Holiday

I already made my cranberries. There’s no Thanksgiving turkey dinner in this house without fresh  cranberries. If you haven’t made them using fresh berries, then you don’t know how easy it is. It takes five minutes and the taste is out of this world. Your kids will love watching them pop as they cook, kind of like popcorn. I don’t just make cranberries from scratch, I make my stuffing from scratch, using my own homemade bread and homemade turkey stock and my bread stuffing is awesome!

Putting together Thanksgiving dinner is a challenge, but so is cutting your own bangs… and yet we manage! ✂️ I want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and if you want to try any of my Thanksgiving recipes, here they are:

For Fresh Cranberries, click here.

For Simple Bread Stuffing, click here.

For Pumpkin Pie, click here.

😋 Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!! 😋

🌷🌷Happy Easter, Everyone 🌷🌷

I am so excited to see this photo come in today! The cookies, are beautiful, the setting is beautiful, and it’s the perfect photo on this Christmas Day. Bhairavi said she and her teen son baked some wonderful cookies together for the holidays. “It was perfect mom-son time during these crazy times.”

It’s my photo of the day and photo of the month. Thank you, Bhairavi, and Merry Christmas to you and your family. 🎄

🦋 ~ Happy Easter, Everyone ~ 🦋

I’m wrapping Christmas presents today. It’s not Christmas yet but everyone is asking when I’m going to make my caramel corn so today is the day for making homemade caramel corn for Christmas gifts. My first batch is done and cooled.

To keep if fresh I pack it in a zip top plastic bag first and then wrap it with cellophane tied with pretty ribbons. This way it’s easy for people to snack on and save some for later but I hear that it’s mostly gone in the first pass.

Every Christmas I give a variety of gifts to everyone in my life but this caramel corn is the gift that gets the most raves. Sadly, no matter how much I make there never seems to be enough. That could be due to the constant sampling that goes on when my back is turned. Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones

Everyone is making these easy Christmas cookies but it’s not even Thanksiving yet! What gives? I guess you’re all just testing them out to make sure they’ll turn out during the holidays. The only way to know for sure is to test out the recipe in advance and eat as many as you can because, you know, you can’t be too sure. I’m “testing them out” today and I can report that they did turn out really well. It’s just a public service I thought I should provide for everyone. 🙂 I can confirm that this is the easiest recipe ever for Christmas pecan balls, so easy that even amateur cooks are making them. “I didn’t know they were so easy to make,” they say.

And there’s more. These delicious little Christmas treats keep really well so you can make them in advance, and they freeze well too. It just keeps getting better. They are sometimes called pecan balls, snowballs, or Mexican wedding cookies. I’ll just call them easy. Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones

I only make this holiday bread once a year (okay, maybe twice ?) because it may be called bread but let’s face it… it’s dessert. Here are a few progress photos of how to make my Spiral Chocolate Cinnamon Christmas Bread. First, you divide the dough in half, roll & press each half into a rough 9 x 9-inch square, and spread the chocolate/butter mixture all the way to the edges.

Next, you cover each half with the brown sugar/cinnamon/cocoa mixture, all the way to the edges.

Now roll each of them up, starting at the right and left edges, rolling them towards each other. It’s a little messy but that’s okay. Oh, one more thing. You can also scatter about 2 tablespoons of chocolate chips on each half before rolling them up.

The fun part is twisting the logs into a loaf. Bring the logs together (it doesn’t matter where the seams go) and twist them together 3 or 4 times (like you’re wringing out a towel) to make a spiral, but messy, loaf. Tuck the edges under and plop it into your parchment paper-lined loaf pan.

Bake for 30 minutes but after 15 minutes, put a foil tent on top to avoid over-browning. I hope these photos are helpful. For the recipe click here. – Jenny Jones 

What can I say? This is not a dessert to have every day but for holiday baking, pecan pie is a must. But I prefer pecan pie bars because the bars can be cut into smaller pieces than a round pie and no one should eat big pieces of pecan pie! I always use an oil crust and my oil of choice is cold pressed avocado oil. I tried using maple syrup in the filling but did not like the result so I went with the traditional corn syrup, which, by the way, is not the same a high fructose corn syrup.

I only make pecan pie or pecan pie bars twice a year for Thanksgiving and Christmas and it’s a good thing because holiday recipes can be dangerous to have around. This recipe is really simple with just the basic ingredients so it comes together quickly. What I can’t figure out is why my pecans sometimes rise to the top and sometimes don’t, but these easy pecan pie bars are always so gooey and sweet and delicious. Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones