Cookies, Dessert, Holidays, Snacks, Sweet, Winter

pistachio snowball cookies

One thing I always associate with Christmas is almond extract. More specifically, almond extract flavoring some old fashioned spritz cookies that my mom would make with her awesomely vintage cookie press. Have you ever seen one of these things? They’re pretty rad. Of course you can buy newer, less sturdy options, but my mom’s was the real deal with all metal parts. It belonged to my grandma when my mom was just a little kid in St. Louis.

Every Christmas season, my mom would grab the cookie press from its ragged cardboard box and she and my sisters and I would make red and green spritz cookies flavored with almond extract. Even if we halved the batch, it’d still make what seemed like a mountain of cookies! We’d be snacking on green Christmas trees and red (well, pink) wreaths well into the new year.

While those spritz cookies hold a nostalgic place in my heart, I think it’s high time I graduated to a more sophisticated sort of Christmas cookie. Enter the pistachio snowball cookie!

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AmandaDecember 14, 2013September 13, 2015Leave a comment

Candy, Cookies, Dessert, Holidays, Snacks, Sweet, Winter

crunchy little peppermint meringues

What do you think of when you think of Christmas time? I think of my mom’s homemade cranberry bread, twinkly little lights around the windows, Mickey’s Christmas Carol on TV, and Nat King Cole singing “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…”.

I also think of all things peppermint. There’s no better time of the year to break out the peppermint extract! Any other time of year, and you’ll just look like a weirdo. Since it’s December, you’re safe for the time being.

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AmandaDecember 11, 2013September 13, 2015Leave a comment

Candy, Dessert, Holidays, Snacks, Sweet, Winter

minty chocolate puppy chow

I think it was during a classroom Christmas party in the 3rd grade, that I first ate puppy chow.

No, not that kind of puppy chow! I mean the kind usually made with Chex cereal, chocolate, peanut butter, and powdered sugar!

Its a really tasty snack that only seems to pop up around Christmas time, and when I first heard of it as a wee little kid, I was ultimately confused. I thought that this kid in my class had actually brought in dog food to share with the class. Silly me!

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AmandaDecember 7, 2013September 13, 2015Leave a comment

Dessert, Fall, Sweet

s’mores creme brulee

I love s’mores. You might remember those little s’mores bars? They were impossible to stop eating.

This s’mores creme brulee was pretty much as good as those s’mores bars. It’s amazing! I made a version of this about 7 or 8 years ago and I always wanted to revisit it.

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AmandaNovember 30, 2013September 17, 2015Leave a comment

Dessert, Fall, Fruit, Snacks, Sweet, Winter

caramel pears

Pears are better than apples.

There, I said it. I’ve never been a huge fan of apples, they always smell better than they taste, to me. I do enjoy a few varieties that I’ll snack on if the rare mood strikes (Pink Lady, Honeycrisp), but I’d rather eat a pear than an apple, any day of the week. That’s why I decided to create a new cool-weather staple: enter the caramel-dipped pear!

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AmandaNovember 23, 2013September 13, 20152 Comments

Breads, Breakfast, Dessert, Fall, Fruit, Snacks, Sweet, Winter

autumn spiced donuts with apple curd filling

You guys. Ohhh, you guys. I can’t remember the last time I cooked something that I loved as much as these donuts.

Fall and cider donuts go hand in hand. I live in the southwest so they’re not quite as popular around here as they may be, say, in upstate New York or somewhere, so I decided to make my own. I had been wanting to make homemade donuts for a while, and I’m so glad that this is the recipe I settled on. Think of it as sort of a modified, inside-out cider donut.

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AmandaNovember 16, 2013September 17, 20155 Comments

Cookies, Dessert, Fall, Fruit, Sweet, Winter

spiced apple butter bars

Back a few months ago when I made these Strawberry-Lime Crumble Bars, all I could think about was how I couldn’t wait to make a fall-inspired version! The strawberry and lime ones were amazing, but when the weather turns cool, you just want something with cinnamon, vanilla and warm spices, preferably with some apples included, to ring in the season.

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AmandaNovember 2, 2013September 13, 2015Leave a comment

Breakfast, Fall, Sweet, Winter

pumpkin pie oatmeal with cranberry crunch

The arrival of cool fall weather means a few different things to me. One, it means an end to the dreadfully hot Phoenix summers, and two, it means that I can once again eat things like hot oatmeal for breakfast without sweating over the bowl!

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AmandaOctober 26, 2013September 13, 2015Leave a comment

Candy, Dessert, Fall, Holidays, Snacks, Sweet

creepy chocolate spiderweb treats!

Oh, glorious Halloween. I have such fond memories of you from when I was a kid!

When I was in elementary school, everyone would dress up. Probably even the bus drivers, if memory serves me right. As if trick-or-treating candy wasn’t enough, we’d also get treat bags at school. I know there must have been candy in them, but I can only vaguely remember Saf-T Pops, info on trick-or-treating safety, and (for some reason) packets of chocolate Malt-O-Meal cereal that kids would just eat plain from the packet. Gross. I guess it was meant to be breakfast for the day after Halloween, so we could get a somewhat nourishing meal after gorging ourselves on candy the night before.

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AmandaOctober 12, 2013September 13, 20151 Comment

Breads, Breakfast, Fall, Fruit, Sweet

carrot cake scones

Once the first day of fall arrives, we’re finally allowed to celebrate all things pumpkin without risking a punch in the mouth. We’ll get our fill of pumpkin bread, pumpkin cinnamon rolls, and of course the ever-present pumpkin spice latte. With all this pumpkin overload, there’s another autumn-appropriate flavor that always gets upstaged by pumpkin, and that’s the humble carrot cake.