Christmas in Louisville 2013

For Christmas 2013, we decided to stay in Louisville and see what this great city has to offer for the Christmas Season.  I'm glad we decided to do this!!  There's so much to do at Christmas time in this city.  Here are some of the pictures of the different things we did and places we went.  Enjoy!!

First, I must mention, that Christmas time ushered in the beginnings of the Polar Vortex over here in Kentucky.  This is Matt's truck covered in icicles  right before we left to go to the Creation Museum in Northern Kentucky.

This is a pretty bad quality of a picture, but it's the only one that I actually took at the Creation Museum.  So this is the only actual proof that I have that we went there.  :)  Matt got to hold this huge snake, I didn't really want too.  I'm not a snake person.  :)  We love to visit the Creation Museum and this was the first activity we did to usher in the Christmas season here in Kentucky.

We spent the entire day at the Creation Museum, and then spent the night over in Ohio, near Cincinnati.   We quickly realized that Matt's windshield wiper blades from California had given up the ghost and were no match for the Northern KY, snow.  :)

Louisville, is known for having the best city water there is.  I don't really have anything to compare it with since I'm a country girl who grew up on well water.  I still don't drink the water from the tap here though.  In this picture Matt and I are walking around the water treatment plant's reservoir.  The water is pumped in directly from the Ohio river and treated here.  It was a really cold and windy day; that's why my hair looks even more wild than it usually does.  :)

Here's something really unique that we did.  We went and saw Christmas lights inside a cave.  It was pretty amazing.  It was called Lights Under Louisville.  This picture is the entrance to the cave.  I thought it was interesting that the first light display said, "Keep Christ in Christmas."  The next few photos are from are time under Louisville enjoying the light displays.  It was about a 20 minute drive through this amazingly festive cavern.

We enjoyed going to the Frazier History Museum in Downtown Louisville on a Sunday afternoon.  They had a bunch of Christmas trees on display and each one was decorated to the theme of a different country.

For our Christmas Eve dinner this year we had schnitzel with spaetzle.  As you can see it was definitely a German themed dinner.  We were on a schnitzel kick and it seemed like it would make a great Christmas Eve dinner. We even made the spaetzle from scratch.  After our dinner we went to Clifton Baptist Church for the first Christmas Eve service that we have ever been too.  We really enjoyed our time at church, and then we went around town and enjoyed all the different light displays at people's homes.  It was a great Christmas Eve night finished off by watching the Nativity, and sleeping out in the living room by the Christmas tree.  

Our Christmas morning tradition is to wake up and have freshly made maple cinnamon rolls.  We love the recipe from the Pioneer Woman's cook book.  They were so good as you can tell by the empty plate.  :)

This is a crazy picture.  We look like we've had way too much sugar or something.  :) Matt's mom sent us our Christmas gifts and when we opened them, confetti exploded everywhere.  It was so funny!! Our carpet was literally covered in confetti.

I got Matt a bunch of calligraphy supplies for his gift.

Matt got me some really nice frying pans and also some quilting supplies.


We really had a great Christmas as we celebrated our Lord's birth over here in Louisville, KY.  We constantly praise the Lord for where He has brought us and what he is teaching us while we are here at Southern  Seminary.

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have been working on perfecting my chocolate chip cookie recipe this year, and I think I've finally done it!  So, because I'm nice, I'm going to share the step by step pictorial recipe with you all.  :) These cookies are so good!  Warning:  If you're on a diet, these cookies are not for you, they're full of fat and sugary goodness.  :)   Click Here for a printable version of this recipe:  Printable Version 

For the Christmas season I've been making the peppermint white chocolate chip version of these cookies, but you'll see how easy it is to change up what you can put in these cookies.

First, Let's start with the ingredients:

I'll give you the exact ingredients and their measurements at the bottom of this post in the actual recipe. The only thing healthy about these ingredients is the organic brown sugar.  :)  Honestly I don't usually use organic baking ingredients because they are so expensive.  The only reason I used it this time is because I was out of regular brown sugar and the closest store to us is a little health food store called Rainbow Blossom.  

