Day 12 Of Rosie's Christmas Baking.

After screwing up the Nut and Berry Bark yesterday

with shards of glass, I had to remake it this morning. This is one of the favorite confections I make every year.

Here's the bag of pistachios Sister Hawthorne sent me. These nuts are much larger than the ones from Food Lion. And they came from Georgia.

Three cups of shelled pistachios and 1 hour 20 minutes later.

And here's the picture I didn't get yesterday of the white bars melting. Hang on, folks. One of these days I'll shoot paint drying for you.

Steam the cranberries for about 4 minutes.

Bake the pistachios for about 10 minutes at 350 degrees.

Now, what the heck's going on? I went to plug in my Christmas lights and here's another broken glass on my counter top. And I have no idea how this happened. At least it's not near any food.

Set aside about 1/4 cup each of the greener pistachios and the steamed dried cranberries.

After you spread out the white chocolate, pistachio, and cranberry mixture, sprinkle the nicer green pistachios and red cranberries over top.

After cooling, break the bark into bits.

Pretty bark with the bright green pistachios and the red cranberries.

This bark is so very good.

Now, time for lunch. And Mr. Hawthorne is cooking. We decided to cook some frozen hamburger patties and clean out the freezer a bit. But I wanted fried onion rings to go along with it. And Mr. Hawthorne obliged.

Mr. Hawthorne made a beer batter with all purpose flour, and semolina flour, and Cajun seasoning.

Fried the rings up perfectly.

These were the best onion rings I've ever had.

And here's my hamburger, with melted cheese, tomato slice, dill pickle cubes, and fried onions on whole wheat.

That's some good eatin's.

This afternoon, I made Dorie Greenspan's Peanut Butter CrissCrosses

2 1/2 cups flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 1/4 teaspoon salt freshly grated nutmeg 2 sticks unsalted butter, room temp 1 cup peanut butter 1 cup packed light brown sugar 3/4 cup sugar 2 large eggs 1 1/2 cups chopped salted peanuts

I whisked together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg.

I creamed the butter for about 2 minutes, then added in the peanut butter.

Added in the sugar.

Added in the brown sugar. Beat for 3 minutes.

Then, added in the eggs, one at a time, beating for 1 minute after each addition.

Next, I added in the dry ingredients on low speed, until just mixed in.

Finally, I stirred in the peanuts. OK, I forgot to chop the nuts, and they weren't salted either, and the salted ones I bet would taste better. Oh well.

I melon-balled little scoops, then rolled in sugar.

Dipped a fork into sugar and made criss-crosses on each cookie.

These are wonderful cookies.

Peanut buttery and sugary. This was a new one I made this year and I will be including it in my repertoire.

Happy baking, all!