Holiday Cooking

With Christmas coming up, many kitchens will begin to start smelling of baked goods and possibly something burning. Perhaps you have no idea what you are bringing to the potluck family dinner. Or maybe you're still trying to decide what pies to make. Here is a list of some of my best holiday-themed recipes:

• Dill Dip: Great for dipping veggies in to keep guests held over until the main course

Jessi's Guacamole: The best guac recipe I've tasted, created by my cousin

• Cran-Ras Salad: A sweet salad to add some healthy to the carb and sugar laden holiday meal
• Acorn Squash: With brown sugar and bacon for a yummy side or appetizer

Garlic Knots: Bread for the side that tastes sort of like Bertucci's rolls when heated up

• No Crisp Apple Crisp: If you're running a budget or running out of time, this apple recipe makes a good snack

Butternut Squash: This medley of squash, carrots, onion, and brown sugar is of my own creation and has become a hit at parties

• Smashed Chipotle Sweet Potatoes: A spicy side dish for the bolder cooks
• Oatmeal Raisin Cookies: My ultimate family recipe

Evil Pie: A very quick no-bake pistachio pie that has been a favorite of the kids in my family





Below is a list of holiday recipes that I would love to try if I had time, but perhaps you can try them instead! (Also my favorite blogs to follow!)

• Homemade Peppermint Marshmallows by Beantown Baker
• Peppermint Kiss Cookies by Taste and Tell 
• Sweet Potato Hummus by A Cozy Kitchen
• Pumpkin Ravioli by Eats Well With Others
• Twice Baked Acorn Squash by Made by Frances
• Egg Nog Cookies by Poor Girl Gourmet

P.S. Tom and I are going to be making cherry cheesecake tarts tonight so prepare for that recipe to be up soon as well!

Acorn Squash with Brown Sugar and Bacon

This autumn day is probably one of the final weekend days of the year where it was in the 60s, perfect in my mind for a final grilling. Today Tom and I decided to combine seasonal foods with summer-style cooking. First up was this incredible recipe I found here for acorn squash. I love acorn squash. I need to find more recipes using it. I guess I never really thought about it before, but I really do love fall produce.

Anyway, enough of my rambling. Here's the recipe. I wish I could have gotten a better picture; acorn squash is such an interesting vegetable to look at. But I forgot my camera. This is why I'm getting a little digital camera for Christmas, right? (hint hint)

I apologize for the quality of this photo, this is from a camera phone.

1 acorn squash

2 slices of bacon

1 1/2 tbsp butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

salt and pepper to taste

makes 2 servings

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with tin foil. Halve the acorn squash and scoop out the seeds. (You can salt and cook the seeds along with your squash, that's what we did!) Poke holes in the inside so that the flavor can soak in as much as possible. Melt some of the butter and paint the skin side with it. Add the rest of the butter to the scooped out part of the squash. Place the halves on the baking sheet, and add 1/4 cup of brown sugar and top with a slice of bacon on each side. Bake for 40 minutes. We then threw it on the grill to get the bacon crispy, but you can obviously skip this step. Just cook it until the yellow part is relatively soft. 

If you're health conscious you can always skip the bacon. Then you'd just have a sweet side. This also makes a great appetizer. Or, if you make a whole squash for yourself you can have it as a meal. 

My only problem with this recipe was how to eat it. I wish that recipe instructions also gave eating instructions sometimes. I wasn't sure if I should just chop it up and eat the bacon last, scoop out the inside, or what. I ended up just scooping out the yellow part and forgetting about the skin (though you can definitely eat that too!) and then eating the bacon by itself. The bacon had a nice sweet flavor to it, and the squash was very 

yummy! I totally suggest considering this if you are trying to plan Thanksgiving sides.