The Baking: Sugar Cookies & Royal Icing

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For years, I have been laboring under the assumption that this recipe was my aunt's.  This year, I saw it in my Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook!  Scandalous!  The dough is very fragile, so the chill time is absolutely necessary.  Make sure you have similarly sized cookie cutters so the baking time is consistent.  The thing I like most about these cookies is that they bake up nice and soft, as opposed to a crunchy, shortbread-like cookie.

You can frost these using the royal icing recipe below or you can use baking sugar to decorate them before baking.  The sugar is definitely easier, but the icing is nice if you're looking for an art project.

The Baking: Haystacks

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I make these every Christmas.  The first time people see them, they are usually skeptical, but they taste awesome.  I always make them too big - they're really best if they're a little smaller since they are so rich, but the chow mein noodles cling together, so it's difficult to make them super small.  This is the recipe from the back of the Nestle butterscotch chip bag, omitting the marshmallows and increasing the noodles.

Christmas Recipes: Sausage Balls

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What follows might be the easiest holiday recipe of all time.  It wasn't New Year's or Christmas at our house without sausage balls.  They go especially well with anything bubbly like champagne, beer, or sparkling cider.  I made a batch for our annual beer tasting Christmas Party and they were gone in approximately six seconds.

These are good with regular breakfast sausage from the grocery store, but they are extra-fantastic made with country sausage or homemade breakfast sausage. (recipe after the jump)

Thanksgiving Week: Cornbread Dressing part 2 - Dressing

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The cornbread is by far the most difficult part of the cornbread dressing.  Once you have that down, it's smooth sailing to Dressing Town.  We never called it stuffing in my family because it never went in the bird.  Every Thanksgiving morning, I would wake up to the smell of celery and onions sweating in a skillet.  Once I got into the kitchen, I would find my dad crumbling up cornbread in our biggest mixing bowl while chicken broth heated on the stove.

I called him to get his recipe for cornbread dressing.  It was surprisingly seat-of-the-pants cooking.  When I asked him how much liquid to add, he told me "just enough until the mixture makes that sucking sound when you mix it."  That is really the crux of family recipes.  They're ways of cooking that you've done and seen done so many times that you don't need to know how many cups.  You just cook it until it tastes good, like you remember it.

The minute I started sweating onions and celery for our early Thanksgiving, I was immediately transported to the kitchen I grew up in.  I also knew exactly what it should taste, look, and smell like each step of the way, since I had seen it done so many times before.  Here's an approximation of the recipe, but my advice to you is to make it like you like it.  Add, take away, and make it your own.  You'll know when it's right.

Thanksgiving Week: Cornbread Dressing part 1 - Cornbread

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When Joel and I were planning our Thanksgiving feast, I realized that for me it's just not Thanksgiving without the cornbread stuffing, and cornbread stuffing takes cornbread.

Not too long ago, I was watching an episode of Cook's Country featuring southern foods.  Bridget Lancaster, the resident southerner on the show, was expounding about the virtues of a true southern cornbread.  The key ingredients are cornmeal, buttermilk, and a cast iron skillet.  The key missing ingredients are flour, sugar, and any sort of gussying up (jalepenos, creamed corn, tomatoes, and the like).  As I watched her heat up the shortening in the cast iron skillet, and mix together the cornmeal and buttermilk, I was immediately homesick.  I was also immediately determined to make cornbread at home.  Joel and I were in possession of a sweet cast iron skillet, so it was time to start learning how.