Christmastime Cooking, 2009

I’ve done a lot of cooking and baking in the last few weeks. (Well, for me anyway.)  Unfortunately, I haven’t done a lot of photographing of my cooking and baking. What can I say? It’s winter, and the in-house lighting is somewhat yellow.

Anyway, most of the recipes I used turned out pretty well (and I will conveniently forget the ones that didn’t).  So in the interest of excusing my lack of fun picture posts (and I know how much you all are missing those), here are some of my kitchen productions. (P.S. I’ve got a lot of my favorite recipes saved at TastyKitchen; if you don’t know what it is, you should really check it out.)

For Church Events:

Bite-Sized Ice Cream Sundaes — for my youth small group (11-12th grade girls).  These work better when they have a lot  more time to set after the chocolate coating (I only had about 20 minutes), but even so, they still turned out pretty good.  My girls absolutely loved them, and it was a nice treat for our last meeting before Christmas break.

Marbled Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge — for my church small groups’ big Christmas get-together.  I cut the recipe in half.  It looked a little messy at first (and at the end too, honestly) but it actually tasted really good (I was told).  It all got eaten, at least!

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Italian Cookies — for the small groups’ get-together.  One more recipe that I halfed.  It still came out to about 40 cookies, which was plenty, and they were light and fluffy, and it was really difficult not to eat them all myself.

For Christmas Eve:

Marlboro Man’s Second Favorite Sandwich –   I wanted something easy so I could relax with family before Christmas, and this was it.  It was my first time actually cooking chicken without any interruptions (read: help), and it turned out just great.

Apple Cake in an Iron Skillet — I halfed the recipe for this one as well, so it would fit in my 8-inch cast iron skillet. A brilliant idea if I do say so myself.  This cake turned out almost perfectly and went great with the madagascan vanilla ice cream I had on hand.

For Christmas Day:

Perfect Pancakes –  Another first for me — pancakes.  The batter was a  little thick at first, but it turned out great anyway. (My dad helped me thin it out a bit.) Not bad for my first try.  And since it made smaller pancakes, I had leftover batter to freeze for later. (One of those gifts that keeps on giving things that are so enjoyable.)

Hot Homemade Apple Cider –  Easy peasy.  I didn’t dilute the apple juice with the water initially — my family like strong cider.  And it went so quickly that I did have to dilute the refill to make it last.

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Buttered Rosemary Rolls — This was such a hit at Thanksgiving, and so simple (watch bread rise, then top with herbs and bake) that I couldn’t pass up the chance to do it again.

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And:

French Breakfast Puffs — for the day after Christmas.  Actually, this recipe was in one of my new cookbooks (I got Pioneer Woman for Christmas!).  I cut the recipe in half (again) since I didn’t really need them. (But when you’ve got the ingredients and the time, how can you resist?)

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