...overnight caramel sticky buns... pg.59

I was sooo excited to make these. For a week I had planned to make these, and a breakfast casserole left in my crock pot all night, on Christmas Eve. That way when we woke up Christmas morning, all I would have to do is bake the rolls, and breakfast was served!

The sticky buns were insanely easy to throw together. It literally took me two minutes to get them ready to rise overnight. The next morning, they looked amazing! I popped them in the oven for twenty minutes... finished opening presents, took them out... and they didn't look the way I thought they were going to.......

They just kinda fell out of the pan! The rolls didn't stick together, and all the "gooey-ness" didn't melt. But the rolls were perfectly brown. I was really disappointed. I'm not sure why the sugar didn't melt! It didn't come close to looking like the picture in the book! They were still really good. You just had to pick out the rolls that had the melted goodness on them!

So if anyone tries these, please let me know if you had a different (or same) outcome!

...peanut butter and white chocolate chip chocolate cookies... pg. 211

I will be honest, I was a little skeptical with this recipe. I'm always hesitant when eating a homemade chocolate cookie.... I feel when you're baking with cocoa powder, it could go one of two ways: not enough cocoa so it's bland, or waaaay too much and it's an overkill. So I usually skip baking chocolate cookies all together.

Well, these are great! And I will definitely be making them again! The peanut butter chips where such a yummy surprise! It took the edge off from being a chocolate overload. Excellent!

...gingerbread cookies... pg. 210

You can find the recipe HERE

You can't get ready for Christmas, and NOT make gingerbread cookies! It's just not right. So of course I asked my baking assistant to help me.... My mister Cohen buns. He loves making cookies. He gets to pour every ingredient in the mixer, and he turns it on. It's so much fun!

Now for the cookie cutting! Molly even got to help with this one! She loved it!

I don't know why I don't have any pictures of the finished product. That's downright silly of me. Especially since my two little helpers loved them! Yes. They are quite delicious. When my sister-in-law was baking hers, she had texted me and told me how yummy her house smelled... And she was right!

I really liked this recipe because it tasted so old fashioned. Like ones your mom, or grandma, or great-grandma would make. Not some foofy, modern, hip recipe. And I liked that. When it comes to Christmas... I like tradition. Don't give me something different!

So try these, you won't be disappointed.

...whipped buttercream frosting... pg. 240

You can find this recipe HERE

HANDS DOWN, BEST FROSTING!!!! Just had to get that out first.

So, I had been planning on making my young women's class at church, individual cupcakes, and deliver them for Christmas. I was racking my brain, and could not find a good frosting recipe, I could add peppermint too. While I was on the internet looking, my sister-in-law texted me and told me that she was in the process of making the gingerbread cookies from the cookbook, and she made the buttercream frosting from the book as well, to put on top of the cookies. I was shocked, and a little embarrassed, because I didn't know there was a frosting recipe in the cookbook!! So I grabbed my book, which is getting pretty raggedy by now... and flipped to the recipe for the buttercream frosting. In the title of the recipe it says, "It's sure to win over nonlovers of frosting everywhere!" Which made me immediately think of my husband, and his entire family! They hate frosting. Whenever I make cupcakes, I leave some without frosting for my husband. And if i ever made a cake for my in-laws, I would barely have a layer on top of frosting. Or, they would just scrape it off. So this was now my challenge!!

I mixed up this frosting, added PEPPERMINT extract, and oh.my.gosh. Seriously. AMAZING.

I was trying to make the frosting swirled with red and white, but it didn't work out very well. I had frosting everywhere! If there had been a camera on me while I was doing that, I'd be in trouble, cause I was making a huge mess, and I was licking it off of everything....

YES IT'S THAT GOOD!

Now for the challenge.... When my husband came home, first thing I did when he came home was I told him he HAD to eat one of those cupcakes. He wouldn't do it right away. I think he waited until after dinner. But then he devoured it. And when I asked him what he thought, he chuckled and said, "that's pretty darn good!" :) Which if you knew him, you knew, that was huge! Now my next challenge is to make it for my in-laws while I'm there next week, and see what they think!

Chocolate cupcake, with this amazing peppermint buttercream frosting.

This is what I handed to each of my girls for their Christmas treat!

