I had a great time yesterday putting together my Christmas goodie plates.  This is my second year doing this, and I’m learning something new every year.  I had a great friend help me this year, we kind of both brought our ingredients together and worked from my house.  This years plates included:  buckeyes, spiced rum balls, cookies and cream chocolate truffles, pretzel kisses, cinnamon sugar palmiers and caramel and chocolate covered pretzel rods.  We used 10 lbs of chocolate, 300 hershey kisses, 6 lbs of pretzels, 3 lbs of caramel and maybe a few shots of Captain Morgan.  The spiced rum balls were by far my favorite.  Next year, we are going to start with those (if for no other reason than to start the afternoon of cooking off with a few shots).  What I thought would be the easiest and best, the pretzel rods, turned out to be the bane of my existence.  Took the longest, was the most work and the ones I did looked terrible.  They tasted fine, but were definitely not pretty to look at.  My good friend Kristin’s looked great, she had much more patience than I did 🙂  I’m already looking forward to next year!  Let me know in the comments section, do you do goodie plates and if so, what do you put on them?

Hello all!  It’s been a crazy busy holiday season, but I’m finally getting around to a new post.  I was in the mood for another “different” pizza for lunch today so I threw this together.  I had seen a recipe for pear pizza in an issue of Cooking Light, but when I went to look for it today I couldn’t find it.  So I made this from memory, or as much as I could remember.  It is very similar to the Apple Gorgonzola Pizza post I did a couple months ago and I also stole the sauce drizzle from that recipe to drizzle over this pizza again today.  It just really gives it a great tangy taste.  And once again, I ate half the pizza myself in one sitting, licking the plate clean at the end.  Yummmmyyyyyy!!!

1 Boboli thin pizza crust

1 T olive oil

1/4 c grated Parmesan cheese

1 can artichoke hearts

1 can mushroom pieces

1/4 cup pecan bits

1 pear, pealed and sliced

1 c blue cheese crumbles

1 lime, juiced

2 T Dijon mustard

3 T honey

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  Brush olive oil on crust.  Sprinkle Parmesan cheese over crust.  Arrange artichoke hearts and mushrooms over pizza.  Arrange pear slices around pizza.  Sprinkle with blue cheese crumbles.  Sprinkle with pecan bits.  Bake for 20 minutes or until cooked through.  While baking, mix the juice of one lime, the mustard and honey, whisking until well mixed.  When pizza is done, slice and plate.  Once plated, drizzle the honey mustard sauce over pizza.  ENJOY!  This is a great, easy, quick dinner!

I found this recipe in a recent issue of one of my cooking magazines.  The photo in the magazine made it look so beautiful and I thought I’d bust out my mad cooking skills and try this for Thanksgiving lunch.  Unfortunately, I threw away the recipe yesterday because I did not think this was all that great.  It’s basically just an apple pie.  It also called for a vanilla bean that is scrapped out.  And yikes, these cost $15 for two beans!!  It tasted great, just a fancy apple tart.

Apple Tart Pie:

1 refrigerated pie crust

3 T. apple jelly, melted

2/3 c. brown sugar

1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped out

1/2 t. nutmeg

5-7 large granny smith apples, peeled and thinly sliced

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Melt apple jelly.  Brush half of the mix over the bottom of pie crust.  Mix brown sugar, vanilla bean seeds and nutmeg.  Sprinkle 1-2 T. over jelly in bottom of pie crust.  Take apples and place in a ring around the bottom of the crust.  Sprinkle 1-2 T. sugar mix over this layer of apples.  Continue with apples around again, filling pie crust.  Brush the remaining jelly over top layer of apples.  Sprinkle remaining sugar mix on top.  Bake for 40-50 minutes, or until apples are tender.  Enjoy!

I’ve been wanting to make this sauce for the past couple of weeks, but with the holiday and eating out I just hadn’t found the right meal to make it with.  Tonight I decided to make fried crusted chicken breasts, sweet potato fries with caramelized onion sauce and fresh sweet corn from this fall.  This meal was really easy to throw together and I do admit I did not make everything from scratch.  I grabbed the corn out of my freezer, always great to have fresh corn from the cob.  I used two large chicken breasts for the three of us.  I cut the chicken breasts into strips.  I then crusted them and fried them in olive oil.  The sweet potato fries were a spicy variety that I actually found in the freezer section of Target.  I’m sure there are other varieties at the grocery store or you could be adventurous and make your own.  The dipping sauce is what makes them so good.  This I did make from scratch, but it was very easy to make.  All together, it was a great meal!  Enjoy!

