holiday recipes

We have been making this salad for as long as I can remember. It was my brother's favorite, so now I like to make it in his memory, as he is no longer with us. It is a yummy creamy delicious salad that can be done in apricot, peach, orange -- pretty much any jello flavor you like that mixes well with the pineapples.

Apricot Salad
1 large or 2 small packages of apricot jello
2/3 of a large can of crushed pineapple
1 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup sugar
1 (9oz) carton of Cool Whip
1 (8 oz) package of cream cheese

Boil water, pineapple and sugar. Add the jello and the softened cream cheese. Stir until dissolved. Refrigerate until it begins to thicken, about an hour, and then mix in the Cool Whip. Refrigerate until time to serve.

This is a great dish to make ahead. We always serve it in a pretty crystal bowl that was my grandmother's.

We were so tired of the same old fruit salad where the fruit is mixed with the Cool Whip. Ugh! Blah!

I think my aunt found this recipe -- I don't know where -- but I love it. It is so easy -- very little slicing -- tasty and makes a lot.

Fruit Salad
2 cans of peach pie filling
1 (15 oz) can pineapple chunks
1 large can mandarin oranges
1 carton frozen strawberries with sugar
bananas, sliced

Mix and serve.

What else can I say. This salad is awesome. If you must have Cool Whip, you can top it. You can add nuts or any other fruits that you like. You can eat this for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack -- whatever. It is so good!

This last Christmas my husband requested ham for the main dish which was fine with me, but I wanted to dress it up some. So I found this recipe online at cooks.com. It was really good and really an old classic, just not one I had ever done. It didn't look quite like this, but you get the idea.

Baked Ham with Pineapple Glaze
1/2 smoked ham
1 medium can crushed pineapple
1/2 tsp dry mustard
1/4 tsp ground cloves
2 T. corn starch
1/2 cup brown sugar
I added maraschino cherries

Bake 1/2 ham for one hour at 350 before applying glaze. Add the remaining ingredients to the can of crushed pineapple in a saucepan on the stove. Heat, stirring constantly, until glaze is thick. Spread the glaze evenly over the ham and bake for 30 minutes.

This was really scrumptious. I picked all the cherries off, of course.

This recipe replaced the old yams with marshmallows that we had been eating since before I was born. It is just slightly different but that little bit makes all the difference. My grandmother found this recipe somewhere and we started using it about eight years ago. No looking back.

Sweet Potato Casserole
3 cooked, mashed sweet potatoes
2 eggs
1/3 cup milk
3/4 cup white sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Topping:
1 cup chopped pecans (or nut of your choice)
1 cup light brown sugar
1/3 cup oleo or butter
1/2 cup flour

Mix all the ingredients for the sweet potatoes together and put into a casserole dish. Spread evenly. Set aside.

Mix all the topping ingredients well (I like to crumble it together with my fingers) and sprinkle over the potato mixture.

Bake at 350 uncovered for 30-40 minutes.

Pure heaven.

I am originally from Texas so we use pecans for everything, but I think you could probably substitute with some walnuts or other nuts that are more to your liking and may be more available in your area. It is up to you.

I actually picked this one up from a friend at a time when we couldn't get back to our family in Texas for Thanksgiving. They couldn't get home either so we came together for the holiday. She made this and it is creamy, yummy, buttery corny goodness.

Corn Casserole
2 cans creamed corn, mostly drained
1 1/2 sticks butter, melted (use more if you want)
2 boxes jiffy corn muffin mix
8 oz sour cream

Mix everything together and pour into a casserole dish. Cook in an oven preheated to 350 for 50-70 minutes or until golden brown along the edges. She says that some people also add an egg but that it doesn't really make any difference.

Super easy, super delicious. You could spice this up if you wanted to or leave it plain. Either way it is sure to be a hit.

The copy I have of this recipe looks like it came out of an old recipe book of my grandmother's. It is called Mrs. McDowell's Five Flavor Cake and has an old handwritten note on the back where my grandmother was trying to leave it for someone but no one was home. I have used this recipe countless times over the years. It makes a great gift or item for the bake sale. It is a very heavy cake with a wonderful crunchy crust on it from the glaze (see pic -- it really looks like this and that crust is heavenly). It makes me, and everyone I have ever given it too, very happy. Try it and see for yourself.

