Jackson Jambalaya

It would be fun to tell Christmas Cookie Lies to you guys, but Santa (who is a real guy, just not as heavy as the story says) says that telling Christmas Cookie Lies about how I made these will result in switches and coal under the tree with my name on them. 

For many years, our family, mom's six sisters, their brother and maybe 30 cousins all reported to the family home west of Isola, MS for Christmas. How she did it I still don't understand, but we all had our fill of good eats, mostly cooked by my grandmother.

The daughters all brought something to help. Mom's assigned dish to bring was Potato Salad (her killer recipe that I can exactly duplicate). 

When grandparent holidays in Isola ended after PaPa sold the farm and they moved to Leland for their last few years, we switched to Mom and Dad house celebrations that included my older brother, two younger sisters, Mom, Dad and eventually more than a handful of grandkids, (but nowhere close to 30). For our altered celebration, we had the great food Mom cooked and whatever treats we, the brother and his wife, and the sisters with their husbands brought.

Mom cooked the real food, and we all brought cookies, cakes, pies, chex mix, mixed nuts, chips and homemade sweets. Now, Dad is gone, the family house was sold, and mom is in assisted living. Now, things are no longer the same, just similar. I will say the holidays are a lot quieter now. The brother, sisters and I are pretty spread out (distance wise) and kids, and grandkids, even more so. 

(A note from 12/18) We actually have a great grandchild (a girl – to be named Octavia - to be called Tavi) that will be in our family by the time this is posted. She is in delivery, our luggage is packed, and we are waiting for the call to travel to Louisiana, probably on the 19^th or 20^th of December.

!!!!!! What a Christmas Gift !!!!!!

In years past, at Mom and Dad's house, each of us had our specialty food and were expected to bring it. The youngest sister always brought a big Tupperware container of sugar cookies, vanilla iced and sprinkled with those multicolored little pellet/balls. They were the first thing I looked for after they arrived at Mom and Dad's and put their stuff on the goodies table in the dining room. When we knew the Mom and Dad house celebration days were over, I called my sister to get the recipe and was shocked to learn her cookie recipe was a couple or three bags of Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix, a can or two of creamy vanilla frosting and a bottle or two of sprinkles, with a full hour or two of loving effort.

I was such a dummy for so many years, eating hundreds of iced and sprinkled sugar cookies, thinking they were incredible scratch made cookies, but I still love her. Maybe even more because these are so easy to make. Here is a good from scratch recipe for the purists here, but we make them from the bagged cookie mix and that is what I will show you here. Takes about one to two hours to make them and they will not last long if placed before a crowd that includes kids or old guys who love cookies.

Homemade cookies recipe for purists:

Ingredients:

3 cups self-rising flour
1 cup butter at room temperature
1 cup white sugar, or more to taste
2 large eggs at room temperature
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon salt

Directions:

Beat flour, butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, and salt with an electric mixer in a large bowl until smooth, about 5 minutes. Wrap and chill dough in the refrigerator, 2 hours to overnight.

Preheat the oven to 275 degrees F (135 degrees C).

Roll dough out on a floured work surface using a lightly floured rolling pin; use cookie cutters to cut out desired shapes or hand form into balls. Place cookies onto baking sheets. If hand shaping, slightly press down the ball.

Bake in the preheated oven until cookie bottoms are lightly golden brown, about 15 minutes.

   ******

How you really need to make them. Thank you Betty Crocker!

Ingredients:

one or two or three bags of Betty Crocker Sugar Cookie Mix
the number if eggs called for on the bags (One per bag)
Butter as called for on the bags (One stick per bag)
Part, or Most of a container of vanilla frosting
Sprinkles as desired. Sometimes we do sprinkles, but they also sell red and green holly leaves and stars.

Directions:

Thanks for looking.
God Bless you.