Doggy Cookies/I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!!!

IT'S THE HOLIDAYS!! It's my favorite time of year. I am literally obsessed with all things Christmas. I just got back from a week and a half in Hamburg and I went to every Christmas Market I could find. In Germany, in every city, town, neighborhood, they have Christmas Markets. The closest thing we have in America are fairs. There are big ones and small ones, fancy ones and regular ones. There's booths and booths of everything, food, drinks, toys, crafts, anything you could want. My favorite part is the food (wurst! fried dough! latkes!) and the gluhwein, which is a mulled red wine served warm. And also just being surrounded by Christmas lights and happy people and being outdoors in cold Christmas weather. SO good. I love it and miss it.

Here's a gluhwein stand:

And here's one of the fancier Christmas Markets with all white tents:

Sigh, I digress.

So now that I'm back, it's time to get ready for actual Christmas. I LOVE making Christmas gifts from scratch, but don't have a whole lot of friends down here yet to give them to. I found something SUPER CUTE on pinterest for the gals at the office, and I might whip up some bacon jam for the guys with my new crock-pot (one of my AWESOME coworkers bought it for me on Black Friday for $9!). One of my good friends here has an adorable and sweet black lab, so I wanted to make something special for Smokey too. On pinterest, I've been keeping a board of things I can make for Christmas gifts and awhile ago I pinned a big list of doggy treats. They looked super easy, so I whipped up a batch last night :) I highly recommend making homemade doggy treats if you have pups. It was seriously so easy, and of course, all-natural, no chemicals, etc.

Kiss Me Doggy Cookies (supposed to help with bad doggy breath!)

• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 cup oats
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon dried parsley
• 1/2 cup dried milk
• 1 cup peanut butter
• water as needed to combine

Mix everything together in a mixer. The recipe originally called for 2 tablespoons of water, but when it was all mixed, it was still very dry:

 So, little by little, I added more water:

And a little more, until it was balling up in my mixer. My mixer got a little angry at me!

All-in-all, I probably added close to 1/2 cup of water. A LOT more than the 2 tablespoons it called for. So, just add little by little until you get to a more doughy consistency. Remember, you can always add more, but you can't take out! Also, I just thought of this today, but you could probably add in some chicken or beef bouillon and/or use chicken or beef broth instead of water to give these more flavor. As-is, they taste pretty peanut-buttery (yes, I taste-tested a small bite). 

To roll them out is pretty easy. I didn't even use any flour! I rolled them about 1/2 thick and used some cute holiday cookie cutters:

Bake at 300 on a non-stick cookie sheet for 20-30 minutes, depending how chewy you want the cookies to be.

I did about 25 minutes, and they were crunchy on the outside but a little soft on the inside. Let cool on a normal cookie rack:

Then package them up super cute and give them to your doggy-owner friends! This recipe made 36 cookies.

I think Tutu got a little jealous while I was making them... she was keeping pretty good watch. And she taste-tested one for me and liked it too! :)

(She's pretty adorable when she's not knocking all the bulbs off the Christmas tree!)

Hopefully I'll get around to sharing the goodies I'm gonna make for my work peeps, but in case I don't, have a wonderful & happy holidays my lovely blog readers!! :)

Oreo Footballs

I am SUCH a failure. I made these ADORABLE footballs for the office potluck today and I totally forgot to take any pictures at all :( so that's a downer. My friend Flossie made them a few months ago for a Superbowl potluck we had and they were a big hit! So I decided to recreate them for today's potluck.

Anyways, here's the link to the recipe: Oreo Football Cookie Balls

And here's an adorable picture I stole from the Kraft website:

Mine looked similar but definitely not as polished. But they tasted SUPER yummy, everyone loved them!

My trusty kitchen aid did most of the heavy lifting in this recipe. First I crushed the oreos with the paddle until the pieces were small, then I added in the cream cheese. The hardest part was definitely shaping them, then dipping them in the chocolate. I made the mistake of putting them on a cookie rack and the chocolate stuck to the rack so prying them off was a little challenging too. For the laces, I got white icing and put it in a ziplock bag, then cut a tiny hole in the corner.

Try these! They're easier than they look and SO amazingly delicious :)

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

I love oatmeal raisin cookies mostly because I feel like they are healthier than regular cookies. I mean oatmeal and raisins, that's totally healthy.

So since you've already read my chocolate chip cookie blog, you know the process to make cookies, right?

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
1/2  cup (1 stick) plus 6 tablespoons butter, softened
3/4  cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2  cup granulated sugar
2  eggs
1  teaspoon vanilla
1-1/2  cups all-purpose flour
1  teaspoon baking soda
1  teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2  teaspoon salt (optional)
3  cups Quaker® Oats (quick or old fashioned, uncooked)
1  cup raisins

Cream the sugars and butter until fluffy.

Add in the eggs and vanilla.

In another bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.

Mix in the flour mixture little by little. Then add in the oatmeal and raisins.

The dough will be super thick.

Scoop the cookies onto a cookie sheet. I always use an ice cream scoop which gives really evenly sized cookies, so they cook more evenly.

Bake at 350F for 10 minutes, or until browned. Cool on a cookie rack.

Enjoy by yourself, or pack up into a cute box (I get mine from Joanne's) and give to your friends!

Peanut Butter Cookies

So you've mastered the chocolate chip cookie. You feel good about it. You've made them a few times and gotten rave reviews from your friends and family. But now that they know you can bake, they are getting greedy for more. Switch it up next time with these equally simple peanut butter cookies. And since you already know the basics from reading my Chocolate Chip Cookie blog, this will be super simple for you.

Peanut Butter Cookies
1/2 cup softened unsalted butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter (you can use crunchy or smooth, whatever your favorite is)
1 tablespoon milk

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Yes, my faithful followers. It is time for chocolate chip cookies. And while today I'm not divulging my super-top-secret Neiman Marcus Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe (that will come eventually, stay tuned!), the Toll House recipe I will divulge is AMAZING as well. You can also find this recipe on the back of basically every bag of Toll House Chocolate Chips--the best ones, I think, and the ones I always use.

Chocolate Chip Cookies:
2 sticks softened unsalted butter (for baking, we always use unsalted butter, so we can control how much salt goes into our recipes)
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda (not baking powder--there IS a difference!)
2 cups chocolate chips