We tried a few new recipes in December, most of them related to the holidays. I was a little lax in taking photos, so you'll have to use your imagination for a few of them.
We started off the month with a tasty meal called Cuban Pork, from the Quilter's Cuisine cookbook from the Central Florida Quilt Guild, a gift from a friend who use to be part of that quilt guild. This one had lots of easy ingredients and was pretty easy - throw everything into a ziploc bag and let it marinate for a day, and then roast it. The pork was pretty tasty and is a nice way to dress up a plain pork tenderloin.
Early in the month, Jenna decided she wanted to make a new dessert for dinner with our friends, and after looking through the dessert recipe folder, she decided on Apple Crisp with Oat Topping. She powered through peeling the apples, and then had some help from her dad when he decided to see if he could peel apples with his drill (it worked!). With the speed of peeling via drill, it made the whole process a lot quicker!
The next one I have a picture of is the pie I made for Christmas dinner - it is the Southern Pecan Pie from Fix-it and Enjoy-it Cookbook, one that we go back to time and again. I also made the pie crust (and I am not great at them) from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. Clearly, I need a little more practice to make my pie crusts pretty, but the taste is okay, and the pie turned out well overall.
In addition to the pie, we were busy making cookies the week before Santa arrived. I planned to get a nice picture of the cookies out for Santa, but I totally forgot in all the activity on Christmas Eve. We tried three new recipes - Sugar Cookies from a cookbook my mom gave Jenna, No Bake Cocoa Bourbon Balls (this recipe plus 1/4 cup bourbon), and Outrageous Cookie Bars. They were all great, but I have to admit I liked the bourbon balls most of all!
My husband also did some Christmas Eve cooking, as he made his mom's Sweet and Sour Meatballs, a recipe that she's made for years on Christmas Eve. When she didn't feel like cooking this year, his sister took on the coffee cake recipe (she makes one for each family to eat on Christmas morning) and he took on the meatballs. He had to do a little running around to find the right kind of jelly (I can't even remember what kind of jelly he used, but it is unusual), but they turned out great. It turns out she had two different recipes and the one she had given me wasn't the "right" one, but one of his sisters came to the rescue and provided him with the right recipe in time for him to get the meatballs made. They bubbled away in the crock pot all afternoon and slowly disappeared!
Hope you all enjoyed some old standbys and some new treats over the holidays!
We started off the month with a tasty meal called Cuban Pork, from the Quilter's Cuisine cookbook from the Central Florida Quilt Guild, a gift from a friend who use to be part of that quilt guild. This one had lots of easy ingredients and was pretty easy - throw everything into a ziploc bag and let it marinate for a day, and then roast it. The pork was pretty tasty and is a nice way to dress up a plain pork tenderloin.
My husband also did some Christmas Eve cooking, as he made his mom's Sweet and Sour Meatballs, a recipe that she's made for years on Christmas Eve. When she didn't feel like cooking this year, his sister took on the coffee cake recipe (she makes one for each family to eat on Christmas morning) and he took on the meatballs. He had to do a little running around to find the right kind of jelly (I can't even remember what kind of jelly he used, but it is unusual), but they turned out great. It turns out she had two different recipes and the one she had given me wasn't the "right" one, but one of his sisters came to the rescue and provided him with the right recipe in time for him to get the meatballs made. They bubbled away in the crock pot all afternoon and slowly disappeared!
Hope you all enjoyed some old standbys and some new treats over the holidays!
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