Winter Thoughts

Snow Toward Evening

Suddenly the sky turned gray,

The day,

Which had been bitter and chill,

Grew soft and still.

Quietly

From some invisible blossoming tree

Millions of petals cool and white

Drifted and blew,

Lifted and flew

Fell with the falling night.

by Melville Cane

As I pen this blog the snow just keeps on falling and falling. While the whole outside scene is quite picturesque I for one breathe a sigh of relief that January will soon be but a memory!! It has seemed long :)

Before Christmas I posted a recipe for Sand Art Brownies that I had made in mason jars for gifts. I recently found a twist on this same idea called Sand Art Cookies. I posted a picture of the unusual packaging for these sand art cookies I purchased at bake sale. The ingredients were layered in a triangular cone shape piece. With Valentine's Day just around the corner perhaps you might be looking for an easy gift idea. If you use a quart mason jar try adding a red ribbon around the mouth of the jar and then attach the recipe card and baking instructions to it.

Sand Art Cookies

adapted from allrecipes.com

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup quick rolled oats
• 3/4 cup baking M & M's
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1-1/4 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 cup crisp rice cereal
• 1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

Directions:

• Layer ingredients in a quart jar in the following order above-but note: that the baking powder and salt should be mixed into flour mixture before layering it
• Preheat oven 350
• Lightly Grease cookie sheet
• Empty contents of jar to a bowl and add 1 jumbo egg, 1/2 cup margarine and 1 tsp. vanilla
• Mix well and form into 1 inch balls
• Bake 10-12 minutes
• Makes about 2 dozen cookies