Christmas Baking

Traditionally we enjoy baking lots of goodies around this time of year.  My Mom has shared that my Grandma Wille, my Dad's Mom, always made lots of cookies and candy, and it is something that she started doing when she married my Dad.  Growing up, I remember having a huge variety of cookies and goodies around the house.

This year one of my daughters emailed me asking about a couple recipes she was looking for.  I decided the easiest way to get them to her would be to post them on my blog.  That way you get to enjoy them too! ;-) I do not have the original source for either of these recipes.  One was passed to my by a friend, but I believe it came from the Taste of Home magazine, and the other I cut out of a magazine but have no idea which one.

Enjoy!

Cinnamon Triangles

1 cup unsalted butter, (2 sticks) softened
2/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup cinnamon red hots, (crushed)

1. In large bowl, beat butter and sugar until creamy and smooth, (2 min.).  Beat in egg and salt.  On low speed gradually beat in flour until well blended.  Stir in crushed red-hot candies.  Divide dough into 4 equal disks.  Wrap in plastic wrap; refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

2. Pre-heat oven to 375 F. Line baking sheet with non-stick foil or regular foil sprayed with non-stick cooking spray.

3. Place 1 disk of chilled dough on lightly-floured surface; place a piece of waxed paper on top. Roll out to 1/4-inch thickness.  Cut into about 22 cookies, (triangle shaped, about 2 1/2 by 2 1/2 by 2).  Place on baking sheets.  Re-roll; cut out scraps.  Repeat with remaining dough.

4.  Bake in 375 F oven for 6 minutes, or until edges are golden.  Let stand on sheets 2 minutes.  Transfer to rack; let cool complete, then store in an air tight container.

Makes about 7 dozen.

Mocha Bars

2 eggs
1 cup oil
1 cup of cold coffee, (the stronger the better ;)
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups flour
2 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup chocolate chips (mini ones work great, but regular ones are fine, too.)
3/4 cup chopped walnuts

Beat eggs, oil, coffee, and vanilla.  Combine flour, brown sugar, salt and baking soda, then add to coffee mixture.  Beat until smooth.  Pour into a greased 15x10x1 inch baking pan.  Bake at 375 F. for 30 to 35 minutes.  When you take them out, sprinkle with chips and nuts.  Let cool and cut into bars.  The texture of this is very "cakey", but very good!  I have sometimes just served it like a sheet cake instead of cutting into bars.

*note, I started sprinkling the nuts and chocolate chips on before baking.  That way you don't have so many "rolling off" your bars when you try to eat them! ;)

My Planner...

For the last several years, I have been taking other plan books and "planner pages" and tweaking them to try and find something that would work for us, with our home schooling.  I have used "plan books" I purchased at "Teacher Stores", in the US.  I have tried on-line planners and grade books.  And while they all had their positive points, none of them were exactly what I was needing, nor were they always inexpensive.

This year, I decided to try my hand at my own.  So I learned to work with Excel, and actually made a spreadsheet planner that fits our needs.  Now I'm a "pencil and paper" girl, so I just make the sheets and then print them out, for 1 term at a time. (We have broken our school year into 6, 7 week terms this year.  We only school 4 days a week, most weeks, so that is why we have added the 7th week. :-)  Here is a link to a pdf of my weekly plan book sheets, plan book page 1, plan book, page 2 .

I also have struggled with keeping some kind of "grade record".  We have tried as I mentioned above various different things, but this year, I also made "grade sheets for each child, and add grades daily to my "grade book".  Here is a link to a pdf of my grade book sheets, grade book sheet 1, grade book sheet 2, grade book, sheet 3 .

Since we do a form of "work boxes", (I call it our "work folders"), I have taken a free PDF download from the official Work Box site, and I tweaked it...color coding it for each child, and then typing in
the things that stay the same each week.  This has saved me tons of time. ;-)  The Work Folders hold anything that they can do independently.  They work through them during the day.  When I am ready to work with one or 2 of them, I just call them out to our table, and we work together, then when they return to their desk, they can pick up with their folders.   Here is a link to a pdf of my log sheet for our work folders, log sheet 1, log sheet 2 .

Hope you enjoyed the "peak" at my "plan book".    I am thinking of adding a couple pages to it  from a friend.  One that focuses on  my personal Bible study and prayer requests for the week.  I also think it would be good to add a monthly calendar for an over-view of what's going on in our lives.  I do have a "year at a glace" type of calendar at the front of my binder, but it would be nice to have something that I could actually make notes on, too.