Yesterday was an epic day.  My mom, my sister and I spent all of our Saturday in the kitchen getting our bake on…preparing the Christmas goodies a little ahead of schedule.  In my family, the holidays are are all about the food, most importantly, the baked goods.  My grandmother spoils us every year with her homemade cookies and rolls, but it’s a lot of work for one person so we decided to chip in this year and split up the job. We’ve been lucky enough to inherit and to learn some of her recipes, and I’m so happy to share them with all of you!

This nut roll recipe is actually an original from my great grandmother, Bubba Caroline.  She passed the recipe down to my grandmother, who passed it down to my mom and aunts, and now on down to my sister and me.  I’m sure it’s been modified over the years, but I’m telling you, these are perfection.

We had  some extra walnut filling left over from the nut rolls so my sister and I decided to experiment with homemade whole wheat sticky buns, and man were they delicious.  I have to give credit to thefreshloaf for an awesome whole wheat dough and glaze recipe.  Both were amazing.  Thanks!

Now listen up.  These cheese rolls are my absolute favorite.  I kid you not, I’ve been known to eat an entire roll on my own…a little pathetic but yes, they’re that good.  My mom makes them every Christmas without fail, and the family goes nuts over them.  I didn’t think you could make these any better but then I thought…what about chocolate?  So we added a sprinkle of chopped dark chocolate on top of the cheese filling, and YES, they’re even better!

In addition to the nut rolls, cheese rolls, and sticky buns, we made other traditional holiday favorites, including ginger snaps and ginger puffs.

Big thanks to my mom and sister for a fun and super successful weekend of baking! Hope everyone enjoys these goodies as much as we do!  Happy baking

Let’s face it, there’s a chocolate lover in all of us, well, most of us anyway!  I’m the kind of gal who’ll make a pan of brownies for no reason, so when I spotted this recipe I had to to try em out!  This is just the perfect little cookie; chocolate with chocolate chips…say what!?  Yes please.

I doubled the recipe so I would have lots of extras to share with friends.  It’s always nice to give/receive homemade gifts and goodies!

This isn’t so much a recipe post but more just a shout out to one of my favorite food items.  Pomegranates.  This fruit has been part of my life since I was a kid, before the name pomwonderful meant much of anything.  My dad loves pomegranates, I mean loves. I can remember his excitement each year when we entered the season of the pomegranate, (typically September thru February in the northern hemisphere)  and he brought them home by the dozen.  It was quite often my job to extract each seed, a tedious and MESSY task.  But, thanks to the fruit’s growing popularity, some inventive folks have come up with methods in order to avoid the stained clothing and juice splashes all over your kitchen…genius!  Here’s how I do it (not my claim to fame but whoever came up with it, thanks!):

Step by Step:

1. Cut pomegranate in half
2. Fill a large bowl with water, work with 1/2 pom at time
3. With 1/2 pom totally submerged, begin to break it apart and extract the seeds
4. When you are finished, the white pith will float and the seeds will sink–brush up on your laws of physics to figure this one out
5. Strain the seeds
6. *The water facilitates removing the seeds, and all the juice ends up in the bowl instead of on you

Instead of ending up with a this disaster…

You can enjoy your pomegranate seeds without having to do a load of laundry!

These little jewels are full of flavor and super healthy, not to mention pretty to look at!  Eat them however you like, one by one or by the spoonful, over vanilla ice cream, in a pomegranate martini or in a salad.  Get creative!

Those of you who aren’t fans of oatmeal raisin cookies, you obviously haven’t tried my nana’s.  Now, of course i’m slightly biased when it comes to baked goods, BUT seriously, every single one of my nana’s recipes is top notch, no joke!  Our family holidays are all about eating (and spending quality time together, of course) and the cookies are at the center of it all.  Nana starts baking in November, and the end result is 100′s of cookies for her family to devour over the span of 5 days.  What. a. woman.  There are a few little  secrets to this recipe that sets them apart from other oatmeal raisin cookie wannabe’s…coconuts, walnuts, raisin water.

You can make the cookies any size, but nana prefers a heaping tablespoon, with plenty of raisins and walnuts in each one.  Hope you enjoy these little raisin wonders!