Sugar Cookies!

I was never afraid of eating sugar cookies. I could eat sugar cookies morning, noon and night. They have always been one of my favourite cookies and in honour of Christmas approaching (and my flight home being less than a day away) I am featuring them here.
I like sugar cookies without icing. I like sugar cookies with icing. I like sugar cookies with too much icing.
I remember making sugar cookie candy canes growing up with the red and white dough you would twist up and than shape. They were so good and are one of the reasons I have sugar cookies on my Christmas post. The soft sweet cookie taste is so addicting. I wish I had one right now.
Another reason is a Fiel tradition I was introduced to through my wife, Kristin. Sometime before Christmas (its hard to tell what day it will be in post-secondary age) all of Baba's grandchildren come together at her house and sit down at her table and decorate cookies like there is no tomorrow. It's a very accurate description if you know how many cookies a Baba can bake ;) Everyone has a different decorating style, but rested assured if it is possible to use to decorate a cookie Baba has it ready to go on her table. There are gingerbread men cookies (the only non-sugar cookie of the bunch), circular, wreath, tree, holly, heart, bell, and star shaped cookies. Oh, and with breaking cookies or creative reimagining of what a shape represents the options are literaly endless.
I have made a plaid-heart cookie (using icing and a lot of sprinkles), a nativity cookie, an alligator (out of  the legs of a gingerbread man), and a pirhana plant just to name a few. I once made a gingerbread me as well. Some people peter out and just start slapping icing onto cookies distractedly, but I could decorate all day long. I love it. I love it all the more because I get to decorate fabulous tasting treats.
VERDICT: Favourite!

photos borrowed from http://kidscooking.about.com/od/christmascookies/ig/Christmas-Cookies/Sugar-Cookies-Recipe.htm

Spinach

Spinach is not something I have tried recently, but for a good chunk of my life I steared clear of it. I can't remember exactly when I first tried it either, but I do remember when it made the switch from "well-I-guess-IF-it's-in-there-already" to "Hey-where's-my-spinach?!". It was shortly after I met Kristin, thus it being the first entry on the KB List. She put it in everything and it was strange at first, but you don't really notice it chopped in a tomato sauce and it has health benefits (superstrength being the most attractive one...). So, we'd put it in lasagnas, spaghetti, eggs, and salads even. I've come to really appreciate it, most recently on pizza. I don't know if I can ever make another pizza without a healthy layer of baby spinach. That was what really solidified its status for me. When you try something on pizza and never want another pizza without it you know it's good. Also, when I run to the store on my way home from work, say to pick up milk or chicken wings, I find I'm buying spinach of my own volition too. Since I use it mainly as an ingredient in something else I can't quite justify making it a favourite, but I definitely love to make things with it.
A quick word about forms of spinach. I enjoy baby spinach most. It's good as is, but is also easy to cut, especially since we got a slap chop. Frozen (mushed) spinach is not something I'd dive into with a spoon, but is easy to mix into sauces, fritatas, and the like. I still haven't found the type that bestows superstrength, but the search isn't over.
VERDICT: Make, KB List

Photo borrowed from http://www.worldcommunitycookbook.org/season/guide/spinach.html

Pomegranate

11/03/09 - I've heard a lot of people talk about pomegranates, but I don't get it. They taste good, but not great, especially weighed against what you have to go through to taste them at all. First the cutting it in half and then awkward spoon-work that follows. Spending minutes studying the woody branches between you and scooping out the massive seeds trying to pick the perfect place. And, if you succeed you get a couple of the massive seeds. These massive seeds have a tiny coating of juice and pulp. Picture the earth as the seed and the atmosphere as the good part. There is barely enough juice there to register that it has a taste, let alone whether it is good or not. Then the seeds: spitting them or eating them? Is either option any good? This is why they invented seedless watermelons.

This whole experience has taught me why pomegranate juice is so expensive. I think I agree most with the French word for the fruit: pomme grenade. I think it would be most useful if converted into a fruit explosive device. No one would suspect it and the seeds would do major damage.

Pomegranates don't taste bad enough to be gross, but the work is too much for me to actually like them. IF they came in seedless varieties, now that would be another story.

VERDICT: Polite

Photo borrowed from http://chickspeak.com/blog/2009/10/16/pomegranate-dietary-supplements-can-you-ever-get-enough/