What We've Been Cooking: Holiday Treats

Before we left for our trip, we had a lot of kitchen work to do.  Holiday treats for our local service workers, coworkers, and gifts for Thatbaby's teachers.

I got my station all prepped with all the ingredients and packing materials I needed. I started with the coworkers.  Mostly because Thatboy had an office party he needed "cookies" for.  Instead of cookies, I made the classic peanut butter balls, with a twist.  Instead of peanut butter, I combined almond butter with confectioner sugar and cocoa.  Then I rolled them into little balls and rolled those balls in coconut. 

Next came the treats for our postman and garbage men.  We gave them gift cards, but that's a little impersonal, so we tucked the cards in festive packages along with some candy.  I melted white chocolate and created little discs, topping each disc with dried cherries and pistachios.

For the final treat, we needed to make something for Thatbaby's teachers.  I say "we" because I decided Thatbaby was old enough to make his own gifts.  (With some adult supervision, of course).  For his 3 main teachers he filled mason jars with Hershey kisses (and I snuck some gift cards there too).  But all the teachers really help each other out, and I wanted to let them know we appreciate them too.  So I gathered ingredients so Thatbaby could make them raspberry chocolate sauce.

With all the ingredients measured out and prepped in little bowls, all he had to do was dump in the chocolate, corn syrup, cocoa, sugar, vanilla, and water into the pan.  Then he stirred until the chocolate was all melted.  We let it cool before pouring it into the little bottles I had.  I did the pouring while Thatbaby held the funnel.  I got word from one of the teachers last night that the sauce is exceptionally good over vanilla ice cream!

But these holiday treats aren't the only things that have been cooking in Thatkitchen.  I've been doing a little baking of my own. 

Thatbaby version 2.0 is coming this spring!  Guess that means it's time to officially promote Thatbaby to Thatkid!