Stratego...just as good as Scrabble

Last week, Tim came over for dinner and a friendly game of Stratego.  A little back story....I LOVE this game, it holds a lot of sentimental value because I used to play it all the time when I was a camp counselor at Bruin Woods.  I had forgotten all about it, so when I saw it at Target I thought of it as the perfect elephant gift.  Long story short, I brought it to my family Christmas party and ended up stealing it from every person that got their hands on it.  I knew when I bought it, it was actually a gift for myself. heh-heh

Dinner: chicken mango sausage pasta with veggies

I won't lie....Tim beat me good.

Till the next time!

cookie monster: goodeats

A few weeks ago Anabray and I got lost in Sur la Table, our favorite store, and came upon these cute cookie box kits.  SCORE, xmas gifts for everyone in the office!  I spent all of Monday and Tuesday evening baking cookies for 8 of my colleagues and was high off powdered sugar and flour come bedtime.  Box menu included:

1) Strawberry Lemon thumbprint cookies             

2) Whoopies (the name alone validates why I just had to bake them)

3) Molasses Ginger cookies

                                             

4) Peanut Butter cup cookies

5) Toffee, Almond, Chocolate chip cookies

My favorite cookie turned out to be the strawberry lemon thumbprints.  The lemon cookies alone would be great--sweet, tangy with just the right amount of chew.  Here they are all boxed up.

All recipes are keepers with one minor exception for the whoopies. The chocolate patties were extremely moist and chewy, almost like a cake consistency but I'm not a fan of marshmallow, so next time I may omit it.  But all in all, my cookie baking marathon seemed successful and turned out to be an affordable and tasty gift!

special shout out to Igor...my trusty assistant who turned out to be not so trusty haha ;)

Happy Holidays to you and yours!