Holiday Treats

This has been a super busy month with graduating from WCTC with my Associate degree in Hotel & Restaurant Management and searching for jobs in my field.

Being so busy, I didn't have much time to think about Christmas cookies as much as I wanted to make some. I was fortunate to receive a care package from my mom about a week before school finished. It was a variety of homemade cookies. YUM!!!!! Needless to say those cookies didn't last long and since I still had a taste for Christmas cookies I wanted to make some cookies. I started by making Mint Moments, which are a version of Melting Moments that are rolled in powdered sugar and crushed candy canes. They are so delicious and melt in your mouth (hence the name of the cookie). Unfortunately the recipe only makes about 2 dozen. So much for sharing these with others. I guess I'll keep these to myself. Well, I did share some with my friend, Susha. She totally loved them and refers to them as 'Cornstarch Balls' because the recipe uses 3/4 c. cornstarch. She is so cute.

I was invited to a friends house for a holiday get together last night and was asked to bring a small dessert since there was only going to be a few of us. I thought I would try my hand at Cake Balls. I've heard about them, but have not had any or made them before. I found a recipe on one of my favorite recipe website: http://www.allrecipes.com/ I attempted to make these the night before the get together. Unfortunately the balls were not holding their form when I tried to dip them in chocolate. Therefore, I thought I'd freeze the balls and then dip them in the chocolate. That was the trick. Here is a picture of my holiday cake balls. Unfortunately I didn't get them finished for the get together last night, but they are delicious. They look like truffles, but have a soft inside. And the batch makes so many, I have some to share if anyone wants some.

Oh How Projects Grow

About a month ago I found a wall cling at Goodwill that reads "Life is too short, to drink bad wine." As some of you may know I have a wine theme in my kitchen, and not a lot of wall space. The price of $3.99 was very appealing to me. After I got home I located the perfect place to put the wall cling. But then started to think..... the current wall color (dark brown) which I like, had been patched from the previous owners when I bought the house and it didn't match exactly so you could see their patch job. And since wall clings are removeable but not reuseable, I thought I had better paint the kitchen before installing the wall cling.

Off to my favorite paint store (Sherwin Williams) I go. I had picked out a paint color for my kitchen when I first moved here but the painting wasn't high on my priority list. Now, that I had the lovely wine wall cling I wanted to repaint the kitchen and I debated about repainting the pretty dark brown color or going for my previously selected "Rare Wine" color. (Don't you love the name of that paint color???? It fits so perfectly with my wine theme.) Well, I decided since there are splashes of purple throughout my house, I'd take the plunge and paint the kitchen "Rare Wine", which is a pretty plum color. In prepping the room, I thought I'd paint a small spot on the wall to see how I liked the color. OMG!!!! It was really dark compared to the dark brown. What have I done??? Oh well, I'm going to paint the kitchen Rare Wine, because I bought the paint.

Here are before and after pictures. Tell me what you think.

After having the entire kitchen painted and everything back in its place I really like the color and am so glad I finally decided to get this project off my to-do list. However, a $3.99 item turned into over $50 and a weekend project. Oh well... I love it. Hope you do too.