THE Cookies!

I'm not much of a baker. I can follow directions with the best of them, but I don't know that I ever turn out anything fantastic. This recipe, however, is awesome! I up the amount of almonds and chocolate I use. Feel free to use the original recipe, but the nuttier and chocolatey-er the better in this house. Hope you enjoy!

Almond Roca Cookies

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup butter, room temperature
2 eggs, room temperature
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 package toffee bits
1 cup coarsely ground almonds (I usually use the whole 12 oz bag instead)
4 ounces milk chocolate (again - the whole bag for me)
1/2 tablespoon vegetable oil


Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer, blend sugars together on medium speed. Add butter and mix to form a grainy paste. Add eggs and vanilla and mix at medium speed until light and fluffy. At low speed, slowly add the flour mixture and then the toffee bits. Mix until just blended; do not over-mix.

Place ground nuts in a small bowl. Using your hands, roll balls of dough into 1 to 1 1/2 inch balls, then roll in the ground nuts. Place on cookie sheets several inches apart.

Bake approximately 22 minutes and then transfer cookies to a cooling rack.

Melt the chocolate with the vegetable oil in a double boiler. Drizzle melted chocolate over cooled cookies. (I like to dip mine in the chocolate instead.) Place cookies on a cookie sheet and place in freezer or refrigerator until chocolate is firmly set. (Overnight on the counter in wintertime usually works just as well.)

Two batches later we're off to my parent's house for Christmas Eve and then the in-law's house tomorrow. YUM-MO!

Merry Christmas everyone!

~Becky

Hippo's for Christmas!

Love this song! Can't wait until Ally and I can sing it together. For now I just dance around annoying my colleagues and husband.

Merry Christmas and I hope you enjoy!

~Becky

Date Night II

Over the weekend Steve and I went out on a much needed date. The last time was in August – I know – WAY too long. We have both been working crazy hours. Family events and holidays (decorating, gift buying, party attending) have been taking up so much of our free time and we were living like this old married couple, not one that had only been married for a little over four years. We had a conversation earlier in the week and decided that we needed to make a conscious effort to spend more time together. More quality, alone, adult conversation-having, adult beverage-drinking, kid-free time.

Don’t get me wrong. We adore our daughter. She’s a good girl – so good a girl that we take her everywhere (insert awesome-child Mom brag here). She eats at restaurants happily. She shops with us. She loves being in a stroller or shopping cart or walking along side us. We have yet to have any “that is not my child” moments (remember she’s not quite two yet – I know I’m jinxing myself). But taking her everywhere means not being without her.

And then there’s the working Mom guilt. That evil and nasty bitch. (That’s another blog post in and of itself.) I hear it – in my head. “You’re not with Allyson thirty-six hours a week. How dare you take an evening off away from her? What kind of a mother are you?” I’ll tell you what kind. One that needs to keep the spark alive in a marriage that created the little darling in the first place. As my parents have shown me, kids will only be around for a portion of the marriage. If you want to stay in love and remember the reason you got married in the first place it is imperative that you focus on the relationship as well as the child rearing. (And I listen to them. They’ve been married for thirty-two years.) Time away means relighting the spark. And let me tell you – we’ve got some spark!

Saturday night, we succeeded. I went to dinner and a movie with my handsome husband and two very good friends. A double date – who would have thought we’d have so much fun? We had dinner at Paul Martin’s in Roseville, a pricy but excellent restaurant. Halibut for me, Brick Chicken for Steve – YUM!


And then we went to see “The Blind Side” which is the best movie I have seen in years.

It was everything you could ask for: a great storyline, great acting. I’d watch it again in a heartbeat (which is odd for me cause I’m typically a “watch it once and give it away” girl) and will recommend it to everyone I know. Hope you get a chance to go out on a date night with your hunny and see this movie. It was a perfect ingredient to a wonderful night.

So – what have I learned?

1. I’ve learned that you can’t wait four months between date nights with your husband.
   
2. That it’s okay to let your kiddo spend the night at Gramma and Papa’s house (cause they love it as much as she does).
   
3. That you shouldn’t wait five years to go on a double date with good friends. (G – this time we made it through without food poisoning!)
   
4. And that you should take the time to focus on your marriage. Better to focus on it now than watch it slip past you. Steve – I love you more today than I did four years, two months and six days ago.

~Becky