In which I discover a gnawed present

Kristi has blogged about her visit to Minnesota. She got some fun pictures of Mayhem and the MGWT, and a very nice picture of Chaos with the baleful stare. Um, sorry about May staring at you 2″ away from your face while you were sleeping, Kristi…

The iPod meme’s been going around again. I did that one a while ago – if you’re interested, you can check it out.

On Christmas Eve, I’ll be baking some gluten-free cookies to take along to the festivities. Here’s one of our family’s traditional cookie recipes, with gluten-free modifications:

Candy Cane Cookies
1/2 c soft shortening
1/2 c butter
1 egg
1 t vanilla
1 1/2 t almond extract
1 c sifted powdered sugar
2 1/2 c sifted gluten-free flour blend (I use Bob’s Red Mill GF Flour Blend)
3 tsp xanthan gum (not required if you’re making these as gluteny cookies)
dash of salt
———
Topping: 1/2 c white sugar & 1/2 c crushed peppermint stick candy

Mix shortening, butter, sugar, egg, and extracts. Mix in flour & xanthan gum. Stir for at least a few minutes so that the xanthan gum develops. Chill dough. Roll into balls and press flat with your hand. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet about 9 minutes at 375F. Remove from cookie sheet, and while still hot, sprinkle with topping mixture. You can also split dough in half, color half with red food coloring, roll strips of each color out, and shape candy canes; however, I haven’t tried that with the gf version of the cookies. I highly recommend using parchment paper – it helps contain the crushed candy cane and sugar mixture.

A note from the last time I made these cookies: Seemed a little dry (I used butter & margarine, no shortening) – maybe try 2 eggs?? Or would the shortening make that much difference?? Definitely don’t add the full amount of flour at once. (I’ll experiment on the recipe a bit next week and will update this.)

I wrapped a few packages Friday afternoon. Over the weekend, I noticed that one of them was sort of gnawed. Hmm. I wonder who did that?

“It was totally the big kitty! There is precedent that he gnaws presents!” -Mayhem

“Sheesh, May, that’s low, blaming me when you are a notorious gnawer of everything.” -Chaos

36 thoughts on “In which I discover a gnawed present”

  1. oooh, yeah, that’s a tough one. time for kitty truth serum? With two dogs, we can’t leave presents under the tree. Which is the room the dogs are kept to during the day when we’re not here. Gifts are hidden away, here and there, and some in the boxes they came in. But the dogs do seem to leave the tree alone.

  2. In this house, Pepper’s the chewer and Bartholmew is the digger. (and people think I need a knitting bag that zipped just because *I* am clumsy…)

  3. I remember that same conversation with my mom when I was a kid of 6 or 7. She did it. NO SHE did it. Mom, she’s being mean to me.
    Be cool, kitties…it’s your mom’s fault for leaving it out where you can reach it. 😉

  4. See? That’s why I’ll be wrapping almost everything at my sister’s next week!

    Hee hee…being stared at in the middle of the night by a strange kitty… I jumped fifty feet this morning with Gandalf on the pillow next to me. Didn’t even know he was in the room.

  5. Chris- Chowchops has been eating styrofoam peanuts- I had no idea he liked them.
    I have a recipe for Candy Cane cookies- you use peppermint extract and crush candy canes- which is good because no-one really eats them.

  6. Yeah, mystery nips on the packages. I JUST happen to have caught Miss Lulu getting ready to swat at some ornaments yesterday. And, to think, they are all so cute and innocent. Yeah, right. (And just look at the looks on both of them above. Yeah, innocent.)

  7. Mmmm… Christmas cookies. Don’t knock eating presenting until you’ve tried it. 🙂 All of our presents end up with either claw marks from the cat playing with the paper and ribbons or teeth marks from the ferrets trying to hide them.

  8. Curly ribbon is banned from our house after a trip to the emergency vet one year. Those kitty X rays are adorable to look at, but, once was enough.

  9. My wrapped Christmas presents are not going under the tree this year. Raven will chew on anything cardboard or paper. I have the ragged pop cases and creatively edged knitting patterns to prove it. The presents are going into a big ol’ plastic, sealable tub. The not so idiotic idjit has figured out how to lift the lid on “normal” boxes….

  10. Mittens (otherwise known as El Destructo) has been spending his days stealing Christmas decorations and stashing them under my bed. But, when the gifts go out, I’m sure that despite my diligent efforts to keep him out of the room, we will end up with a few gnawed gifts, too.

  11. May I point out, in May May’s defense, that her (documented) propensity to chew on items has been limited to fiber related goods? (catnip felted toy, yarn, and more yarn) whereas big brother has been caught red pawed chewing on paper?

  12. heh heh.. gnawed presents.. what a hoot.
    this year my black kitties have gone quite wild with the tree( I consider it a dilemma due to my long work hours) – and they have ripped every single ornament off that is on the bottom 2 feet of the tree… and then tonight, I discovered that they pulled ALL the bows and package tags off all resents under the tree. (err, it might be an interesting puzzle to solve Christmas day – grin)

  13. I took the survey! (I love surveys, nevermind.) So far, my kitties haven’t bothered with the tree…of course, it’s still pretending to be a Thor’s Oak, no ornaments; we’ll see what happens after the week-end. Also – can ANYONE look more oblivous and innocent than a black kitty? Evangeline says, resoundingly, “NO!” (she insists any naughtiness done around here is the paschkudnik, Lilliane – says it’s a brown-tabby thing.)

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