Christmas lunch and cookie exchange with friends!

I have a wonderful group of girlfriends that get together throughout the year.  We forged these friendships when our children were very young and now some of these same children are having babies of their own.  Our friendship all along has stayed connected in good times and in bad.  I guess I’m fortunate to have a group so loyal and steadfast in our commitment to each other.  We always like to add a special outing or get-together around the holidays and this year was no different.  One of the gals decided to host a lunch at her place, we also decided to indulge in a cookie exchange.  For those of you who do not know what this tradition might be, it is basically an exchange of cookies.  You bake a few dozen of your favorite cookies for each member participating, and you end up leaving with a few dozen of an assortment of cookies that others have baked.  The recipe below is a very quick pecan toffee recipe, I added a chocolate chip favorite too.

Ingredients for Toffee Recipe

• 1 cup pecans, chopped
• 3/4 cup brown sugar (packed)
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine
• 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate pieces

Method

1. Butter a square 9″x9″x2″ pan.  Spread pecans in pan
2. Heat sugar and butter to boiling, stirring constantly
3. Boil over medium heat, stirring constantly for 7 minutes or more
4. Immediately spread mixture evenly over nuts in buttered pan
5. Sprinkle chocolate pieces over hot mixture and place baking sheet over pan so heat will melt chocolate
6. Spread melted chocolate over candy
7. While hot, cut into squares (mostly though they don’t really cut up into squares, but it sort of looks nice all chopped up in varying lengths.

A great festive luncheon and good cheer with an amazing group of gals!  Merry Christmas all!

 I’m presenting this at our weekly Friday Fiesta (# 48) hosted by the amazing Angie.  Her posts week after week are just sensational!  Take a peek at her blog, and you’ll be in for a treat!