Spring is in the air!

I smell flowers in my kitchen, and they're good enough to eat!!

I love my new job, and I'm thrilled to have found a great career opportunity at a company where I genuinely enjoy my co-workers and respect my executive team. It's a great place to work, and I count my blessings that I have landed a position that feels so right!

The company does some fun group things, and this week is the annual Chili and Cookie cook-off. I was asked to make vegetarian chili for the event, but I'm just not a chili sort of girl. I do like being involved at work though, so I volunteered to enter the cookie contest. Cookies are judged based on taste and presentation.

Now, I don't really want to win because the winners have to organize next years event, and while I like being involved, I have my limits. I just can't see me organizing and judging a chili cook-off.

Luckily, these cookies aren't going to win for taste. They're not the kind of amazingly tasty cookie that makes you want to eat, not just a second, but a whole plate full. I think that I may manage second or third place for presentation though (don't want first!). I made the larger cookies with Jolly Rancher stained glass centers, and baked them on cookie sticks. The small centers I baked plain. A flower pot, some styrofoam and some Easter grass and I have a cookie presentation perfect for a cute entry but shy of a first place win.

They were fun to make - I had a little trouble with getting the sticks attached, and with keeping the candy centers neat, but now that I have some practice, I think my next attempt will be better. Thanks to my friend Melanie for sending me this recipe for stained glass cookies.