...chicken tortilla soup... pg. 100

You can find the recipe HERE

I'm not really sure what to write about for this one. It was really easy to make. Except you have to marinate the chicken for a few hours. The chicken in it is really good. and very flavorful. The only thing was......... I was not thrilled with this. My sister was over for dinner, and while we were eating, my husband, sister and I were just silent. So finally I asked what everyone thought of the soup. Nobody was thrilled with it either. Maybe it's just our taste. And maybe it was because I used chicken broth with less sodium. I'm not sure. This was the first time I made something and said that I wouldn't probably make it again.

Sorry ladies of Our Best Bites. Not a winner for me.

Has anyone else made this? I'd love to hear your comments about this!

...classic mashed potatoes... pg. 178

You can find the tutorial HERE

I know, I know. Who needs a recipe for mashed potatoes?????? Well.... uh hem, me. When I was first married, I tried to make them all the time. But something was just always off. So I'd ask my mom, or sister-in-law. And everyone just told me, add butter, milk, salt and pepper. K. Well, if you've learned from me by now, I don't know ratios people!! I don't know how much or too little to put of this stuff. So ya know what, I appreciated this recipe. :)

Yeah, I forgot to take more pictures too. Sorry.

...apple pie... pg. 222

You can find the recipe HERE

I have NEVER made a pie before. Nope. It scared the poop out of me too. When I was looking through the cookbook at the beginning of this challenge. I KNEW I wanted to save this for Thanksgiving. I know what you're thinking... "First time making a pie, and you want to TRY it for Thanksgiving?!" Yeah, I know. Sounds crazy now. I was a little stressed out when I began. Just because every recipe I had ever read on pie crusts stressed the point of making sure every utensil, ingredient, even the bowl was ICE COLD. So I rushed through making the crust, so nothing warmed up.

Okay, I'm totally frustrated with this crust. I ended up cutting the edge off, cause it looked ugly. But then I realized I needed part of the edge to fold over. Duh.

So I faked it.

You guys, the smell itself, is worth it!!! {Which if you were at my house during this point, I was swearing off making a pie EVER again!!}

TA-DA!! I even cut out little pumpkins to cover up any imperfections in the crust! :)

The Lattice crust was by far the hardest part. I actually really like Dutch apple pies. So I thought about doing that on top instead. But I said, if I'm making a pie for Thanksgiving... GO BIG! So i did the fancy shmancy crust. I was also nervous that with having a lot of other pies for dessert, no one would eat mine. Well, mine was the first one gone!

This was DELICIOUS!!!! And I know I said I would never make a pie again. I totally want to make another. I just won't ever do the lattice crust, AGAIN!

I'm back in business!

So I've been away from my computer for awhile. Literally.... Our main computer wouldn't turn on for over a month. We purchased and tried three different power cords, and none of them would work. So we thought it was a goner! ALLLL of my pictures were on it, from all the recipes I've made, and not to mention pictures of my kids. :( I was super frustrated. So we had a little dinky laptop of my dad's we were using in the meantime. Two nights before Christmas, something magical happened. My dad had been trying to get our computer to work, and he found a cord that made our laptop turn on!! My husband came home with it and I was shocked! Oh I'm so happy to have our computer back!

So, alas, I'm back in business! I have a lot of catching up to do. I've made probably twelve things out of the cookbook since this all happened. But because of all this, I'm pushing back my challenge, one extra month. So instead of March 1st... I'm giving myself until April 1st to finish all these recipes.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

...orange chicken with snow peas... pg. 118

This was really easy to make. Which is a plus. I wasn't totally thrilled with it. Will I make it again? Yes. Will I jump up and down and shout from the rooftops, how delicious this is? no, probably not. I made this a while ago, so I'm trying to remember what it was lacking. It does mention in the headline of this recipe to add extra red pepper flakes if you want to kick it up a little. I'd probably do that.

...peter's lasagna... pg. 166

You can find this recipe here

This recipe is pretty darn good! Which I'm glad, since I doubled the recipe! It made a A LOT of lasagna! I was feeding a lot of people, and everyone loved it. I loved how many vegetables are used in it. Made it taste so fresh!

I made the garlic breadsticks to go with this. So yummy! If you like lasagna, try this one. And of course, as with all lasagna, it's so much better the next day! :)