Post Surgery

Matt's doing okay. The surgery was Thursday - Dr. Bonner removed a cyst from Matt's sublingual gland, and hopefully most of the gland so that it won't happen again. It was agonizing, nerve-wracking, and painful Thursday and Friday, but today's been better. Matt's doing a lot better than he was at first. He was so pale when we first got to see him after the surgery that I just wanted to curl up in the bed with him and hold him. And yell and smack around the nurse staff and doctors who had kept me and his parents away from him. But, aside from wanting some real food and not liquid stuff, he's doing pretty good now. He's helped me with Natalee some today and helped me make out all the Christmas cards. As long as he doesn't try to wolf down anything harder than a smashed ravioli, takes his painkillers, and takes it easy, he'll be fine. I keep repeating this in the hopes that I'll remember.

Matt's parents and Jennifer were a big help. Natalee hardly missed us having her best pal Aunt Jenna here. (She was pretty unhappy when Jennifer left this morning.) Matt and I didn't worry about Natalee since we knew she was happy and with someone responsible looking out for her. And it was a relief having Matt's parents here, having somebody else to agonize with during the wait, run errands for Matt's needs, and laugh and talk about less stressful things with. My mother came by to check on Matt (but mostly to see Natalee and Jennifer). And Brent came by and visited with us for a few hours. (He was in town interviewing for residency programs.) We've been very blessed to have friends and family around us when we needed them.

My early baking-and-freezing cookies regimen has been going slow, needless to say. I made a double batch of Chocolate Peppermint Pinwheels (recipe courtesy of Alton Brown's "Good Eats") this week. The first half of the batch only came out so-so, but the other half came out really well. I'll have to make another batch to make up for the less-than-stellar ones and for the ones that everybody who visited scarfed. I'll post the recipe at the end. Here's my take on them - they take a long time to make, so be certain you have plenty of time or plan on spreading them out over a while. Make certain you put the chocolate dough on bottom, or it really won't look right. And you have to have parchment paper. HAVE TO. And plastic wrap is good too. The dough, possibly because of the chocolate, is hard to roll out. It falls apart and sticks to everything that's supposed to be nonstick. Putting a layer of plastic wrap on top helped a lot. You have to have parchment paper to put on the cookie sheets when you bake them. I tried spraying the pans really well, and I tried silicone mats. Parchment works best because the candy cane bits in the cookies melt and adhere to the pan/mat and won't come off without breaking. So be certain you have parchment paper for these, or you'll waste a lot of time making pretty cookie....crumbles. Oh, and if you have the food-safe gloves/whatever for hand mixing the dough, wear 'em. The little chunks of candy cane are sharp. But hey, they're really pretty and taste pretty good when you do them the right way.

Chocolate Peppermint Pinwheels

1 batch Sugar Cookies, recipe follows

3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted (I used Ghiradelli chips)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 egg yolk

1 teaspoon peppermint extract

1/2 cup crushed candy canes or peppermint candies

Divide the dough in half and add chocolate and vanilla to 1 half and incorporate with hands. Add egg yolk, peppermint extract, and crushed candy to other half of dough and incorporate with hands. Cover both with plastic and chill for approximately 5 minutes. Roll out doughs separately to approximately 1/4-inch thickness. Place peppermint dough on top of chocolate and press together around the edges. Using waxed paper or flexible cutting board underneath, roll dough into log. Wrap in wax paper and refrigerate for 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Remove dough from the refrigerator and cut into 1/2-inch slices. Place cookies 1-inch apart on greased baking sheet, parchment, or silicone baking mat and bake for 12 to 13 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through cooking time. Remove from oven and let sit on baking sheet for 2 minutes, then move to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container for up to 1 week.

Sugar Cookie:

3 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 cup sugar

1 egg, beaten

1 tablespoon milk

Powdered sugar, for rolling out dough

Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. Place butter and sugar in large bowl of electric stand mixer and beat until light in color. Add egg and milk and beat to combine. Put mixer on low speed, gradually add flour, and beat until mixture pulls away from the side of the bowl. Divide the dough in half, wrap in waxed paper, and refrigerate for 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Sprinkle surface where you will roll out dough with powdered sugar. Remove 1 wrapped pack of dough from refrigerator at a time, sprinkle rolling pin with powdered sugar, and roll out dough to 1/4-inch thick. Move the dough around and check underneath frequently to make sure it is not sticking. If dough has warmed during rolling, place cold cookie sheet on top for 10 minutes to chill. Cut into desired shape, place at least 1-inch apart on greased baking sheet, parchment, or silicone baking mat, and bake for 7 to 9 minutes or until cookies are just beginning to turn brown around the edges, rotating cookie sheet halfway through baking time. Let sit on baking sheet for 2 minutes after removal from oven and then move to complete cooling on wire rack. Serve as is or ice, as desired. Store in airtight container for up to 1 week.

Yield: approximately 3 dozen, 2 1/2-inch cookies

Prep Time: 15 minutes (they lie!!)

Cook Time: 7 to 9 minutes (they lie!!)

Inactive Prep Time: 2 hours (they lie!!)

