Thanksgiving

This baked ham recipe features a honey and brown sugar glaze with bourbon and orange juice—better than store-bought and half the price! You don’t have to buy a ready-prepared honey-baked ham to please your guests because you can make an awesome ham at home for half the price. This recipe is one of our favorites …

This easy double-crust apple pie recipe will become a classic for your recipe box. The filling is luscious with a hint of cinnamon and lots of apples! Doesn’t fall seem like a harbinger of good, homey, comfort foods? I adore spring and its light vegetables, and summer with its abundance of fresh produce, like juicy, …

Apple tarts with orange-almond marmalade using puff pastry–quick and easy! Perfect for a weeknight dessert or even for company. We stay at our daughter’s house quite a bit to spend time with our grandson, so I get a close-up view of what it’s like to be young, working parents. Of course, I had a pretty close-up …

Sautéed Brussels Sprouts topped with a lemon and Dijon vinaigrette, then sprinkled with Parmesan cheese and bacon—a new twist on a favorite vegetable! So you might have noticed that I have a thing for Brussels Sprouts—this is the third Brussels Sprouts recipe to make this site. The first, and maybe my favorite, was for Caramelized Roasted Brussels …

Leftover Turkey — what should you do with it? Try these yummy Hand Pies with Cranberry and Boursin. Use all your leftovers: pie crust dough, turkey, cranberry sauce, and just add a little Boursin cheese to pull it all together. It’s delightful! It’s the morning after. You awaken, bleary-eyed, a little hungover, hand grasping around …

This cherry and pomegranate glazed ham is simple and beautiful with its cherry-red glaze made from pomegranate juice and dried tart cherries. It’s also easy and relatively hands-off! I’m a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to holiday celebrations. My Christmas tree is always decorated with the same ornaments, although I do add a …

This Pumpkin Sheet Cake falls into the OMG is this for real category of recipes. It’s moist, easy to make, full of fun fall flavor and fragrant spices, and best of all, topped with the most amazing white chocolate and cream cheese frosting. The cake is made in a half-sheet pan so it’s just right …

Pumpkin Bread Pudding made with challah bread, cinnamon, allspice, ginger, and cloves, and topped with a warm caramel drizzle. This one is simple comfort food that tastes amazing! If you haven’t finalized your Thanksgiving menu yet (then you are a procrastinator!) this is a wonderful pumpkin bread pudding recipe that you could add to your …

Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting made from an easy and moist recipe that will quickly become a family favorite! This cake is a classic for weddings, showers, and any event.  What is Red Velvet Cake? Red velvet cake…is it a Southern classic or the product of a food coloring manufacturer’s marketing scheme? No …

Classic Cheesecake Recipe for a New York style cheesecake that is perfect every time! It’s rich, creamy and luscious and can be served plain or with a caramel, chocolate, or raspberry topping. My family tends to disagree about a lot of things. We are almost all on a different place on the political spectrum. Some …

These easy homemade cinnamon rolls are full of cinnamon, vanilla, and butter and topped with an tasty cream cheese icing—make breakfast special anytime! There are few things better to wake up to than the smell of a fresh pot of coffee and homemade cinnamon rolls in the oven…breakfast comfort food at its best. Everyone in our family …

Easy brownies made with melted butter and cocoa, all in one bowl! These brownies are fudgy, moist, and so good! Dear Brownie, When my friends in the Let’s Lunch club selected Grief Bacon: Your Comfort Food in Times of Great Stress/Grief as the theme for January’s post, I have to admit I didn’t immediately decide …

This Sweet Potato Pie is creamy and lightly spiced and easy to make! Similar to pumpkin but with a more delicate flavor, this one is a Southern family favorite! Lots of people will claim to be either sweet potato pie lovers or pumpkin pie lovers. I love both! Along with pecan pie. And chocolate pie. …

Everyone loves this creamy pumpkin pie with gingersnap crust because it’s a snappy version of traditional pie and has the tang from gingersnaps to balance the sweetness. A couple of weeks ago we had a bunch of friends over for some Thanksgiving recipe testing. It’s amazing how you can get volunteers when you say, “Will …

Creamy sweet potato casserole with pecan and brown sugar streusel topping. It strikes me as so funny that this dish is considered a vegetable or side dish in most old cookbooks. It has basically the same ingredients as sweet potato pie…why is it not a dessert? But I say that and folks just look at …

Three Bean Salad is a tangy and sweet bean salad that can accompany grilled or roasted meats and makes a perfect addition to a vegetarian menu. Thanksgiving menus abound with starchy, cheesy, fat-laden dishes. That’s what makes Thanksgiving so wonderful! You get to eat all the potatoes, cheese, bread, and butter that you want and …

Easy Raspberry Brie Appetizer that your guests will devour and come back for more! Just bake brie in a phyllo shell and top with raspberry preserves—simple yet elegant! Many times when we’re having a party, I will serve a fabulous, time-consuming main dish that I may spend hours getting ready. That means that the accompanying …

Cinnamon rolls without yeast are easy with no waiting on the dough to rise! Filled with brown sugar and cinnamon and topped with cream cheese icing, these are a special breakfast treat! We’ve had lots of 20-somethings at our house for the past few weeks. Malorie and a couple of her friends came up for …

This Southern Pecan Pie recipe is a classic but swaps old-fashioned cane syrup for some of the corn syrup. The result is intense and delicious flavor, not just overwhelming sweetness!  **Note: Recipe updated November 25, 2016.  They dot the landscape of Middle and South Georgia…tall, majestic trees offering shade beside homes or towering together in groves …

To some, the gravy is what Thanksgiving is all about. On this day of decadence, you have full rein to douse everything on your plate with gravy, from the turkey to the dressing to the mashed potatoes and whatever is in between. I must confess, I’ve never been a good gravy maker. My first attempt …

Roast Turkey is the centerpiece of your Thanksgiving table, so it’s important to get it right! This method uses foil to keep the turkey breast from drying out so you have a perfect Roast Turkey every time!  Being in charge of the Roast Turkey for Thanksgiving can be a daunting prospect, especially for first-time cooks. …

Roasted Brussels Sprouts, caramelized with a little brown sugar and spiced up with some chili powder and cumin…these are divine! My grandfather did not grow Brussels sprouts. He grew cotton for a few years, corn, peanuts and soybeans—and he would fall over laughing if he knew that people now pay good money to eat soybeans right …

Fresh cranberry sauce with orange zest, pineapple, and a little horseradish makes a great topping for turkey, ham, or pork.  I was several years into adulthood before I learned that cranberry sauce was actually made of real berries and not some form of gelatin. My experience with cranberry sauce was that of the jellied, quivering red …

Pearl onions, caramelized with a glaze made of sherry and honey…these are delicious! Takes about 10 minutes to put together and an hour to bake. My friend Ashley made these roasted pearl onions years ago at a dinner party and shared the recipe with me. Everyone at the dinner party ate these onions until we …