Mrs. McDowell's Five Flavor Cake
1 cup butter (2 sticks)
1/2 cup vegetable shortening (I use another stick of butter -- I never have shortening)
3 cups sugar
5 eggs
3 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup milk
1 tsp coconut flavor
1 tsp rum extract
1 tsp butter flavor
1 tsp lemon extract
1 tsp vanilla extract

Glaze:
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1 tsp coconut flavor
1 tsp rum extract
1 tsp butter flavor
1 tsp lemon extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract

For the cake: Cream butter, shortening (or more butter) and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs which have been beaten until lemon colored. Combine flour and baking powder and add to creamed mixture alternately with milk. Stir in the extracts and flavors. Spoon mixture into a greased and floured 10 inch tube pan or bundt pan and bake at 325 for 1 1/2 hours or until cake tests done. Add glaze while cake is still hot. Cool for at least ten minutes before turning the cake out of the pan.
For the glaze: Combine glaze ingredients in heavy saucepan. Bring to boil; stir until sugar is melted. Pour over hot cake in the pan.

Heavenly goodness. You can also make two big loaf cakes, three medium loaf cakes or for small gifts, you can do I think 12 of the small loaf pans. These make great gifts but if I make it for that I always have to have one for myself as well. I can't seem to be too generous with this when I make it because I love it so much.

I did this one for the first time last year. Honestly, I was pretty nervous to do a gingerbread recipe because I had never had any luck with cookie cutters. But the school was having a holiday bake sale and what better cookie for the holidays than these.

The real reason I decided to do gingerbread cookies was because I was not going to be there for the bake sale (gone home to Texas for Thanksgiving) and I needed to do something that could be frozen ahead of time, then pulled out for the bake sale. This was my best thought - if you have others for this situation, I would love to hear them.

Anyway, back to the gingerbread cookie -- I found this recipe at allrecipes.com and it worked beautifully. They were easy to work with once I was comfortable with the method and they tasted amazing. I am totally planning on doing them again this year. Thankfully I will be here for the bake sale, so I won't have to freeze them.

Gingerbread Cookies
6 cups flour
1 T. baking powder
1 T. ground ginger
1 T. ground nutmeg
1 T. ground cloves
1 T. ground cinnamon
1 cup shortening, melted and cooled slightly (I always use butter, I never buy shortening)
1 cup molasses
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup water
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla

Sift together flour, baking powder, ginger, nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon; set aside.

In a medium bowl, mix together the shortening (butter), molasses, brown sugar, water, egg and vanilla until smooth. Gradually stir in the dry ingredients, untl they are completely absorbed. Divide dough into three pieces, pat down to 1 1/2 inch thickness, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least three hours.

Preheat oven to 350. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to 1/4 inch thickness (see below for how I made this work). Cut into desired shapes with cookie cutters. Place cookies one inch apart onto an ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake for 10-12 minutes in the preheated oven. When the cookies are done, they will look dry, but still be soft to the touch. Remove from the baking sheet to cool on wire racks. When cool, the cookies can be frosted with the icing of your choice.

I was very pleased with how these turned out. And for icing, I simply bought decorator's icing in green, white and red, laid the cookies out on a piece of wax paper and then drizzled the different colors all over them. They turned out very pretty and very delicious.

Now my secret to rolling them out and cutting them:
This uses quite a bit of wax paper and flour but it is worth it. Take one of the wrapped balls of dough. Unwrap it from the plastic wrap and place it on a large piece of floured wax paper, flour the top of the dough and then place another piece of wax paper on top and start rolling it out with a rolling pin. When you have it rolled out to the right thickness, peel the top layer of wax paper off and starting cutting out your shapes. You can use the bottom layer to help you peel the cookies once cut off like a sticker. I prefer for them to stick in the cookie cutter, then I can just poke it out of the cutter onto the cookie sheet. Anyway, this worked very well for me.

Now that I conquered that problem, I think I can whip out more of these or any kind of sugar cookie any time with ease.

KitchenAid KSM150PSER Artisan Series 5-Quart Mixer, Empire Red

OvenStuff Non-Stick Six Piece Covered with Handles Bakeware Set
White

Pyrex Smart Essentials 8-Piece Mixing Bowl Set

Progressive International 19-Piece Measuring Set

Pyrex Prepware 2-Cup Measuring Cup, Clear with Red Measurements

Farberware Soft Touch 9-by-5-Inch Loaf Pan