This is the most wonderful time of the year! Family, friends, and food come together in one happy gathering after another. I scoured cookbooks and magazines to find the just the right holiday fare for our parties.
I came across recipes for orange nut balls and coconut joys in the 2013 Southern Living Christmas Cookbook, and I decided to make the cookies. I remembered the orange nut balls were one of my childhood favorites. The recipe is a simple combination of powdered sugar, vanilla wafers, and concentrated orange juice.
The grocery store stocked twelve ounce cans of frozen orange juice and the recipe called for a six ounce can of the juice. No big deal, I will just double the recipe and make more cookies. This sounded simple, until I begin doubling the other ingredients – two boxes of vanilla wafers, thirty-two ounces of powdered sugar, a cup of butter, and four cups of coconut. The mixing bowl was filled to the brim!
I thought I would never finish forming little sticky balls of dough and rolling them in coconut. I made coconut joys and peanut butter fudge balls, too. It was worth the tedious baking task because all the cookies came out great.
I had treats for our Christmas parties and had enough to take gift plates to the neighbors. This simple gesture gave me a precious few minutes of visiting time with them rather than our usual quick hand wave greetings on the way to and from work.
The sweetest thing of all this year was celebrating my grandson’s first Christmas. He is a darling combination of his beautiful mother and handsome daddy. My grandson is so sweet; I can just eat him up – which is fine with me since grandsons have no additional calories!
