I would like to wish everyone a happy and loved filled holiday surrounded by family and friends.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. 

Cinnamon Roasted Almonds

These sweet roasted almonds with a hint of cinnamon make a delicious and easy gift for the holidays but make sure you keep enough to snack on yourself.  The recipe comes from allrecipes.com.  These almonds are delicious!

Ingredients:

2 egg whites 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 1 cup brown sugar 1 cup white sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt 5 cups unsalted whole raw almonds 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

Directions:

1.	Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2.	Beat egg whites and vanilla extract in a large bowl (just until frothy); add almonds and toss to coat. Mix brown sugar, white sugar, cinnamon, and salt and stir into almonds until blended. Spread almond mixture into prepared baking dish.
3.	Bake in preheated oven, stirring every 15 minutes, until coating is dry, about 75 minutes.

A DAY OF REMEMBRANCE

Vanilla - Almond Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing

Today was a nice day with my daughter and mother-in-law as they came over and decorated Christmas cookies.  Frosted cookies are a favorite of ours.  Every year I go searching for the perfect recipe and  I'm  excited to say  I finally found the recipes I will use for cut out cookies and royal icing for now on.  I found the recipe on the blog Bake at 350.  The dough is easy to roll out and it doesn't have to be chilled first.  The icing uses meringue powder instead of egg whites (purchased at Michael's Craft Store), it's easy to work with and sets up nicely on the cookie. Most importantly they taste good with a touch of almond flavoring.  You'll have to check out the amazing blog, Bake at 350,  it's written by Bridget.  She has great step by step instructions about decorating and baking cookies.  Also here is a video showing Bridget making the cookie dough, video on University of Cookie.

Vanilla-Almond Sugar Cookies

Ingredients:

3 c unbleached, all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 c sugar
 2 sticks (salted) butter, cold & cut into chunks
 1 egg
1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 tsp pure almond extract

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350.

Combine the flour and baking powder, set aside.

Cream the sugar and butter. Add the egg and extracts and mix. Gradually add the flour mixture and beat just until combined, scraping down the bowl, especially the bottom.

The dough will be crumbly, so knead it together with your hands as you scoop it out of the bowl for rolling.

Roll on a floured surface to about 1/4" to 3/8" thick, and cut into shapes. Place on parchment lined baking sheets and bake for 10-12 minutes. Let sit a few minutes on the sheet, then transfer to a cooling rack.


Royal Icing
(This will cover 2-3 dozen)

4 TBSP meringue powder
1/2 c. water
1 lb. powdered sugar
1/2 - 1 tsp light corn syrup
few drops almond extract

Combine the meringue powder and water. With the paddle attachment of an electric mixer, beat until combined and foamy.


Sift in the powdered sugar and beat on low to combine. (Do NOT skip the sifting!)


Add in the corn syrup and extract if desired. ( The corn syrup helps keep the icing shiny.)

Increase speed to med-high/high and beat for about 5 minutes, just until the icing is glossy and stiff peaks form.

Do not overbeat.

Cover with plastic wrap touching the icing if not using right away or divide and color using gel paste food colorings.

This "stiff" icing is perfect for outlining and detail decorating. To fill in your cookies, add water to your icing a teaspoon at a time, stirring with a rubber spatula, until it is the consistency of stiff syrup. This technique of filling a cookie with thinned icing is called "flooding.


I didn't use piping decorating bags but instead I used squeeze bottles (purchased at Michael's craft Store) to decorate.  If using squeeze bottles don't use the "stiff" icing but thin out a little but not too thin.  With the squeeze bottles you can't do the fine detailed work but  otherwise work GREAT! 

Asian Zing Wings

Have you ever had the Asian Zing Sauce at Buffalo Wild Wings?  Well, I've been craving their Asian Zing Wings and tonight  I'm a happy girl as I made them at home.   These wings were just what I was craving.  I found the recipe here Food.com.  These are spicy (but not too spicy) with a touch of sweetness.

Sauce Ingredients:

2 tsp cornstarch
4 tsp rice wine vinegar
1/2 cup corn syrup
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup chili garlic sauce (find this in the Asian section)

1 tbsp (low sodium) soy sauce
1 tsp fresh lemon juice (if you don't have fresh lemon, fresh lime or even orange juice works)
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp garlic, minced (I don't add, already enough garlic in the chili garlic sauce)
1/4 tsp salt

Directions:
1. Mix cornstarch and rice wine vinegar, set aside
2. Mix everything else in a saucepan and heat on medium until steaming, add the cornstarch and vinegar mix.
3. Heat to a boil, stirring often, boil for 1 minute.  Take it off the heat.  It will thicken as it cools.  Once it cools, use or store in the fridge until ready to serve.

 *Best made ahead as it thickens as it cools.

Wings:
3lbs Chicken Wing

Directions:
1.  Preheat oven 400 degrees.
2.  Grease a baking sheet (with sides) lightly with vegetable oil.
3.  Lay wings on the baking sheet in a single layer.  Bake 20-30 minutes or until cooked through.
4.  Remove from oven, increase oven temperature to broil. Move oven racks closer to broiler (but not too close) Broil both sides until golden brown.  It only takes about 3-5 minutes per side.  Watch closely so not to burn.
5.  Transfer cooked wings to a large bowl and toss wings with the Asian Zing sauce.

Serves 3-4

UPDATE:  I use my air fryer now to cook wings.  They come out super crispy! 

                                                             

Pecan Tartlets

It's that time of year to make cookies and these are requested by my husband every year.  They freeze well so I can make them now and have them ready all month long.  This recipe comes from my Mom. They are like eating a miniature pecan pie.  Makes 24 but I  doubled the batch so I can share these with friends. 

INGREDIENTS:
3 ounces cream cheese
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup all-purpose flour

Filling:
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon butter, melted
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
dash salt
1/2 cup chopped pecans

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees

2. To Make Crust: In a medium mixing bowl blend softened cream cheese and 1/2 cup butter until thoroughly combined. Add flour and mix well. Place in refrigerator to chill. (1 hour is enough)

3. Shape dough into 24-1 inch balls. Press into bottom and up sides of ungreased nonstick miniature muffin tins. Pour in filling, distributing evenly between all cups. Bake in preheated oven for 20-25 minutes.

4. In a medium mixing bowl combine brown sugar and 1 tablespoon butter. Add egg and vanilla, and blend well. Stir in pecans.



Hint: You should use nonstick miniature muffin pans for these to come out perfect.

I have this neat tool that I got from Pampered Chef.  I dip the end in flour and push down and twist out to make dough cup.  Makes this step a lot easier but you can do this by hand because they are worth the effort.

Fill cups with filling almost to the top.  Being careful not to get filling on the pan.   If the filling gets all over the pan, the cookies won't come out easily, they'll stick to the pan.

Using a  non-stick pan they will pop right out.