Day Nine: Pecan Tassies

If you thought pecan pies were only for Thanksgiving, you are in for a treat. These tassies are pecan pies in miniature. Just as delicious, with a flakier crust and crunchier pecan layer.

I am particularly grateful because we skipped the pecan pie at Thanksgiving this year.

I like my tassies with a thick crust, but if you want a thinner crust, try rolling each ball into a circle before pressing it into the tin. It's more time consuming, but it will yield results closer to typical pecan pie.

These freeze well and are tasty with ice cream.

Day Five: Swedish Crescents

Growing up, we spent Christmas Eve with my mom's parents and Christmas with my dad's mom. Christmas with Grandma Clements meant opening stockings that would be filled with lots of practical gifts, including tape and apples. It meant spending hours admiring the Christmas scene she had constructed each year on the mantle. It meant a big, hearty dinner with little gems, our favorite tiny biscuits.

And of course, it always meant cookies, and lots of them. There would be butterscotch haystacks, these swedish crescents, and many more of the cookies you'll be seeing over the next few days.

We'd enjoy them after dinner, on Grandma's beautiful china dessert plates, alongside a bowl of ice cream with hot fudge sauce.

I'd always have to have at least one swedish crescent that night. The powdered sugar made them messy, and I would be left with hands coated in sugar. I didn't mind. These swedish crescents are still delightful today. The outer layers melt in your mouth and the inner cookie has a satisfying crunch to it. These were so tasty that I forgot to take a picture of the finished cookies before eating them all. Oops.

Oatmeal Pecan Chocolate Chip Cookies

Baking relaxes me.

I stumbled upon this oatmeal pecan chocolate chip cookie recipe a few days ago on Joy the Baker. She posted the recipe in response to reader queries about what to make for boys they are just crazy about. Joy said these were the perfect cookies to package up and send (in a heart-shaped box, of course) to that far-away boy. I thought it was the perfect cookie recipe for me to eat. I was excited to realize that I had just enough ingredients for a half batch waiting for me in the fridge.

I made these cookies while waiting for the bialys to rise. They were easy, easy, easy to make. If you can make chocolate chip cookies, you can easily make this slightly dressed-up version.