Today you'll find me

barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen.  Ok, only really 2 of those three! =P (I hate to be barefoot.) Today I'm trying to get most of my Christmas baking done.  So far the white chocolate covered pretzels are in the fridge to set and peppermint has been crushed for a few different projects including:

These peppermint marshmallow hot chocolate stirrers, except I don't have sticks OOPS!

Funny, I sent my husband to the store for candy canes, and he came home with a 2 lb candy CANE it was huge. Thankfully, I could just bang it on the table to get it into small enough pieces to put in the blender :). 

and I'm making a variation of these:

Which I'm hoping will turn out well.  

I'm also making some brownie trees, white chocolate gingerbread cookies, and some eggless cookie dough so that I can eat it! 

What are you baking up this Christmas season???

Oh and of course there will be some coconut creations ;). 

Not here, but there

Today you'll find me over at Jana's blog doing a post on some holiday baking (which I've yet to start)! EEK!  I need to get some eggs pronto! ;)  I  really can't wait to make these:

Source

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If you are interested in guest posting for me while I take a little break in January, please shoot me an email mrsawood 08 at gmail dot com. 

Looking for posts on: 

First time mommyhood tips

DIY Tutorials

Faith

Make-up Tutorials (cough Lanie cough)

or if you have something different you'd like to post on, please share it with me ;)

Tickle me Coconut

Sometime in the last month, my husband and I were watching an Iron Chef America.  It happened to be Battle Coconut.  

Oh no, so many problems with this. 

1. I already have an intense love of coconut.

2. I'm pregnant and tend to be easily convinced I need certain foods.  Not really cravings, but more of an I see it and now want it kind of deal. 

3. My mouth watered the entire show.

4. I think I said I want it about every 30 seconds. 

That brings me to the last few weeks.  My husband decided that we NEEDED to have some coconut in our lives.  Seriously, he stocked up!

Oh praise God for my hubby!

So I got on Pinterest and found some wonderful recipes.

Here are the ones that tickled our fancy the last few weeks.

Most amazing coconut macaroons ever. And so simple!

And then we had Coconut Chicken (next time I'm leaving out the condensed milk, too sweet (which is normally impossible for me)). 

And lastly, I made these tasty little buggers

Oatmeal Coconut Chewies

I messed up (SHHHH) and only used 1/2 c. butter, but they still turned out well. =D 

And I didn't feel as guilty when I'd eat like 6 (ok, I only felt half as guilty). 

Can I use the excuse I'm eating for two?

So that's what's been tickling our fancy lately.  

How about you?

Linking up with Sarah!

What do you do with leftover pie crust?

My husband, apparently, loves apple pie.  This is the third one I've made recently.  Read "in the last 2 weeks".  To be fair one was for our friends.  

What do you do with the leftover crust???  

Last time, I just cut out some cute shapes and put them on top, as well as Aaron's name, but I still ended up throwing some away.

Then I cut out the letters and spelled out friends on the other one.

Today I was thinking, "Can I make cinnamon rolls?" 

So to google I went.

People do lots of different things with left over crust:

tarts, cookies, make extra shapes, make cinnamon sugar cookies AH HA!

Although they aren't quite cinnamon rolls, I did end up making little cinnamon sugar cookie type things.  (You caught me I have no idea what to call them.)  

Here is the process I went through.  

What?

I actually went and grabbed my camera?

I know it surprised me too!

Anyway here are the photos! 

Ok, so you actually want yours too look way more cinnamon-sugary than that.  After trying them, I realized there wasn't enough cinnamon sugary goodness.  It's ok, it's a learning process, right??

You can do whatever you'd like with your scraps from the end. 

Me? I popped 'em in my mouth :)

Then, forget to take a picture of the next step (oh wait, sorry that's just me)

I just put them on a piece of parchment paper inside a cake pan because I couldn't find the right size baking sheet for our Toaster oven. 

Then feel like a dummy because your pan doesn't fit in your toaster oven either.  Oh wait, just me again! 

Bake them at 400 for 10 minutes.

Take them out and resist the urge to eat them right away.  You will burn your tongue.  

No, I didn't find that out by experience. Ok, maybe. 

And VOILA

You have some little extra goodies along with your delicious pie! YUM YUM!

So PLEASE don't just throw the extra dough away. Ok? Promise? Great!