It's the most wonderful time of the year...

Merry Effing Christmas!

It's that time of year again! Time to cook, bake, stir, whip and frost... and no, I'm not talking about your kids....It's time to make the goodies.

Every year I spend countless hours in the kitchen whipping up my family's favorite Christmas treats. Nothing is more satisfying than having a broken back and being covered in cookie dough and cream cheese frosting. It's the time of year when you can't walk across the kitchen floor without slipping on PAM cooking spray or having the cat stick to the gobs of frosting that fell on the floor...But, it's a treat.

 Most of the recipes that I use have been handed down in my family for years. Generally, they are pretty easy recipes which require few ingredients. These cookies, brownies, fudge and candy recipes are basically the shit as long as you follow directions. It literally takes me hours and a boatload of money to shop for everything and days upon days to finish all the baking, but the end result is..well..it's the shit!

Thankfully, I have a daughter who loves to bake, so having Sara help me is a huge bonus....as I type I just finished baking 3 pumpkin rolls on my lunch hour. Yessir, I said 3 pumpkin rolls on my lunch HOUR. I know. I'm amazing. Or Stupid...either way...but the pumkin roll deserves it's own headline, so I'll write about that in another thread.

I don't have many rules of thumb when doing my holiday baking. But people PLEASE....PLEASE....PLEASE....if a recipe calls for butter...then USE BUTTER!!! Unless a recipe specifically says you MUST use margarine, I never use margarine. As far as I'm concerned that shit is poison. Really. You ever read the ingredients? Pure fucking poison basically.

Besides, I've compared my Spritz butter cookies head to head with an unnamed relative's who by the way, uses margarine and mine KICKED ASS. You could tell the difference, both in texture and flavor....I can't think of anything else that really matters as much as butter. I love butter.....The only other thing I can think of that is just as important as butter is wine....Just remember....If all else fails, have a nice chilled bottle of wine to suck on while you are sweating your ass off and crying over ruined cookie batter....

I've asked all of my facebook friends to send their favorite cookie recipes and I will post these along with my favorites under a new page called "Holiday Baking"...

Good luck and Merry Effing Christmas!