Small thing to be happy about

Blogger finally is letting me post photos again! On the left are some cards of vintage buttons that were also in the package from my sister. I bought them at the Lowell quilt festival this summer. The blue ones are so cool I am thinking of just framing the card!

Well I am getting around a bit better today - somthing to be thankful for! DH is still worried though so he took the morning off from work to drive to the doctor with me and to help with the grocery shopping. I can't beleive what I found a the store - Hershey's Mint Chocolate Chips!!! Big jump-up-and-down (if I could!) happy!

One of my favorite cookies at Christmastime is a Chocolate Mint Snowtop and you need a bag of the mint chocolat chips to make them. I know on some web sites they tell you that you can use regular chips and just use more mint extract - so not the same. (my first clue should have been that I was on the Nestle web site not the Hershey one!!!) We listened to Christmas music all the way home - amazing since DH can usually only take a few minutes of it!

My first year in Georgia I bought a bag of the chips around Thanksgiving. A couple of weeks later I went back to our grocery store - no mint chips! They only distribute them around the holidays and the manager told me they were out. He was nice enough to call a few other stores for me and I ended up drive to the next state (OK only about 12 miles...but next state sounds soooo much more impressive...) Since he had been so nice the next week I dropped of a tin with some of the cookies in it for him at his store! The next year I was walking though the store around Halloween and I hear, "hey lady...excuse me miss...miss mint cookies from Boston..." It was the store manager racing down the aisle towards me. They were in. We went out back and there was the case - unopened. I snagged 4 bags! He, and three ladies from the meat department, also bought some with the promise I would drop the recipe by that week.

So here is the recipe that I got from my sister who got it from my cousin at a family Christmas party. They are good the first day, but better the second or third. If you store a piece of bread in the container with them they will stay nice and soft. Do not store them with other cookies unless you want the other cookies to also smell like mint!

Chocolate Mint Snowtops

1-1/2 cup cups flour
1 10-oz package mint chocolate chips
1-1/2 tsp. vanilla
1-1/2 tsp. baking powder
6 Tbsp. butter
2 eggs
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
confectionery sugar

In a medium bowl combine flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

Over hot water, melt 1 cup of mint morsels. Stir until smooth. In a large bowl, beat sugar and butter until creamy. Add melted mint morsels and vanilla. Beat in eggs, then gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in remaining mint morsels. Wrap with plastic wrap and refridgerate until firm.

Preheat oven to 350 dgrees. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Roll in confectionary sugar. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes on cookie sheet. Cool on wire rack.