Groundhog Day Cookies

It's Groundhog Day time! I also have a tutorial on some cute-as-a-button Groundhog Pancakes here.

I have a confession to make...shhh, don't tell your husbands...we don't celebrate Valentine's Day at our house. Of course I like making heart treats with my girls, writing notes for everyone, etc., but both Gourmet Dad and I think it's a silly holiday. It's hard to find a babysitter, everything is expensive--Why can't we be romantic all year?? Lucky for him, he is, so he gets off the hook on V-Day. Actually, I often get a kitchen full of flowers about a week after Valentine's Day when everything is on sale.:)

Anyhow...on to more important upcoming holidays, Groundhog Day!! I'm in charge of a "Groundhog's Day Treat" for Big C's school class and this is what I came up with. I'll use sugar cookie dough for the actual event to avoid any peanut allergy problems.

Punxsutawney Phil's Groundhog Day Cookies
Ingredients:
Peanut Butter Cookie Dough (or sugar cookie dough)
Granulated Sugar
Hershey's Kisses
Chocolate cookies (I used Grasshopper cookies)
Small Marshmallows
Chocolate Chips
Chocolate icing (I used some Betty Crocker right from a can! Ack!)

Green icing (I used buttercream icing tinted green)

Pink Starburst candies, mimi M & M's, or gumdrops (for the nose)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Take a golf-ball sized pinch of cookie dough and flatten slightly in your hand. Place one hershey's kiss in the center of the dough and wrap dough around it, completely covering the hershey's kiss.

Roll in granulated sugar and place on a greased cookie sheet.

Bake at 375 for 10 minutes, until edges are barely brown and cookies are set. Let cool completely. Trim a storebought chocolate cookie slightly on one side and press into cooled cookie.

Using scissors, snip off two pieces of a small marshmallow for eyes, adhere to chocolate cookie w/ a little chocolate icing. Add a piece of gumdrop (or whatever) for a nose and two chocolate chips for ears (again using chocolate icing as your "glue"). Add two small drops of chocolate icing for eye pupils. Place green icing in a plastic baggie, snip off one end, and add some "grass" on your cookie. Ask you kids if they saw his shadow as they gobbled him up!