Started the Christmas baking

Today was a rare day … it was the second of two days off in a row!!  Got most of the cleaning done yesterday so today we made some cookies.

I had a bunch of stuff to use up so I call these “Cupboard Cookies” – all the bits of stuff in the cupboard thrown in.

What is in them you ask?  Well… the dough is the usual – 1.5  cups of butter creamed with 1 cup white and 1 cup of brown sugar, 3 eggs beaten in, 3.5 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, 1 teaspoon of baking soda, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 teaspoon of vanilla… all mixed to a smooth dough…

And the rest?  Well in this batch there are (4.5 to 5 cups combined total) chopped nuts (peanuts, almonds, pecans, walnuts,) dried cranberries, raisins (sultana and regular), dried pineapple, dried cherries, dried strawberries, dried mango, dried kiwi fruit, dried apples, banana chips (broken up).  All of this was mixed up with a half cup of flour BEFORE being added to the dough, then mixed in well.

It should make about 10 dozen small cookies… yeah, but I only got maybe 5 dozen … mom was helping drop the cookies on the baking sheets and they got BIG… they are really YUMMY too.

I had all these little packages of chopped nuts and dried cranberries from those salad kits and some leftover fruit and nut snack mix… I almost added chocolate chips but changed my mind at the last-minute.

The next batch will use up all the toffee and nut crumbs from the candy making.