Crusting Mix:

1 cup panko bread crumbs

1/2 cup Parmesan cheese

1/2 cup plain bread crumbs

salt/pepper to taste

1 t. cayenne pepper

dash of hot pepper flakes

Caramelized Onion Dipping Sauce:

2 T. butter

1 medium sweet onion, sliced

2. T. apple cider vinegar

2 T. honey

2 T. Dijon mustard

1 c. mayonnaise

Melt butter in frying pan over medium heat, add onions.  Cook onions, stirring occasionally until they caramelize, about 25 minutes.  Remove from heat and place onions, vinegar, honey and mustard in food processor and process until fairly smooth.  Mix in the mayonnaise.   Store in refrigerator until ready to use.

I came across this recipe on Pinterest, thought I would try it out to use on my Christmas Treats Plates.  These taste great and are fairly easy to make.  Just make sure you have time to roll them all.  This recipe makes a huge batch.  I rolled out all the peanut butter balls on one day (with a little help from my wonderful sister) and then I dipped them in the chocolate a day later.  I plan on putting them in the freezer until I make up my Christmas plates.  Enjoy!

Peanut Butter Balls (also known as Buckeyes)

3 lbs powdered sugar

1 lb butter

4 cups smooth peanut butter

3 packages of dark chocolate candy chips

Combine powdered sugar, butter and peanut butter in a large bowl.  Mix with your hands until everything is well blended.  Chill for at least 1/2 hour.  Roll the dough into balls about 1 inch in diameter.  Chill again for another 1/2 hour.   Heat chocolate candy chips according to package directions.  I just did it in the microwave.  Dip the peanut butter balls in the melted chocolate and let them cool on cookie sheet or wax paper.  Store in refrigerator or freezer.  Enjoy!

This recipe is an old one.  I’ve seen variations of it all over, but this recipe is from my Mom’s cookbook.  She used to make this quite often when we were growing up for dinner.  She’d usually make bacon or sausage to go with it.  I would love to do the same thing, but my hubby is not a fan of fruit in his dinner food.  Whatever…So I like to make this when I can have my friends over for brunch.  Hubby is at work, so it gives me the opportunity to indulge.  Unfortunately, this is not one for the waistline, there’s just a tad bit of butter, milk, eggs and sugar in it.  But this is easy and a great tradition to start for Christmas brunch.  You can also saute the apples the night before and just throw the 9×13 pan in the refrigerator until morning.  Just make sure you have lots of syrup on hand for your final product.  Enjoy!

German Apple Pancakes:

7-8 large apples (i used granny smith and honeycrisp)

1 stick of butter

1 1/3 cups milk

1 1/3 cups flour

2/3 cup sugar

8 eggs

cinnamon/sugar

Saute the apple slices in butter until soft.  Pour into a 9×13 pan.  Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.  I just sprinkle until it looks good.  In a large bowl, beat milk, flour, sugar and eggs until well mixed.  Pour over the apples.  Bake at 400 degrees for 30-40 minutes.  Make sure you have room above your oven rack, this will puff up quite a bit around the edges as it bakes.  When you take it out of the oven and let it sit, the edges will deflate back down.  This is also great leftover.  Just pack the leftovers away and enjoy a piece every morning with your coffee…Yummmmmy!

OK, I wrote this post way back at the end of August, saved it as a draft and then never posted it.  I thought for sure I had, but it’s still showing up as a draft.  For some reason, my apple, Gorgonzola, artichoke pizza post from a few weeks ago has gone viral today, over 700 hits on my blog today and most on that post.  I had one fellow blogger, Kathy, ask if I had any other fun pizza recipes.  I was going to reference the shrimp pizza on the grill and then this steak pizza, when I realized this steak pizza never made it.  So, long story not so short, here is that old post.  This pizza was fabulous!  Although, it’s much more of a summer pizza.  Enjoy!

