Cookies Across America ~ Taste of Home & Allrecipes.com!

Taste of Home magazine is one of my favorites because they have great recipes, a wonderful website and an online community of other cooks who love to share their recipes! Their cooking school is awesome too! I'm proud to be one of Taste of Home's Field Editors and a participant in Cookies Across America!! Have you heard about it? No? Well, here is the scoop!

Cookie lovers unite! Whether it's baking and sharing cookies with the needy or donating cookie ingredients to a food bank, you can make a difference in your community this Christmas.   On December 10, 2011, join Taste of Home, Allrecipes, and Nestlé®, and bakers across America as we all help to spread a little Christmas cookie cheer!  Here are a few ways to get involved:

Host a cookie exchange!  Invite a few friends over, and have a decorating party! Then share those fabulous cookies with each other, but don't forget to wrap some up to donate to a local family, your police or fire station, a family shelter or children's hospital, etc. (Just call to make sure they accept homemade items, first) A plate of homemade cookies is sure to brighten their day!

Organize a food drive:  When most of us donate items to food banks, we usually share staples for meals.  Baking ingredients aren't often at the top of our list of items to donate.  This time of year, those ingredients are a welcome addition to food pantries.  Baking is something many families like to do together, but some just don't have the money to buy the necessary ingredients, like flour, sugar, shortening, vanilla, etc.  You can collect these items from friends and family, then donate to a local church's food pantry, a family shelter, Ronald McDonald house, Retirement home, or other community agency or shelter.

Here is a link to the printable recipe for Nestle Toll House Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies that Katie made for us today.   They are crazy-delicious.  This is a great recipe to make, share/donate! Need more inspiration?  There are tons of other yummy cookie recipes to be found on Taste of Home's website!

Are you going to join us for Cookies Across America? I hope so!! It's such a wonderful way to share the holiday spirit!  PRETTY PLEASE, leave a comment below if you plan to be a part of this and tell me which you wan to do - a cookie exchange or a food drive - in your community.  I'm doing a food drive for my local church's food pantry, or a local homeless shelter - whichever has a greater need.  I want to know how many of my friends here will answer the call to be a part of this wonderful event to spread cookies and happiness across our country!!

One of my favorite sayings is "When you put good into the world, so much more good comes from it" and this is a fun and easy way to put some good out there!! 

xoxo,