Easy Recipes For Those Who Like To Cook and Bake
I have my favorite Christmas cookies that I look forward to baking every year. As soon as December 1st comes around, my oven is on and so is Bing Crosby – he helps me sing along while the baking begins! I have baked 20 dozen Christmas cookies so far and am still seeing so many recipes that I want to try!
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This month I am participating in The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap! I baked 3 dozen Santa Whisker Cookies and sent Three Bloggers one dozen each!
Santa’s Whiskers Cookies
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I LOVE baking Christmas Cookies! On December 1st, we put up our Christmas tree, hubs puts up all of the lights, inside and out, and I bake cookies. I bake a lot of cookies. I love sending them to my friends in California and to my grand kids in NJ and Villanova, for my friends in Maine, and for my kids when they get home from College.
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When I was a little girl, every Christmas afternoon, my Grandpa Marshall would take me over to his Mom and Dad’s home after we opened presents. My Nana, Laura Moore, would always have a cherry pie ready for him, it was my Grandpa’s favorite, and sugar cookies for all of her grandchildren (there were a lot of us, but I was the eldest.) I would sit at her kitchen table and eat a sugar cookie and wrap the rest to bring home. I wanted to save them, they were so delicious! Nana’s sugar cookies taste like Christmas to me. I hope that you enjoy Nana’s Sugar Cookies and make them a part of your holiday tradition as well!
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When all of your family arrives for the Holidays, the day before….. what should you make for breakfast, that’s easy and can be made the night before and feeds a crowd?
Uh oh…no worries! I have got you covered. These are the 10 best make-ahead breakfasts for the holiday season. You can whip together these breakfast casseroles the night before…just let your oven do the work that morning for a delicious meal that will get everyone through the day until the big feast! Happy Holidays from my kitchen to yours!
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Christmas is only 23 days away and I have been baking up a storm making cookies for gifts. If you don’t have a lot of time to bake cookies, try making these! My kids loved them and want to put them on Christmas packages.These are super easy to make and it looks like you have been working on them for hours! Plus they taste really yummy!! You can use any kind of sprinkles that you like. White or dark chocolate are both great!
Christmas Chocolate Dipped Pretzel Rods
Ingredients
1 (10 oz.) bag pretzel rods
1 (24 oz.) package white chocolate bark coating or 1 (1 lb.) bag white candy melts (you’ll only use about 10 or 12 oz.) ( I used Chocolate chips)
1 to 2 T. shortening
Assorted sprinkles
Directions
1. In a tall skinny container (such as a pottery cup or perhaps even a small glass vase), melt bark coating or candy melts and shortening together in the microwave per package directions (typically in 30 second intervals, stirring in between).
2. Dip each pretzel rod in the candy coating, letting excess coating drip off back into the container. Sprinkle with sprinkles, as desired.
3. Place on waxed paper and let stand for coating to set up.
I pour the leftover white chocolate( or chocolate) coating into a plastic storage container and save it for another use later. All you have to do is heat it back up in the microwave, omitting the shortening (since it’s already in there).
Recipe adapted from The Kitchen is My Playground
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| The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap |
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| I signed up for the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap with cookieswap@loveandoliveoil.com with Lindsay and Julie. It is a secret Santa style swap- so I am not supposed to contact my matches until after the swap! Lindsay and Julie told me not to ruin the surprise. I am terrible with secrets, this is killing me! I want to call my swap matches and ask- Did you get the cookie bars? Did they arrive in bars and not crumbs? Do you like them? Do you really ? Huh? Huh? Oh yeah, this is torture! So far, I have received one dozen cookies from my secret Santa and they were oh- so- yummy! I baked over three dozen bars and shipped one dozen cookies to three different people! I can’t wait for the responses! |
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| These bars are so dreamy and delicious, your kids will be fighting over them, Amy’s kids were- LOL! |
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| All of my favorite cookie bar ingredients, Oatmeal crust, caramel, chocolate, roasted almond slivers, marshmallows…..YES!! |
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| This is what the picture looks like in the magazine- oh please let my cookie bars turn out like these! |
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| It came out better than the photo! |
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Sunshine on my cookie bars, makes me happy, sunshine in my eyes….la dee da……Caramel Nut Revel Bars for The Cookie Swap
Recipe from Better Homes and Gardens |
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| These are the adorable boxes that I used for the cookie swap! |
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| Santa’s elf helping me with packaging and wrapping the cookie bars! |
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| My Christmas Wreath that I made with help from Sweet Annie Designs. |
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| One of the Christmas wreaths from Church. |
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My beautiful bouquets from my loving friends and paper whites about to pop! Merry Christmas 2011! Love, Nettie This post has been linked up to some of my favorite blogs!!
