The ultimate in comfort food! I’ve never actually tried to make this, but it was worth a go on a particularly cold evening after chores. While I am not much of a heavy food person, I did really enjoy this. We had it with mashed potatoes and green beans. I liked this recipe and would not make any changes. It does require gravy, which I don’t include here – use your favorite recipe for beef gravy.
It has never really crossed my mind to make breakfast sausage from scratch, but why not? We make our own jerky. This didn’t seem like such a leap, and as staying away from all things cured is a necessity, it was worth a try. We loved this! Next time, I would be more careful to flatten the patties so they’re easier with sandwiches. We got this recipe from I Am Baker, and while I personally would up the pepper all around, I would suggest not changing a thing the first time you make this – it’s delicious as is, and you can see what works for you as far as seasonings once you’ve tried it.
We are both originally from New England, and both of us love clams – chowder, fried, dips, or like this recipe, baked. Which makes this meal perfect for our Valentine’s Day – as much as we both love it, it is a bit of work, so we reserve it for a special meal. We had this with a simple salad, and we did make it gluten free.
I am generally not much of a comfort food person, but during a cold snap, this WAS pretty good for dinner after coming in from barn chores. I adapted this recipe from The Modern Proper, adding a few more vegetables than called for (including adding a half a bag of spinach that we had on hand), and subbing most of the dairy products. The only dairy I did leave in was the buttermilk. I find that if a recipe is calling for buttermilk, it’s probably there for a reason. This came out very well, but I made the dumplings too big, so they were a little gluey. Would definitely make this again with smaller dumplings.
I haven’t had popcorn balls since I was a kid, and when they popped up as fun ideas for holiday gift baskets, I thought they would be cute! I found this recipe on My Baking Addiction, and I didn’t change anything at all. They were simple and were a hit especially with kids. We will definitely include them next year, and I think they would also be cute for summer parties with something like red, white, and blue sprinkles.
This was another recipe I had saved from Southern Living because it looked like a winner for holiday cookies – and it was! This got a lot of thumbs up. I made some without icing as well, and I think people with a bit less of a sweet tooth preferred that version.
I think these were the prettiest thing in our holiday baskets for sure, and SUPER easy to make in large volume. There’s no recipe here, bags of pretzel rods, melted chocolate chips – two bags of semi-sweet worked for one bag of pretzel rods – and decorative sprinkles. Once the chocolate has melted over a double broiler on low, dip the pretzels (I did need to spread the chocolate a bit with a spatula), put them on baking sheets lined with parchment paper, and decorate! They were fun to make and very pretty in clear cellophane bags.
The first cookie for our holiday baskets was definitely a hit this year! This seemed to be everyone’s favorite, especially the chocolate lovers. It’s fairly easy, and you could probably get more cookies out of each batch than I did – I just made them a little larger. The original recipe, which came from an old Southern Living issue, called for chopped caramel squares, and they ARE delicious if you’re up for cutting up the candy. If not, I tried subbing butterscotch chips, and the cookies still got good reviews – even if they were no longer, “turtles.” As an aside, I did not modify anything in our holiday baskets, but you certainly could make these gluten free, though I’m not sure how well they would come out if you subbed out the butter to make them dairy free. Worth a try for someone who loves chocolate, though!
This was an easy and festive holiday cocktail that was quite popular with our Thanksgiving appetizers! One of my friends shared this recipe from PBS, of all places, and I’ll definitely look through their recipe archives after this! The recipe below is as is, but I doubled it for Turkey Day, and would do that again when making this for a crowd.
Soon after we moved to the farm, we changed to hosting an open house, buffet style Thanksgiving. We love entertaining, and is there a better holiday for cooking in bulk than turkey day? That said, I was suddenly struggling with the timing of everything, and began trying to figure out what I could make ahead of time. Gravy was one of the first things to get done before the big meal – and with this method, I had stock to use on Thanksgiving itself. I’ve made gravy this way ever since!
Om nom nom! 