Bring it on, Christmas.

In addition to the ruined almonds of the previous post, I have been hard at work on a multitude of other goodies for holiday gifts.

Last year, I made a huge box of candies and cookies for each family and took those to the various Christmas celebrations in lieu of actual gifts. Mostly for monetary reasons, but also because it was my first Christmas with the manfriend's family. I had no idea what to get everyone (some people I was meeting for the first time), so I decided edible goodies were the way to go. Also, my family is big on getting to spend the time together rather than giving each other stuff. So, again, goodies made the most sense.

But isn't baking expensive??? Well, yes. It can be. But so can running or quilting or reading even, if you buy top of the line everything instead of taking advantage of cheaper options available to you, like running in the neighborhood instead of at a gym, sales at Joann's or free fabric from coworkers, and... the library. Baking is the same. I tried to find recipes with the following criteria: recipes that called for cheaper ingredients (except almonds - blast!), recipes that called for things I already had on hand, and recipes that used the same ingredients. I kind of succeeded.

But the biggest money saver was Aldi. I love Aldi. The manfriend is particular about certain things (if you're going to buy Cream of Mushroom soup for him, just buy the Campbell's brand and save yourself the headache). I got all this for around $20 (not including the almonds - those came from Walgreens for about $10) at Aldi:

It may not be name brand but damn does it taste good.

So... without further ado... this year I made:

White Chocolate Peppermint Bark

Recipe from Martha Stewart

BEYOND easy. Seriously. You should make some.

"Snickers"

Recipe from Joy of Cooking (they call it Chocolate Glazed Toffee Bars and use pecans - I used peanuts because that's what we had)

Peanut Butter Crispy Rice Chocolate Covered Ball Things

Recipe found on Pinterest, actual recipe here

Pre-chocolate-dipping. Schweddy balls, anyone?

Dipped in chocolate.
Realized too late that these are basically Buckeyes and the manfriend's family is from Michigan. Oops.

The Almonds. Ooooh the Almonds.

Recipe found on Pinterest, actual recipe here

Success! And y'all should feel lucky to get these.
They are deeeelish and almost didn't make it into their bags.

And the cookies!

I already posted these, but they're so pretty, let's look at them again, shall we?

Peppermint Chocolate Pinwheels

Recipe from Food Network - Alton Brown

Snowflake Cookies

Recipe from Food Network - Paula Deen

Pre-frosting. And yes, I threw in some ninjas.
The three wise men were "Kings from the East." It's entirely possible they were ninjas.

Snowflake Cookies after being frosted and decorated

Quick Icing Recipe from Joy of Cooking

After two and a half days of intense baking and trying to do a million things at once, I will arrive triumphant at both our family Christmases with the following display of love and baked-goods prowess:

And with that... Michigan or bust!!