wannafoodie in Metro Edmonton!

I'm thrilled to be included, alongside the esteemed and amazing Kitchen Magpie Karlynn and Phil the Baconhound, in a 12 Days of Christmas feature in Metro Edmonton. The 4th day of Christmas featured favourite holiday recipes from the three of us as well as many other local Edmontonians. 

Check out the full article and recipes here!

You can also find the full, step-by-step version of the Peppermint Hot Chocolate Cookies here. These are fussy babies since homemade marshmallows do not withstand heat in the same way that store-bought marshmallows do... so you have to chill chill chill your dough (and even your assembled cookies), cook these at a low temperature, and I highly recommend a test cookie to make sure that your oven isn't too hot! (Or... maybe give these a shot with store-bought marshmallows with a slight drop of peppermint extract on it.)

Thanks again to Metro Edmonton and Heather for including me in this Christmas countdown! And to all of you for reading!

*smiles*

Camp-foodie

A few weekends ago (and ambitiously early in terms of my tolerance for outdoorsy activities), we packed up our world and trekked it out to Spray Lakes. For someone with a near-complete disinterest in the discomfort of the outdoors, I needed a beautiful setting, good company, and really good food in order to get to the point of suspended disbelief and settle into enjoying the escape. 

Our first trip to Spray Lakes was last year and while there was a general state of preparedness, there was one tremendous misstep, which led to one tremendous meltdown. We each thought that the other had put the bag full of blankets in the car..... it was cold..... there was one sleeping bag between the two of us..... there was ugly crying..... need I say more?

Well, we made it through (without driving back home in the middle of the night) and in true Christine fashion, we laid everything out upon arriving home and now have itemized Excel packing lists, prepacked tubs of gear, and dedicated camping blankets whose sole purpose is to get us through the camping cold snaps. 

So, obviously, the first thing that made it to the car this year was a tub full of blankets (haha!) and we got on the road and out to our little hideout in Spray Lakes. We even managed to procure our same campsite, which just made everything so familiar and lovely. It really is the perfect site. And because I was packed up and felt prepared (basically since last summer), I had the time and energy to focus on the part that I really love... the food!

Peppermint Hot Chocolate Cookies

Thanks for visiting! You may have found this post through Pinterest, the Great Food Bloggers Cookie Swap, or Metro Edmonton... yay! Please stay a while and check out some of my other cookies, like the Lemon Cranberry Pecan Oatmeal cookies or -if marshmallows are more your schtick- there are Chocolate Stout Marshmallows topped with crushed pretzels, among other treats and treasures. Enjoy!

When word spread about a cookie exchange for food bloggers, I paused... could I pull this off? Could I be creative and produce a cookie that would make a food blogger also pause? I've so enjoyed making sweets and treats for my friends and family that I wasn't even sure why I was concerned! I gave my head a shake, surfed on over to the sign-up page, and signed myself up!

Let me say... I am so glad that I did that! Thoughts of the cookie that I would create took over my thoughts. I scribbled ideas onto scrap paper and post-it notes. I made several trips to the craft stores to find appropriate packaging. I eagerly made and mailed my little care packages, then waited in very eager anticipation for the arrival of cookies in my mailbox and my cookies in the mailboxes of my fellow bloggers. 

This whole exchange really put me into the holiday spirit but also challenged me to come up with a creative and new cookie to share... it kick-started the rest of my Christmas baking and introduced me to a community of bloggers that I found so inspiring... A big thanks again to Lindsay of Love and Olive Oil (and her Chocolate Sandwich Cookies with Malted Milk Chocolate Buttercream) and Julie of the Little Kitchen (and her New York Times Chocolate Chip Cookie). I can't wait for the next Great Food Bloggers Cookie Swap.

Peppermint Marshmallows

I have been on a real marshmallow kick lately. It's partially because I am obsessed with my Christmas baking but also because of the cold weather... what better to make than hot chocolate with marshmallows (as evidenced in my Eats & Smiles post last week).

In addition to those two very compelling reasons, I had one other very exciting reason for the marshmallow making... I signed up (a few weeks ago) for a food bloggers cookie swap! This swap was the brainchild of Lindsay of Love and Olive Oil and Julie of The Little Kitchen. What a great way to connect with a very vibrant food blogging community and share your wares!

They will be doing a round-up of all of the swap recipes (I will include a link once the recipes have been posted). You can also follow #fbcookieswap on Twitter to see some of the action unfold!

While I cannot yet share my cookie swap recipe here (come back on the 12th!), I can and will share the Peppermint Marshmallows with you!

Chocolate Stout Marshmallows

Last year, a great night with my girlfriend Caitlin parlayed into a guest post and some very pretty festive treats over the holiday break... Pretty, swirly red, vanilla kissed marshmallows made their way into the hands of fortunate friends and many a mug of steaming hot chocolate.

This is one of two times during the year that I am interested in marshmallows... generally, I'm not a fan. BUT during those cool, dark nights around a campfire in the summer OR the frigid winter while curled up on the couch under blanket and cuddling a mug, I could eat marshmallows until the sugar coma hits.

Winter has only recently hit and already I am in marshmallow mania. While grabbing supplies at the grocery, I did nab that tiny bottle of peppermint extract (which I will probably not find again in a few short weeks when everyone is Christmas baking up a storm) for some future marshmallow making... otherwise, it was the regular suspects before grabbing a bag of pretzels then heading across the street for our new star - beer!

Festive Vanilla Marshmallows

Hello wannafoodie readers! Caitlin here from northoftheforty-ninth.com. Some of you may recognize me from the wannafoodie header (I'm the one wiping my mouth in the stripes). I'm so excited to give you a peek into the marshmallow-making date I had with Christine last week! I wasn't sure we'd be able to get through making two batches of marshmallows in my teeny-tiny kitchen, but our mission was accomplished.

I was first inspired to make marshmallows when I was thinking of a Christmas gift to give the members of my book club. I wanted to make them something that they could drink or eat while curled up with a book on a cold winter night. Homemade hot cocoa and marshmallows seemed like my most adventurous bet. So, armed with my laptop, I set out to find the most manageable marshmallow recipe I could and I stumbled across this recipe from the Joy of Baking. The first batch went off without a hitch and I invited Christine over to make a second batch for stocking-stuffers. We decided to adapt the original recipe slightly using vanilla bean pods and food colouring for a more festive and flavourful feel.