I had so much fun making the shrimp pizza a few weeks ago that I thought I’d try another one this week.  Again, I used a Boboli thin pizza crust instead of making one from scratch.  I also used ranch dressing on half the pizza instead of the blue cheese dressing, as my hubby does not like blue cheese (what can I say, he’s weird).  This pizza turned out great!  I loved it and would make it again next week.  Even my 9-year old son liked it, and he’s usually into cheese pizza, no toppings.  You could also mix things up a bit, adding almost any type of veggie that you like and leaving off those you don’t.  Enjoy!

Steak Salad Pizza:

1 Boboli thin pizza crust

olive oil

1 New York strip steak

salt/pepper

1 1/2 cup mozzarella shredded cheese

3 cups chopped lettuce of your choice

chopped tomatoe

chopped onion

chopped mushrooms

chopped red pepper

chopped green pepper

Prepare crust by brushing with olive oil.  Cook steaks on the grill to your taste after rubbing with some salt and pepper.  Let steak rest for 5 minutes before slicing against the grain into thin strips.  Cover crust with mozzarella cheese.  Top with your favorite toppings.  I used tomatoes, onion, fresh mushrooms, red and green peppers.  Top with slices of the steak.  Bake at 400 for 15 minutes or until mozzarella cheese is melted.  Remove from oven.  Top with chopped lettuce and drizzle with blue cheese dressing.  Slice and enjoy!

Chunky Blue Cheese Dressing:

1 cup crumbled blue cheese

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup buttermilk

2 t. white wine vinegar

salt/pepper to taste

Whisk together well.  Drizzle on top of pizza.

I pulled this recipe out of an InStyle magazine almost three years ago and make it all the time.  It is very easy and only has five ingredients in the cake.  It’s very easy to whip up on the fly or if you have to bring a dessert to pass.  It tastes decadent and most people love it.  It’s also great for anyone with gluten allergies, as there is no flour in the cake.  The spiced whipped cream is what really puts it over the top.  Try it, you’ll like it.

Chocolate Flourless Cake:

Cake:

1/2 lb bittersweet baking chocolate

1/2 cup unsalted butter

3 T bourbon

4 eggs

2/3 cup sugar

Spiced Cream:

3/4 cup cold heavy whipping cream

2 T confectioners’ sugar

dash of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Grease a 9″ pie pan or 9″ round baking pan.  Melt chocolate and butter in saucepan, stirring frequently so as not to burn it.  Stir until smooth.  Mix in bourbon, remove from heat and set aside.  With an electric mixer, beat eggs and sugar until mixture is thick, about 7 minutes.  Fold into chocolate mixture slowly.  Mix well.  Spoon batter into prepared pan.  Bake for 35 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.  Cool completely.  Just before serving, beat heavy cream until frothy.  Add confectioners’ sugar and spices, continue beating until soft peaks form.  Serve on individual slices of cake with chocolate shavings.  Yummy!  Enjoy!

This is a quick and easy apple cake recipe that works great if you need something fast and easy.  Enjoy!

Caramel Apple Bundt Cake:

1 pkg yellow cake mix

1 pkg instant vanilla pudding

1 c. water

4 eggs

1/3 c. oil

1 T cinnamon

3 apples, peeled and chopped (I used honeycrisp)

1 can caramel topping

grease bundt pan.  mix all but apples with a beater, mixing well.  gently stir in apples.  pour into greased bundt pan.  bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees.  drizzle with caramel just before serving.  mmmm…

I found this really easy recipe the other day and thought I’d try it out on my church small group.  I actually rolled out the rolls and sliced them the night before and placed them back into the refrigerator to bake the next day.  The rolls did not rise as much as I thought they would and I don’t know if I had done it all in one day if that might have helped.  But they tasted great and were so very easy to throw together.  Enjoy!

Mini Cinnamon Rolls:

1 loaf frozen white bread dough

4 T melted butter

2/3 c brown sugar

2 T cinnamon

1/2 c whipping cream

chopped pecans (optional)

milk and powdered sugar

Thaw loaf of bread dough.  Roll out into a large rectangle.  Brush with melted butter.  Sprinkle brown sugar and cinnamon on top.  Starting on the longer edge, start rolling the dough until completely rolled up.  Slice into 1″-2″ pieces.  Places into a greased pan.  Put in a warm spot and let rise for about 1 hour.  Drizzle with cream.  Sprinkle on pecans if desired.  Bake at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes.  Invert onto a plate.  Mix milk and powdered sugar into a frosting, pour over warm cinnamon rolls.  Enjoy!