Slowing down

It's a busy time of year. My son's birthday is Wednesday, Hanukkah is upon us, Christmas is coming, and so on and so forth. I have been reading a lot about Slow Parenting, Free Range Parenting, and thinking a lot about getting back to basics. In cooking, that translates to focusing on how I can make it easy to cook healthful, whole food, tasty meals and treats. Doing so in a way that makes it likely for me to do it often.

I always bake a lot around Christmas. Cookies and pies and breads galore. But this year I have been baking every week. The kids have been eating homemade, non processed home baked cookies every day at school in their Bento lunches. So I am not really feeling the need to go nuts. I suppose I could take this opportunity to bake fussier cookies that look beautiful on the table. I don't have time to do this usually. But frankly, who has time to do it now? So instead, I will stick to three cookies (I think)... my famous Big Chocolate Chip cookies (I made double the dough when I baked for the Daisy troupe last week, so it is in the fridge and ready to go), peanut butter blossoms with dark chocolate kisses (because Paul loves them and I love him.) and a simple rustic butter cookie. I asked some friends how they thought I should get my desired rectangle shape, and I got many ideas. Many included using my spritz cookie thing which is gathering dust at the moment, some involved rolling and cutting them into cookie cutter shapes, I went simple. I pushed the dough flat with my hands and cut the shapes with a knife. They came out good and rustic looking and simple. So as much as I love decorating cookies with my kids, this year we are sticking with easy.

Recipes to come, when I have some time to focus on them. For now, I am roasting a chicken for dinner, cleaning the house for the after school religion class my friend teaches here in my dining room, and rushing off to pick up N. at pre school.

Did I mention that I saved $78 at the super market today in coupons? Want to know my method?