It’s December 3rd already and I have yet to blog about our Solstice countdown. For shame! The weather has seriously got me down these days. This year has been terribly dark, wet, grey and cool. Even more so than it usually is here on the wet north coast. With less than a week’s worth of sunny warmth this last “summer” it’s hard to just jump right back into the dark days of winter the way we seemed to.
Regardless, I need to shift gears, change my perspective, wake up on the other side of the bed…. something. Upon reflection it occurred to me that the change of perspective I desperately need is right under my nose! One of the reasons we count down and celebrate winter Solstice is to celebrate the fact that the days will very soon be getting longer instead of shorter. We only have 19 more days of shorter days! Now that’s something to celebrate.
It was a mostly sunny day today. We all gaped at the shining sun as it came over the mountain and then we couldn’t help but squint and turned our faces away. Our eyes aren’t used to seeing this much sun! We rely heavily on the our Floradix multivitamin for our vitamin D since a “sunny” day to us is not much more than a vaguely bright overcast. At least that’s been the case for the last year or so.
We spent this afternoon with friends decorating cookies. I was going to use my old lemon sugar cookie recipe but opted for a slightly richer version today. Sugar cookie dough is best made the night before so it has plenty of time to chill before you roll it out. We brought chlorophyll and beet root powder to colour the frosting and Anna made naturally dyed frosting, as well. She dyed hers with beets and avocado. Here’s what I did:
Old Fashioned Sugar Cookies
- 3 cups All Purpose Flour
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
- 1/2 tsp Cream of Tartar
- 1/2 cup Unsalted Butter
- 1 cup Sugar
- 2 Eggs
- 1 tsp Vanilla
- 1/2 cup Heavy Cream
- In a medium bowl, whisk dry ingredients together.
- In a large bowl, cream butter, adding sugar gradually. Cream until soft and fluffy.
- Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Mix in vanilla.
- Alternately add dry ingredients and cream to egg sugar mixture. Mix well.
- Wrap in wax paper and chill in refrigerator for 3 hours or overnight.
- Preheat oven to 350’F and line cookie sheet with parchment.
- Roll out on a well-floured board or countertop to 1/4- 1/2 inch thickness. Shape with floured cookie cutters.
- Bake 6-10 minutes. Cookies will not be brown when they are done. Press down lightly after 6 or 8 minutes. If the cookie springs back it’s done.
Vanilla Butter Cream Frosting
- 1/2 cup Butter, room temperature
- 4 oz Cream Cheese
- 1 1/2 tsp Vanilla
- 2-3 cups Icing Sugar
- Heavy Cream
- Whip butter and cream cheese until light and fluffy.
- Add vanilla and icing sugar mixing until well combined.
- Add cream to bring frosting to desired consistency.
Think of it this way too, the defused light from all the cloudy days gives you wonderful light for photographing. Your pictures are always so lovely.
i wish i could bottle up some of the sun we get and send it to you, for when you need it most.
i am very susceptible to lack of sunlight and lacko f general light, the differences on the low light days to the higher light days is crazy, often i don’t feel like the same person!
and, i take lots of vit D ( a new one i take is suspended in coconut oil, little 1000 iu caplets) and i take 3-5 /day, so about 3000-5000 iu per day. the other one i took i felt little difference, but this one has had my emotions and moods lighter this fall. but maybe you do that already.
i also avoid um, sugar!! ;-) when i cut it out we all feel better, this season is tricky, but we just choose to bake a few less sweet things and have only one. today i am suffering a cake “hangover” …one piece of matthew’s bithday cake and we all felt ill uopn waking, that’s how sugar sensitive we are.