12 Days of Christmas Cookie 1 - Million Dollar Cookie

Another 5 inches of snow today. It has been snowing almost every other day so far in the past 3 weeks. I cannot remember the last time it snows so much and so early. The temperature falls down to bitter cold as well. It feels like early February but it is only early December! Look like it will be a long hard winter again.


And it's the time of the year again for 12 days of Christmas cookies! Since it snows so much outside, I work from home and make a batch of the "Million Dollar Cookie". It is basically the sugar cookie with find ground pecans mixed in the dough and rolled with cinnamon sugar outside. Yummy!

RSNA 2008

It is the annual RSNA (Radiological Society of North America) meeting at the McCormick Place in Chicago. It predicts about 62,000 people attend this year's meeting which takes over almost the whole McCormick Place. My workplace provided a bus to send employees down there for one-day meeting. It took almost 2.5 hours to get to there for the usual 1.5 trip due to the bad Chicago rush hour traffic and winter snow. Once we got there, as you can see from the picture, it was already packed with all the medical doctors and scientists.

It's always interesting to attend this kind of big show to see all the new products from the industry. There were lots of expensive equipments from the companies and expensive suits from attendants for sure. One of the interesting thing was this mock up of the MR scanner covering with all the fake fruits and flowers. Guess they want to go green too! Overall, it was OK since nothing special was shown. The good thing was that we got to go to Chicago Chinatown for a good lunch!

German Apple Pie

The second Thanksgiving dessert is ready! Time to go! Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving Peanut Butter Chocolate Cheesecake

It's almost Thanksgiving time! I made this delicious peanut butter chocolate cheesecake. The crust is made of cocoa powder, ground peanut butter chips, vanilla wafer. And the marble kind of cheesecake contains 2 flavors: peanut butter and chocolate! Yum!

Note: As promised, here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

* CRUMB CRUST(recipe follows)
* 3 packages (8 oz. each) cream cheese, softened
* 1 cup sugar, divided
* 1/2 cup dairy sour cream
* 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
* 3 eggs
* 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
* 1/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
* 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
* 1-1/3 cups REESE'S Peanut Butter Chips(reserved from crust)
* 1/4 cup milk

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 450°F. Prepare CRUMB CRUST.

2. Beat cream cheese, 3/4 cup sugar, sour cream and vanilla in large bowl on medium speed of electric mixer until smooth. Add eggs and flour; beat until blended.

3. Beat cocoa, remaining 1/4 cup sugar and oil with 1-1/2 cups cheese mixture in medium bowl. In small microwave-safe bowl, place 1-1/3 cups peanut butter chips and milk. Microwave at HIGH (100%) 30 seconds; stir. If necessary, microwave at HIGH an additional 15 seconds at a time, stirring after each heating, until chips are melted when stirred. Gradually add warm peanut butter mixture to remaining vanilla batter; beat on high speed 5 minutes.

4. Spoon peanut butter and chocolate mixtures alternately over prepared crust. Gently swirl with knife or spatula for marbled effect.

5. Bake 10 minutes. Without opening oven door, decrease temperature to 250°F. and continue to bake 30 minutes. Turn off oven; leave cheesecake in oven 30 minutes without opening door. Remove from oven to wire rack; with knife, loosen cake from side of pan. Cool completely; remove side of pan. Refrigerate until serving time. Cover; refrigerate leftover cheesecake. 12 servings.

CRUMB CRUST
1-1/4 cups vanilla wafer crumbs
1/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter or margarine, melted
1-2/3 cups (10-oz. pkg.) REESE'S Peanut Butter Chips, divided

With knife or food processor, chop 1/3 cup peanut butter chips (reserve remaining chips for cheesecake batter). In medium bowl, stir together
crumbs, cocoa, powdered sugar and butter. Stir in chopped peanut butter chips. Press firmly onto bottom of 9-inch springform pan or 9-inch square pan.

First Big Snow

It started to snow late last night. We got the first official big snow today. It is white everywhere. Even though it is only about 2 inches, it has already caused quite some traffic problems. Fortunately, lots of people have started the vacation either go deer hunting or leave for Thanksgiving. It is a quiet week in town. I have not quite decided what desserts I will make for the Thanksgiving dinner when I go to my friends' house. So far, it seems that I will make a German Apple Pie and Peanut butter Chocolate cheesecake.

Waited 2 Hours In Line But Could Not Get In To Vote

I waited in line for 2 hours this morning since 6:20am but still could not get even close to the poll place. There were almost another 100 people in the front of me when I had to quit and went to work around 8:30am. The line moves so slowly due to the problems of lots of unprepared people for registering to vote the first time. The preparation work of the poll place is really not good. They should have a separate line way outside the poll place for on-site register so the rest of the pre-registered people can just get in to vote and get out. I will try to leave work around 2:00pm to see if I can get in to vote.

Note: Got back to vote after work around 6:30pm. Got in and got out in less than 30 minutes! And Obama is our next president! Yay!