Easy Christmas Cookies

(Sorry for the poor lighting!)

These cookies are the result of my baking so far today. I've made about 16 dozen of these cake mix cookies: Devil's Food Chocolate Chip, Milk Chocolate Chocolate Chip, & Snickerdoodles. Each batch takes 1 box of cake mix, 1 stick of butter, 2 eggs, and 1 tsp vanilla. The chocolate chip cookies each have 2/3 cup of chocolate chips and 1/3 cup of chopped pecans. The snickerdoodles were rolled in 1/3 cup sugar and 3 tsp cinnamon before baking. All were baked at 350 degrees for 12 minutes. Easy peasy!

Next I'd like to try an iced lemon cookie or an oatmeal raisin carrot cake cookie. I'll let you know how that goes.

Instant masala chai

This morning I was texting one of my friends before she went to work. She has an Indian step-mother and is a big chai lover like me. I told her that I'd have a travel cup of chai ready for her if she was inclined to do a drive-by at Mik's Cafe. She was so inclined! This got me thinking...I had made up a batch of my chai masala for her but she's usually too tired to go through the whole process of boiling the water, tea, milk & spices at the end of the day to make it. What if I whipped up a batch of instant chai mix for her? She could even take it to work and make herself a cuppa whenever she wanted one?

Here's what I came up with:

Mik's Instant Masala Chai

1/2 cup dry milk powder
1 1/2 cups non-dairy creamer (try vanilla flavored creamer if you don't have vanilla sugar)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup vanilla sugar (vanilla beans left in a container of sugar)
1/4 cup honey powder (found at a local Korean market - may substitute with sugar)
3/4 cup unsweetened instant tea
1 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground clove
1/2 tsp cardamom
dash ground nutmeg
dash black pepper

Use 3 rounded kitchen teaspoonsful (not measuring spoons) per 8 oz boiling water. I'm not sure how many servings this batch will make.

Please let me know if you try this and what changes you make to suit your taste.

Enjoy!

Turkey & Wild Rice Soup

This is a really easy recipe and a great use of leftover Thanksgiving turkey.

Turkey & Wild Rice Soup
2 Tbsp. butter
1 carton fresh button mushrooms, sliced
1/4 large onion, diced very small
1 1/2 cups chopped, cooked turkey (or chicken will work, too)
1 box Rice A Roni Long Grain & Wild Rice mix with spice pouch
3 cans chicken broth
2 cups water
1 cup 1/2 & 1/2 cream

Saute mushrooms and onion in butter. Add chopped turkey, rice mix, spice pouch, broth, and water. Bring to a boil, lower heat, cover and simmer until rice is cooked and starts to curl. When ready to serve, add cream and just heat through.