Adding Spice to the Season - Ginger Cookies!

A favorite scent in the holiday air is baking ginger cookies. Although most ginger cookies are pretty tasty, I like taking them up a level in heat and flavor. I finished my Christmas baking but forgot to include this important aspect to what I consider a complete offering of Christmas Cookies.

Ginger Cookies

4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
4  teaspoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups solid shortening
2 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 cup molasses
1/2 cup finely chopped candied ginger
1/2 tablespoon freshly grated orange zest

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper or use vegetable oil spray.

Combine the flour, spices, salt, baking soda, and black pepper in a bow. Set aside for now.

In a mixing bowl, beat the shortening and sugar until well-combined. Beat in the molasses and eggs. Work in the dry ingredients and chopped ginger and orange zest.

Shape dough into balls the approximate size of walnuts. Roll the dough balls in coarse sugar or colored sugar. They will spread so place about 2-inches apart on prepared baking sheets.

Bake in preheated oven for 10-12 minutes or until the cookies are pale brown and puffed. Cool on baking sheet a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to complete cooling process. Makes two to three dozen cookies depending on the size you make them.

More than one way to do harm . . .

As usual, the politicians and various groups immediately used the tragedy in Connecticut to uphold their agendas. In this case, gun control was mentioned with the promise by the president to work towards some end on that subject. Guns don't kill people. They need the action of a person in order to be harmful. As someone mentioned, if the teacher had been armed, yesterday's scenario might have been a bit different. Taking away guns won't stop crime. The people who truly want to rob and maim will continue to do so and would have ways to obtain a weapon if they wanted one. Societies that take away guns often have more crime because, now, the general population is unarmed.

Yesterday's tragedy wasn't the guns used so much as the person using them. It is pitiful for political leaders to use such an event to further their current pet cause. Although, it was sure to be said, it was still sad to actually hear such words brought forth in the face of the current events.

Around the same time the Sandy Hook murders were taking place, there was a near-disaster in China when a man armed with a knife slashed 22 small school children and an adult. They were blessed as there were no fatalities. There was also, as of my reading now, not much mention of the event which, in my mind was still a horrible thing to happen to innocent children in school. I had to wonder if it was left in the small print of the news because it happened in a far away place. Or, maybe, it would have diluted the gun control issue as one man manged to do great damage without the use of a gun.

Last week, one of the talk show hosts made mention of murders/harm done in the news that didn't make use of a gun. You take away guns, you deprive moral people of protection and their rights. People with the intent to hurt/kill don't need a gun to carry out their sick desires.

The United States experienced a horrible event that won't soon be forgotten, yesterday. Needless deaths happened and we should all join in the mourning of the loss of innocent lives. When gun control enters the rhetoric, sad events are put on the back burner while politicians use the events to further their own causes. It demeans the time of sorrow.

Eternal rest grant onto them . . . Deaths in Connecticut today . . .

Eternal rest grant onto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them . . .

Any sudden death takes away a bit of one's heart as they try to come to terms with it. Car accidents, mishaps, illness all have an explanation of sorts as to why it happened and we are left to cope with the outcome of the loss of a loved one. The hurt is deep but we can come to terms with it. Today, however, twenty little children were brutally murdered. They probably watched in terror and shock as they were gunned down, one by one, by a stranger to them. I have to wonder how the parents will deal with this unnecessary invasion into their lives and the loss of their babies. I have tears just knowing it happened. How much more sorrowful to have to live through this?

I imagine that many of these little ones were looking forward to visits to Santa this weekend and shopping for Christmas surprises for their parents. The mother and fathers probably already had gifts wrapped and ready for them under the Christmas tree. The warmth of the Christmas Season was tragically taken away from the families of these children as well as the families of the adults who also died in that school today.
It is a good reminder to the rest of us to never part in anger with any of our family. We should always send a prayer their way during the day. We never know what the end of the day will be like in spite of our expectations of the morning.

Faith is what brings us through these times even though the hurt and sorrow will be ingrained in hearts for a long time to come. I'm imagining the look on God's Face, today, when He welcomes these little souls back into His keeping. At least there will be no more pain for them as they spend this Christmas with the Reason for the Season.


Jesus, however, said, "Let the little children come to me, and stop keeping them away, because the kingdom from heaven belongs to people like these."

This Year's Accomplishment!

Okay, bragging now but here is the list of cookies I baked this year!

Chewy Crispy Oatmeal
Chewy Sugar Cookies
Chocolate Crackles
Lebkuchen Drops
Pecan Sugar Cookies
Chocolate Snickerdoodles
Vanilla Cinnamon Snickerdoodles
Hazelnut Sandwiches
White Chocolate Nut Cranberry Cookies
Hazelnut Biscotti
Sour Cream Twists
Sugar Cut out cookies
Jubilee Jumbles
Snow Balls
Linzer Torte Cookies
Chocolate Marble Cookies
Orange Poppy Seed
Toasted Coconut
Ginger & Spice
Chocolate Chip
Hazelnut Chocolate Chip
Toffee Bars
Coffee Thins
Chocolate/Vanilla Checkerboard Cookies
Brownies
Walnut Bars
Cranberry Bars
Mint Brownies
Tosetti
Ossi da Mordere
Coconut Macaroons.

Final Day of Christmas Cookie Baking!

 I finished off cookie baking with Brownies, Walnut Bars, Cranberry Bars, Mint Brownies, Tosetti, Ossi da Mordere, and Snow Balls. The Tosetti come from an Italian baking book and is a chunky bar cookies with candied orange peel and hazelnuts. They are very unimposing cookies and are often looked over when people are helping themselves to the cookie plate. That's fine as it means more for me! The Ossi da Mordere is a cookie basically comprised of cocoa powder, ground almonds, sugar, and egg white. When it bakes, it puffs up a bit and is sort of hollow inside thus the name translated: bones of the dead! In all, I made over 30 kinds of cookies and now get to spend the rest of the week parceling them out to distribute to friends and neighbors for Christmas gifts.

December 12th - Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadaloupe

“Hear me and understand well, my son the least, that nothing should frighten or grieve you. Let not your heart be disturbed. Do not fear that sickness, nor any other sickness or anguish. Am I not here, who is your Mother? Are you not under my protection? Am I not your health? Are you not happily within my fold? What else do you wish? Do not grieve nor be disturbed by anything.” ~Our Lady of Guadalupe

Why freedom fails . . .

Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Signer of the Declaration of Independence

Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime & pure, [and] which denounces against the wicked eternal misery, and [which] insured to the good eternal happiness, are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments.

(Source: Bernard C. Steiner, The Life and Correspondence of James McHenry (Cleveland: The Burrows Brothers, 1907), p. 475. In a letter from Charles Carroll to James McHenry of November 4, 1800.)