'Tis the season

I still have not made it down to the track and I'm bummed about it.  I feel like it has been raining for days or the nights I can go, Saro is working late and as mentioned, I'd rather not go alone in the dark.  Tonight I will probably resort to the treadmill and do some Pilates after my THIRD dentist appointment for the same problem!  Grr.

So although I've been on a health kick since March, I love to bake around the holidays.  I'll sneak a few but I like to give them out as little gifts.  So far this year I made chocolate chip coconut macaroons, walnut snowball, and chocolate chip peanut butter cookies.  They came out great if I do say so myself!  Here are a few pictures.  It was my first time baking with real vanilla bean.  I'm not sure I can tell the difference between that and extract except the price, LOL.  So I think I'll stick to extract.

I like all the cute Christmas-y cookies I see recipes for but I don't really have the patience for cookie cutters and then decorating them, haha.  Last year I make red and green swirl cookies from a Pinterest recipe - super cute but difficult to make, especially with all the butter the recipe called for.  On Sunday when I baked, I put the chocolate chip cookie dough in the fridge for about 2 hours and I found this helped the cookies to not spread out on the sheet as much.  I baked them for only 9 minutes and they came out nice and soft.  I'll remember this for next time.