Day 353 of #LiveWell2017

The holidays seem to bring out the baker in everyone. Once, when I was teaching at a public school, I looked at my desk at the end of the last day before winter vacation, and it was literally covered with packages of homemade cookies, brownies, peppermint bark, cakes, and breads given to me as gifts from students and co-workers. I couldn’t possibly eat them all, so I gave a lot of them to my neighbors and other staff members. But, the one thing I hoarded was the cookies. I love to eat a good cookie, but I love to bake them even more. If you are a baker, or want to be a baker, cookies are an easy and fun way to start. Plus, they make really sweet gifts during the holidays.

Bringing cookies to a party, to a nursing home, to a daycare center, to a homeless person, to a friend is a nice way to say you care. I tend to take a basic recipe and tweak it with my own ingredients, depending on what I have in the kitchen or what I want to experiment with. Here are some cookie recipes you might want to try:

• Chocolate chunk shortbreads
• Biscotti (I use recipes from The Mixer Bible by Meredith Deeds, but this one from Epicurious will get you started)
• Rum balls (or Bourbon balls)
• Classic sugar cookies
• I love this food blog, The Smitten Kitchen, and there is a great recipe for  Salted Chocolate Chunk Cookies  on there.

Sweeten up someone’s day this holiday  by giving cookies! Let me know what you baked and who you gave them to!