Okay, this step is really important, and you won't find it in many chocolate chip cookie recipes.  You must must must take your butter and eggs out of the fridge and let them come to room temperature.  This will help them cream together with the sugar much better and make for even more yummy chewy cookies.  I usually cube up my butter and let it sit on the counter for about 2 hours.  Don't skip this step, it's really important.  

For these particular cookies that I made tonight, I added 12 crushed candy canes.  I made a double batch of cookies so my husband could take them to work tomorrow.  It's pretty easy to crush the candy canes, but it can be a pain to unwrap them all.  :)  I just put the candy canes in a ziploc bag and crushed them with my meat mallet.  Make sure you don't crush them into powder, just small pieces like in this picture.  

Now that you've brought your butter and eggs up to room temperature, and crushed your candy canes, you can cream together your butter, butter-flavored Crisco, white sugar and brown sugar.  Okay, once again, this next part is not in most chocolate chip cookie recipes, but it is really important too.  Beat this butter/Crisco/Sugars mixture with your electric beater for 5 minutes.  Yes, I said 5 minutes.  I thought this was pretty crazy at first too.  But, this helps to break down all the sugars and really cream them together with the butter/Crisco.  Warning, your arm can get tired from this much beating with the mixer, so you may want to enlist your husband's help at this point.  He'll like his reward of getting to lick the beaters.  I know Matt loves that part.  :) 

Next your going to add your eggs and vanilla to the creamed mixture.  Beat once again with the electric mixer until the vanilla and eggs are fully incorporated.  The batter should be somewhat fluffy at this point and a little stiff.  

Now it's time to measure out our dry ingredients into a separate bowl.  

This is an important little side not about measuring flour and other dry ingredients.  When measuring flour be sure to scoop the flour with a spoon into a measuring cup.  You want to avoid packing flour into your measuring cup as this will make the actual measurements incorrect and greatly effect the taste of your cookie.  Remember baking is like Chemistry, we need to be as exact as possible.

Here is another important step for measuring flour.  Always level off the measuring cup.  I just use a butter knife to gently slide the excess flour back into the jar.  

I know that most flour now days comes pre-sifted, but I really like to sift my own flour after it's all been measured out into the sifter along with the other dry ingredients.  Think about it, your flour has been sitting in a container in your pantry, it needs some fluffing up right?  Also, it's really fun to use a sifter. (If you have young children, this is something they can do,)  I got this one from an antique store and I love it.  I remember that this was one of my favorite things to do when I was helping my mom make cookies when I was little.  So using a sifter now is kind of nostalgic for me, but I do think it definitely effects the texture of your cookies.  It makes them less tough.  

I now add the sifted dry ingredients to my creamed wet ingredients a little at a time and beat them together with my electric mixer.  I add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in 3 different installments.  Hmm...installments sounds funny, but that's the best word I could think of to describe this process.  :)  Make sure that all the dry ingredients are mixed together with the wet ones.  Don't over mix at this point though.  Remember flour has gluten, and the more you mix gluten the tougher it gets making you have really tough cookies.  

This is the fun part, add in whatever your heart desires to your cookies.  For this batch I used white chocolate chips and crushed candy canes to make them nice and festive for the Christmas season. You can get really creative at this point.  Here are some ideas:

• Any kind of baking chips
• Any kind of nuts
• Dried fruits (I like craisins and dried apricots) 
• Crushed pretzels
• Crushed candy bars

For this part, mix the add ins by hand.  I use a big wooden spoon.  Once again, you may want to get your husband to help you with this part, because the dough will be very stiff at this point.  Don't worry, he won't mind, he can't wait to eat one of your cookies, so he will do anything to make the process go faster.

Now at this point, must recipes would tell you to get your baking sheets ready, but this isn't most recipes, so instead, you will be getting your Pyrex glass casserole dish ready. :)  This cookie dough is not headed to the oven, but to the freezer first.  So, line a large freezer proof dish with parchment paper.

Use your 1/4 cup measuring cup to scoop out some of the cookie dough.  The dough should be very stiff and not sticky to the touch at all.  

