I'm Back (and Happy Sugar Cookie Day)!

After a week of vacation with my family in Colorado, I'm back! I had an amazing vacation with lots of food, family, outdoor adventures, and fun!  More details to come on that tomorrow.

This past week, temperatures in Chicago have been extremely high, like in the 100s.  Not your typical Chicago weather!  The day after I got back from Colorado, I woke up for my Saturday morning long run.  When I started my run at 6:45, the temperature was already at 85 degrees and humid.  Needless to say, the weather (and my week of vacation) did not make for a good run.  I was hot, tired, and dehydrated from the start.  I could barely finish and had to walk for a little.  I was obviously disappointed in my run.  It's hard not to get discouraged after a bad run. Instead of focusing on how disappointed I was after my run, I tried to refocus on the week ahead and doing better the next week.  It's important to remember that not every run will be your best (and this one was definitely not mine).  Also on those bad runs remember...

and...

Today is National Sugar Cookie Day!  It is also some of my students' last week of summer school.  I wanted to make the students a special treat for finishing summer school, so I used the holiday as inspiration and made Rainbow Pinwheel Cookies.  

How they looked pre-cooked (kind of looks like Play Doh)

I found the recipe here.  This recipe is ridiculously easy, especially because I used pre-made sugar cookie dough.  Let's be honest...the pre-made dough is so good why bother trying to re-create what is already so yummy?!  I loved how the neon food dye looked in the original recipe, but couldn't find it. So sad!  However, I think mine looked just as pretty and I'm sure turned out just as tasty.

Ready for the oven

I was very happy that I read the comments below the recipe.  People had said that after adding the food coloring, the dough became sticky and difficult to handle or roll.  I definitely ran into this problem!  It was a goopy mess and my hands were becoming covered in dough.  To solve the problem, put colored dough into the refrigerate for about 20 minutes before handling it.  This helps the dough harden and makes it easier to work with.

Finished product!

Ricky's verdict: "Looks and tastes great! My kids would love these."  Let's hope the kids in summer school enjoy them too!