Book Club and Scottish Shortbread Cookies

Layla will be two in December and we had the bad habit of laying her down to sleep with a bottle. Then, last week, we stopped cold turkey. She has been a little irritable ever since. Bedtime isn't a struggle but nap time is not going so well. The first few days she didn't nap at all. Now she whines for nearly an hour before briefly falling asleep.  The loss of nap time and my concurrent hour of peace and quiet are the main reasons new blog posts are overdue. It's too hard to focus with a stubborn toddler yelling in the backround. Even now I can hear her calling. "Bye, bye" she says, "see ya," "night, night."
I've been meaning to tell all of you about the book club I started. It's call "Books with a Side of Bacon" a book club for ladies who brunch. You can check out the Facebook page if you're interested in joining. Our October book was "Outlander " by Diana Gabaldon. A time travel romance set in the Scottish highlands. It inspired my sister and I to bake our own Scottish treats. Scottland isn't exactly known for their cuisine so we settled for  simple, three ingredient, Scottish shortbread cookies.
They were so easy to make and I couldn't stop eating them. I must have gobbled atleast five throughout the day. I am so infatuated with shortbead that I'm going to make more simple ones to eat, with coffee, for breakfast and definitely baking a couple of chocolatey, nutty versions for the upcoming holidays. Stay tuned for more updates on other shortbread variations.

Amy's Gourmet Apples - Cedarburg, WI

Amy's Candy Kitchen in Cedarburg creates the best caramel apples ever. Like ever, ever. Sure they sell just about every other kind of gourmet candy too, but your eyes probably won't look past the giant apples lounging in the display window. My favorite kind is the dark chocolate sea salt (bottom right). Other flavors pictured are dark chocolate pistachio (bottom left) and triple chocolate dunked caramel (top middle). Amy's makes other amazing flavor combinations too. They vary from a simple caramel coated apple, all the way to dark-chocolate dunked caramel apples dusted with Aztec chili powder.  What kind of toppings would you try?

Yellowbellies food truck - Cedarburg, Wi

Yellowbellies food truck was parked right down the street from the french bakery in Cedarburg. There are no food trucks near where my sister and I live so we couldn't pass up the food truck allure of Yellowbellies rotisserie chicken sandwiches. Rachelle and I split their most popular sandwich, the O.C. (original chicken). It had shredded rotisserie chicken, bacon, aged cheddar cheese, and an awesome bacon aoili. Their seasoned fries were phenomenal, as well. Half an order was all it took to fill me up. Next time, I'm looking forward to trying either "The Mess" or their Thai chicken sandwich, or maybe both if I share. Which kind would you try?

Boulangerie du Monde - Cedarburg, WI

Last Friday, I spent a relaxing day in Cedarburg with my sister, Rachelle. We started by grabbing breakfast from Boulangerie du Monde. I picked out a spinach feta croissant for Layla and a gibassier for myself. Rachelle selected a variety of french macarons to try.
The spinach feta croissant was so buttery and flakey. The spinach feta filling was well balanced and there was just enough of it to satisfy. In contrast, the gibassier had a sweet, anise-orange flavor. It made me wish I had a mug of hot coffee to go with it.
The macarons, on the other hand, tasted less than magnificent. They were a complete let down, in fact. For starters, they were much smaller (almost mini) than any macarons I've ever seen before. Which made the price, $1.50 each, seem a little steep for their adorable size. But the price would have been worth it had they actually tasted good. Truthfully, I've had fresher tasting macarons from boxes they sell in the frozen foods aisle. We will think twice before buying macarons here again but I'll definitely go back to get more croissants and gibassiers, and to try other new goodies.