Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies

At Christmas time, I love to make cookies.  Ok, I'm lying...I will gladly make cookies any time.  They are one of my favorite snacks to make.  A few days before Christmas, the kids and I make five or six types of cookies and pack them in tins for family and friends.  The cookie I probably love to make the most are Peanut Butter Kiss cookies. 

1 cup peanut butter
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 stick butter softened (4 oz)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 and 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 bag Hershey's Kisses

Preheat oven to 350°F

In a large bowl, beat peanut butter, brown sugar and butter on medium speed until light and fluffy.  Beat in eggs and vanilla until well blended.

Mix flour, baking soda and salt and beat in gradually until dough is smooth, scraping sides of the bowl with a spatula frequently.

Instead of using a teaspoon to drop it on the cookie sheet, I like to roll it into one inch, or slightly larger, balls.  I line them up on a cookie sheet three by six.  Then I flatten them, only slightly.  Just enough so they are still pretty thick in height. 

Bake for 8 minutes.  While they're baking, remove the foil wrappers from the kisses.  Remove the tray of cookies, leaving the oven on.  Place a kiss on top of each cookie pressing in just enough to set into the dough.  Return the tray to the oven and bake 2 to 4 minutes more.  They're done when they are golden brown.

Pumpkin Bread

When Halloween and Thanksgiving come around, my family always looks forward to all the pumpkin goodies.  Pumpkin lattes, cookies, ice cream and pie are the most obvious favorites.  While we drool over most of these at the store, I have one recipe I love to use that can double as a great party pleaser. 

You will need:
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups canned pumpkin (about 16 ounces)
1/4 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
1 & 1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp ginger

Preheat the oven to 375.

Beat the eggs in a medium sized bowl.  Stir in the oil, sugar, pumpkin and vanilla. 

In a separate bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, nutmeg, cloves and ginger together.  Then add to the pumpkin mixture gradually until well blended.  It should be thick and well mixed like cake batter.

Oooo....lookin' good

Make sure you have greased two loaf pans thoroughly.

See? WELL greased

Pour the mixture into the pans as evenly as you can.  You don't need to measure exactly.  Do the ol' Rachael Ray with it....you know..."eyeball it".  Go ahead.  I trust you.

Then bake them together, side by side is fine, in the oven for about 45 to 50 minutes.  The original recipe said to bake at 1 hour, but my oven is an overachiever and was done in 45.  I'm not sure how old the recipe is, I got it from Mom. (Thanks, Mom!)  However, ovens today run a bit hotter, it seems, so it's best to know your oven and check on the bread at about 45 minutes.

I'm not much of a cook, but I love to bake.  If you don't know the tricks to being able to tell when something is done, a toothpick inserted in the middle is a great tester.  If it comes out clean, you're good to go.  Another telltale sign is if you can see the sides of the bread pulling away from the pan.  You can get them out before those edges start getting dark.

When all is said and done, you should have two gorgeous little loafs of holiday goodness that look like this:

Enjoy!