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When I think of Christmas, I think of going to the Murphy’s home on Christmas day and eating Kris’ amazing shortbread cookies. They disappear very quickly so you have to act fast! They are absolutely my favorite cookie ever! I asked Kris for her recipe and she was so kind to share it with me. You know how when someone bakes something for you it tastes better than when you make it yourself, well when I baked these cookies, I kept imagining Kris in her kitchen baking. When I took my first bite of the cookie, tears came to my eyes….yes! I got it! Kris’ shortbread cookies! My dream come true!
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| 2 sticks softened butter- Land O Lakes please. |
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| Merry Christmas LOL butter!! |
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| Cut butter and flour. |
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| Make a ball with the dough. Roll it out. |
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| Cut into bars. Don’t worry if they don’t look perfect when you cut them, they will bake just perfectly! |
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| Place on a cookie sheet with a spatula. |
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| Bake until golden brown. |
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Yummy! Recipe from Kris Murphy’s kitchen.This recipe has been linked up to these wonderful blogs!  
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| This is my favorite cheesecake recipe because it is relatively simple and doesn’t have a lot of steps. It is very festive for the holidays and everybody loves cheesecake! This recipe is from my dear friend, Sandi Roman, she is such a great cook! She brought this to our home for Christmas Eve dinner many, many years ago when our kids were small and we didn’t know many people in town.
I was so impressed and I said,” I have to have this recipe!”Well, I have been making it every year since then! So as I was doing the foodie shoot, I used my daughter’s brand new camera and now I don’t know how to download pics from her camera and she has a cold, so I don’t want to bug her….so anyway, these are the pics from my camera when I was mixing the ingredients in the Kitchen Aid. You can see how high the cake rises. It feels like it weighs 10 pounds when you are all done baking and adding the cherries for the topping. This is the first time that I remember my cheesecake not cracking! Success!! |
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| If you have a Kitchen Aid, it makes this recipe so easy, if not I always used a hand blender, keep beating until the ingredients are smooth. |
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| Pour cream cheese batter into pan. |
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| I was so excited how high the cake rose, I took the pic in the oven, I know I am a spaz! But it really is the little things in life, but this is huge!! LOL! |
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| Beautiful!! It does fall when it cools and when your kids slam the door! I still hear my Mom’s voice—don’t slam the door and don’t walk like an elephant! |
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| When cake cools completely, add cherry topping. |
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| Spray the pan before pressing crumbs on the bottom, I didn’t so some cake stuck even though it’s non- stick. |
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| Hubs and I actually split this piece in half because he said it was too big! Ha-big baby-I could have eaten it by myself hands down! |
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| CHERRY CHEESECAKE Recipe from the kitchen of Sandi Roman |
Abundanza!
I have linked up this yummy recipe to these fabulous blogs!
Pure Blog Love Recipe DIY Craft Link Party McCallums Shamrock Patch
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| Easy Christmas Cake |
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| You never know how something is going to come out when baking. You hope that it comes out the right way and is delicious. This recipe didn’t come out the way I imagined it to. It came out better, and really looks like a Christmas Cake! Plus it is the easiest recipe. Here are the ingredients for the cake. Plus I used a beautiful Rose Non Stick Bundt baking pan- so pretty! After the cake is completely cool, dust the cake with Confectioner’s sugar- it gives it the festive Christmas look! |
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| Easy Christmas Cake Ingredients Funfetti Cake Mix 1 small can Mandarin Oranges 3 eggs 1/3 cup vegetable oil ½ cup water Method
This post has been linked up to these wonderful blogs! |
