12 Days of Christmas Cookie 3 - Raspberry Chocolate Bars

This is my favorite cookie bar this year. The crust is made of brown sugar, vanilla extract, flour and oats. It is covered with a layer of semi-sweet chocolate chips then another layer of raspberry jam. Finally, the streusel made of the same ingredients as the crust on top. Yummy!

And it snowed another 5 inches (13 cm) last night and caused the usual traffic problem again this morning. The usual 30-minute commuting time became 1 hour. And the weather forecasts says that there will be another even bigger one tomorrow afternoon to Friay morning. It predicts up to 1 foot (31 cm) snow accumulation. If you like white Christmas, this will be your chance to visit mid-west!

12 Days of Christmas Cookie 2 - Lemon Heaven Dessert Squares

It is finally Friday! It is extremely cold today. The highest temperture is only 10'F (-12'C) outside. The clear sky just makes it even colder and the sun really does not help that much.

Here is the second cookie I made last night, lemon heaven dessert squares. Nice pastry crust made of flour, oats and lemon zests. The filling is made of condensed milk and lemon juice. It's the nice combination of sweet and sour. Happy weekend and no more snow!

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.