Scoop the dough out of the measuring cup with your hand and lightly form it into a disc shape, not a ball.  

Place all the cookie dough disks into the parchment lined freezer safe dish.  

I double-stack my cookie dough discs in my Pyrex glass casserole dish and then I put the lid on them, or you could cover them with foil.  At this point it's into the freezer with these dough discs.  It's best to let them freeze over night, but if you need them sooner, let them freeze for at least 2 hours.  One of the reasons that I love this recipe so much is that all the dough goes into the freezer, and you can take out the dough discs when you feel like making cookies, you don't have to cook up all 24.  Which is good, because these cookies are huge, you wouldn't want to eat 24 in one sitting.  :)  The dough discs will keep for up to 3 months in your freezer.  So, if you have guests come over you can always just pop some of these dough discs into the oven and surprise your guests with fresh baked cookies.  

After the cookies have been frozen, you can take out however many you want to bake and place them on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet.  I love using parchment paper, it helps your cookies not to darken or burn on the bottom and they cook much more evenly.  I usually cook just 4 at a time for Matt and I.  

After the cookies have been in a 350 degree oven for 9 minutes, I flip the sheet around to ensure that they cook evenly and bake them for another 9 minutes.  Remember that every oven cooks differently.  I'm cooking with an electric oven so a total of 18 minutes of baking time works perfect for me, but it may not for you.  So when you first make these cookies be sure to check your cookies often so that they don't burn or overcook.  Also, if you like really crispy cookies, you'll want to increase the time.  A baking time of 18 minutes creates cookies that are crispy on the edges and nice and chewy in the center. 

After your cookies are finished baking in the oven, immediately place them on a wooden cutting board and allow them to sit for 2 more minutes.  This allows the cookies to harden up a bit so that they will be easier to transfer to their cooling racks.  

This picture is just to show you the large size of these cookies compared to my Pampered Chef cookie spatula.  The large size of these cookies is what helps them to retain that nice chewy center and crispy edges that make them so amazing.  

Once the cookies have sat for 2 minutes on their cookie sheet, go ahead and transfer them to a cooling rack.  I like my cookies to not only taste amazing, but to look really good and uniform too.  With this recipe I have finally accomplished both.  You can eat these cookies warm with milk, or you can store them in an air-tight container for a couple of days if somehow they don't get eaten right away.  :) 

Here is the actual Recipe:  

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies Yields:  24 Large Cookies Ingredients 1 cup butter, softened 1/2 cup butter flavored Crisco 1 1/2 cups light brown sugar 1/2 cup granulated sugar 2 large eggs 4 teaspoons vanilla extract (use the best brand you can afford) 4 1/3 cups all-purpose flour 2 tablespoons cornstarch 2 teaspoons baking soda 1 teaspoon salt 1 bag baking chips of your choice Instructions Mix butter, butter-flavored Crisco and sugars with an electric mixer on medium for 5 minutes. Add egg and vanilla and mix with electric mixer on medium until completely combined.   Combine flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt and sift together. Mix dry ingredients slowly into wet ingredients and mix with the electric mixer on low.  The dough should be stiff and not sticky to the touch (Do not over mix the wet and dry ingredients this will cause your cookies to be tough.) Add in the baking chips and stir with a wooden spoon until thoroughly mixed together.  (Once again, be careful not to over mix.)  Using a 1/4 cup measuring cup, scoop out dough and from into a disc.  Place the dough discs into a parchment lined freezer safe container. Continue until all 24 cough discs are in the freezer safe container and then put them in the freezer. Place the dough discs in the freezer for at least 2 hours, but preferably overnight.  The dough can remain in the freezer for up to 3 months.   Place frozen dough discs onto a parchment lined baking sheet and bake in a  350 degree preheated oven for 8 minutes and then turn the baking sheet and cook for another 8 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool on the cookie sheet for 2 minutes. Remove from the cookie sheet and place the cookies on a cooling rack. You can eat these cookies warm or allow them to cool and then place them in an air-tight container for a few days.  (If they last that long.)

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