Review of Christmas recipes I tried this year

 Hello friends!

This Christmas was an awesome and unforgettable one for me.  I had all my children, grandchildren and both our moms in town!  Such a blessing!

Since we are still currently living in our trailer (though we did make it out on our land), we rented a house for the week to host out of.

With such a large group, I planned on cooking all our meals at home to save money and make sure we ate well.  We had some family members who only eat lean meats and others that don't care for sourdough anything, so I had to adapt a few things. Adapting and trying new things is fun!

Of course one of the requests was for my overnight cinnamon rolls, which has become a tradition for Christmas morning.  Luckily, I was able to get the house a day early, so I could prep everything.  That made everything possible.  Here is the best overnight cinnamon roll recipe you will ever try and I have put it to the test for years!  I doubled the recipe using my bosch mixer which I loved grabbing out of storage and using after a few years.  It is a true work horse!

I made an apple pie which I honestly don't follow a recipe for.  All the recipes use too much sugar and not enough cinnamon in my opinion.  I also like to cook my apples before putting them into the crust.  I had crust in my freezer, so I didn't have to make that.  Score!

One of my kids requested a chocolate cream pie.  She said that was the only pie her and her husband really cared for.  This was great because another member of our family has that as their favorite pie as well.  So, I went for a hunt for a recipe and landed on this chocolate cream pie recipe.  It was a favorite by everyone!  Definitely go try it!  The only thing I changed is I just used the chocolate chips I had on hand, no special, fancy chocolate.  I also had a can of reddi whip in the fridge, so I used that instead of making my own.

I of course had a few loaves of my sourdough on hand, which most everyone likes to eat, but I do have a few who prefer something non-sourdough.  I obliged by making two loaves of the artisan bread I used to make way back when.  You can read about that in an earlier post on this blog.

One thing I made that really surprised me are these homemade brown and serve rolls.  Wow! These did not disappoint and they came together so nicely in my bosch mixer.  Super soft dough and easy to work with.  You just par bake them and then you can freeze or leave on counter and then brown and serve just like the store bought ones.  The family ate these up so fast the first night that I had to make another batch for Christmas Day!

The last thing that I cooked up that I thought would be great to share with y'all is the goulash I made.  It's my same recipe from earlier in this blog, but with a few modifications.  Here are the ingredients I used:

• 1/2 of a onion
• 1 tsp. diced garlic
• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 lb. of ground turkey
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 cups beef stock
• 1 can of diced tomatoes
• 1 can of tomato sauce
• 1 mini can of V-8 juice
• 1 tsp. dried oregano
• 1 tsp. dried basil
• 1 bay leaf
• 3/4 box of Barilla Protein+ penne pasta

Instructions:

• brown onion and garlic in the olive oil
• Add ground turkey and cook until done (salt and pepper to taste)
• Add beef stock, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, v-8 juice and spices
• Bring to a boil and let simmer for up to 30 minutes
• Add pasta and cook until pasta is done
• Turn off heat and let it set up with the lid off

I doubled this recipe and served it for lunch one day and we had it in the fridge for leftovers.  Everyone loved this and it was eaten up by the end of the week.

I hope you can try some or all of these recipes.  Leave a comment below if you do and what you thought of them!  Happy cooking!