My *Newest* Favorite Things

I love all things sweet. And recently took on a few new hobbies. One of my new hobbies is baking. I love having delicious sweet desserts and taking the time to make them not just eat them. It’s so therapeutic. On Pinterest I have tons of sweet party pins and even more on my Recipes to Try board.

One baking genre I have yet to venture into is baking cookies. I’m terrified of them. When I was younger I would always burn the bottoms of the Pillsbury cookies I would attempt to bake. No bueno.

I had recently purchased delicious cookies as party favors for my daughters 3rd Birthday party. I ordered them on Etsy from Kathryn Harter from Not Betty Cookies. One word… Super delish! So I ordered more for my nieces 1st birthday coming up.

Her cookies were so yummy. And what I think made these cookies super special was the almond extract flavor. So since then I’ve been dying to make cookies with almond extract. But where in the world could I buy pure almond extract and not imitation? Williams-Sonoma that’s where! I’m sure I could purchase them from other places but this was the most accessible to me. I even splurged and purchase and purchase some pure vanilla extract (from Madagascar vanilla beans nonetheless).

As soon as I received the packages I ripped them up and opened each bottle to take a whiff of the deliciousness. They smelled wonderful. They are now a few of my favorite things!

I purchased the vanilla extract in a store so I was able to use them in my mini Pumpkin Pies, but I have yet to gather enough courage to take a shot at cookies. I’m getting there though. And as soon as I make them I’ll share them with you… only… virtually.  Even If I don’t do so well at my first try.

To complement my new purchases and my new endeavor to bake cookies (and pies) I have a new favorite thing.

This rolling pin. I have no idea how to use it well. But I’ll learn. Any tips? So excited!

Another one of my favorite things I discovered last Thanksgiving. For a few years I’ve always been in charge of making the stuffing. So I went online searching the world wide web for recipes. I never like the StoveTop boxed stuff. I’ve used dried bread cubes, fresh bread cubes, etc. I never found one recipe I liked alone so I ended up mixing a few ideas from here and there. People, as well as my self enjoyed it. But we all knew… something was missing. But what? For a few years I racked my brain trying to adjust ingredients until last year. Last year I discovered this…

Williams-Sonoma’s Foccaica Stuffing!!!!! This is what was missing. This made all the difference in the stuffing. It took the decent stuffing I made to a new level. At first I was suspicious because they were dried but that didn’t matter a bit. I took the bread-cubes and used some of the seasonings included in the package and mixed it with my already existing recipe and it was… Awesome!

It was so good that after Thanksgiving I wanted to make more but they had completely sold out and weren’t going to be back in stock till next year. So you bet your stuffing I order not one, but two boxes and yes… it’s only September!

So there they are a couple of my newest favorite things! I only have one problem: Who’s going to eat all of my “projects”. My hips will be very upset if I don’t find a solution to this issue soon.

I can’t wait to get started. I have all the tools I need. Now all I need to do is find the time!