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_25190,00.html

Christmas Cheer

I keep forgetting to update this thing. I know it's been a while. It always feels as if I've been so much busier than normal. I've come to the realization that busier than expected IS normal. *sigh*

It's that time of year again, when the kids channels are inundated with horrible toy commercials, people go around humming carols under their breath rather than curses, and neighbors compete to see who can put up the best Christmas lights. Yes, I know this, even in my apartment. But the neighbors only tease me a little about my 2 strings of badly put up lights and tiny lit up tree, because they know my time is much better spent baking. I've started baking earlier this year, baking and freezing cookies ahead of time so I won't be dashing around for a day or two trying to make three different kinds of breads and sweets and deliver them before the goods aren't fresh. And I've started baking cookies this year rather than all sweet breads, but I'll still bake my Pumpkin-Glazed Walnut bread. I'll try to include a recipe or two at the end of this.

We bought our first Christmas tree this year, a pre-lit fake one from Wal-Mart. Natalee seems to be enjoying it. She's been pointing to to it a lot, saying 'Wha'z'at?!' The tree we had prior to this was the little two footer that's now on the porch. There aren't a lot of ornaments on it, but it leaves room for the ones Natalee'll hopefully make herself one day in Primary or kindergarten, and the ones we receive as gifts. We have about two dozen ornaments on the tree, and all but maybe three have been gifts from family and friends celebrating Matt's and my first Christmas together, our engagement, our first Christmas as parents, and several celebrating Natalee's first Christmas, along with gifted Aggie ornaments. It doesn't seem right to just buy a box full of balls without any sentimental value behind them. It's been really nice to see the tree glowing in the living room, feeling like we're starting our own memories as a family. Plus now we actually have a place to tuck our gifts.

Things haven't all been rosy lately with Matt's surgery coming up. It shouldn't be too bad since it's outpatient surgery. But it's a little nerve-wracking since he'll have to stay overnight for observation regardless, in case his airways get blocked. But Jennifer's supposed to be coming to take care of Natalee for us and help around the apartment for a day or two. And Matt's parents are coming for moral support. That's been a big relief to us. We won't have to deal with this by ourselves, with a child to take care of and a scary experience ahead of us. It felt like that when I had Natalee, since there wasn't anybody here to help us and give support till the day after. (That couldn't be helped though, since she came almost four weeks early.) But it'll be nice to have some of our family here. If we just think about our family visiting and Christmas coming up and avoid the surgery stuff, we can pretend that it's an early holiday celebration.

Natalee has been growing so much! Suddenly since she turned two, she's shot up and lost a lot of weight. She used to have chubby little legs that were short below her torso. In the last week or two they've stretched out and thinned out. No more chubby little legs for sure. And her little pot belly is gone. Her ribs are visible most of the time now. I hate that - I loved her little belly, but it's natural. I'll just have to repress my urges to constantly feed her cheese and milkshakes. She likes to sing "Jingle Bells" and "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" and "Once There Was a Snowman." She doesn't know all the words but definitely has the tunes down. And she loves to be picked up and held and hugged and kissed and give kisses and play hide-and-seek. She's a lot of fun right now, unless she's throwing one of her fits. Matt and I've gotten to be old hands at that in some ways. We've learned to just tune her out. Unless she decides to slap you in the face and bite you a few times. Which she did at the ENT's office last week. Good times...

I'm happy that Christmas is almost here, enjoying the excitement of getting all the shopping done and the anticipation of visiting loved ones and receiving gifts. But it's always a bit sad this time of year too. I like having Christmas and New Year's to look forward to. Once they're over, it's kind of bleak and cold and broke for weeks after. But Christmas seems to be extra special this year, experiencing it with my sweet little girl. And I'm definitely enjoying making my Christmas goodies in my big, powerful stand mixer. Eat your heart out, Tim the Toolman Taylor. I got a real machine in my kitchen this year! I can make 13 dozen cookies at a time in this baby. Which is why I'm making cookies. *gloat-gloat-gloat*

Here's one of the recipes I'm using. The ones I've made so far are really good. The texture reminds me of pecan sandies. Just make sure you grease your cookie sheet well enough, or the cookies will explode when you try to pull them off.

Swirled Holiday Snowball Cookies

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter, softened
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 2/3 cups (10-oz. pkg.) NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® SWIRLED™ Holiday Morsels
1/2 cup finely chopped nuts
Powdered sugar

Directions: PREHEAT oven to 375° F. BEAT butter, 3/4 cup sugar, vanilla extract and salt in large mixer bowl until creamy. Gradually beat in flour. Stir in morsels and nuts. Shape level tablespoons of dough into 1 1/4-inch balls. Place on ungreased baking sheets. BAKE for 10 to 12 minutes or until cookies are set and lightly browned. Remove from oven. Sift powdered sugar over hot cookies on baking sheets. Cool on baking sheets for 10 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely. Sprinkle with additional powdered sugar, if desired. Store in airtight containers.

Estimated Times: Preparation - 15 min Cooking - 10 min Cooling Time - 10 min cooling Yields - 54 cookies (4 1/2 dozen)

I got this recipe off of Nestle's website, http://www.verybestbaking.com/. It's also available on the back of the packages of the swirled holiday morsels. They're really easy to make, it's pretty much just powdered sugar, butter, swirled morsels, and nuts. Just watch them so they don't crisp up - they bake pretty fast. Hope they turn out as well for you as they did for me.