For day two of the self imposed cookie – a – day challenge, I made gingerbread cookies.  And sugar cookies.  I was an over – achiever today.

I usually use a Susan Branch recipe for BOTH gingerbread cut -outs and butter cookie cut – outs, but I discovered I was out of corn syrup and had to find another way to go for the gingerbread.  Luckily, I have a wonderful resource (other than the internet!): The America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook.

Also luckily, I found an online source to link to HERE for all of you of said recipe.

The dough is very simple to make, rolls out nicely, and smells divine in the oven.

There’s also no eggs in the dough so it’s even harder not to eat it raw.

Since I pulled out all the cookie cutters and whatnot I figured I’d whip out the butter cookies as well.  This is where Susan Branch comes in again with her Annie Hall’s Butter Cookies recipe.

This recipe makes a ton of cookies and is rich yet not overly so.

I made dozens and dozens of cookie shapes and set them out on the table along with frosting and sprinkles for the kids to decorate.  It kept them good and busy for quite awhile, and I didn’t have to do it.

Soon that tub will be overflowing with a cornucopia of sugar and more sugar.

Now, since I am over-achieving, I decided that in honor of tonight being the first night of Hanukkah we may as well have one of our favorite meals: Blueberry Blintzes.

Oh yeah.

I start out making my tried and true crepe recipe:

2 eggs

1 cup milk

1 cup flour

1 tsp vanilla

2 TBS sugar

2 TBS melted butter.

Whisk  all together and let it rest for 30 minutes.

While that is resting, I made the blintz filling.  I searched around the internet (well, Pinterest anyway) and got an idea for the general “feel” of a cheese filling.  SO I mixed up a cup of small curd cottage cheese, a package of cream cheese, and a quarter cup of sugar.

Once the crepe batter was ready to go I made them the usual way (in a crepe pan or frying pan) by spreading out the batter into a very thin pancake and flipping once it browned.

When all the batter was used up I rolled a good large spoonful of cheese filling into each crepe burrito – style and sauteed it about 2 or 3 minutes on each side until heated through and somewhat browned.

I didn’t have any fresh blueberries on hand, but I did have a can of blueberry pie filling.  I heated that up in the microwave while the blintzes were cooking.

When everything was ready, I placed a blintz on the plate with a dollop of blueberry topping.  If I had been thinking, I could have added a little whipped cream as well.  Next time.

A little bit of heaven on a plate.