice one though!

Finding the tree

Cutting the tree

Decorated!

Personally I think it could use a few more lights still, but Jonathan keeps insisting that it's good. I think it's because we'd have to go out a buy more lights since I have already used all the ones I have! The one down side of having the tree? Bugs. At least it gives Pixel something to play with I suppose.

Hope everyone had a good weekend!