17-37: Holiday Cookies

17-37: Holiday Cookies

Hopefully I haven’t caught you too late for this year’s batch of holiday baking. If so, keep this one around for next year–17-37: Holiday Cookies is a great butter cookie recipe for using cutters or presses. This is part of my big batch of assorted baked goods that I made as gifts for people this year–you can find the others linked at the end of this entry.

I got a new cookie press for Christmas last year, and finally got to test it out this year. This cookie press is AWESOME–so much easier than the old stubborn buggers from the past.


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17-46: Pumpkin Streusel Muffins

17-46: Pumpkin Streusel Muffins

🎃  I started this one over a month ago, when it would have still been relevant/timely, but procrastination got the best of me. Late, but hopefully not too late, here’s 17-46: Pumpkin Streusel Muffins.

If you’re not totally over pumpkin yet, these are a nice option for breakfast or dessert.

I made these along with 17-53: Spiced Whole Wheat Muffins and 17-68: Oatmeal Raisin Cookies as part of a “fall” baked goods basket for the break room. These muffins were the first of the assortment to disappear. 🍂


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4-4: Scalloped Parsley Potatoes

4-4: Scalloped Parsley Potatoes

4-4: Scalloped Parsley Potatoes is the third of my recent 3-recipes-at-1-time attempt–the others being 4-2: Green Beans with Hazelnut Butter and 7-55: Sunday Pork Stew.

I think I’ve made these before, despite the lack of notations. These were really easy and pretty good–very mild yet still flavorful.


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4-2: Green Beans with Hazelnut Butter

4-2: Green Beans with Hazelnut Butter

This recipe, 4-2: Green Beans with Hazelnut Butter along with 7-55: Sunday Pork Stew and 4-4: Scalloped Parsley Potatoes were my first attempt at trying to do 3 of these entry recipes at once. It ended up being harder to do than I thought.

One I’ve made before, about 6 years ago along with 6-40: Peppercorn Chicken Breasts and some other ones. I really like this technique/flavor profile–I use it a lot, even when I’m not documenting it for the Internet.


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1-22: Onion-Potato Diamonds

1-22: Onion-Potato Diamonds

Finally, an appetizer from the first section of the book. Another story for you: in my first apartment after I graduated college and moved back home to LA, I threw an 80s Valentine’s Day party, and 1-22: Onion-Potato Diamonds were one of the appetizers I made for it–another was 5-20: Golden Cheese Tartlettes.

Look at them. Something about them just screams 1980s cocktail party to me. This time around, I made them to take to a get-together I was attending, along with 17-36: Grandma’s Spice Cake. Both ended up being big hits.


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6-40: Peppercorn Chicken Breasts

6-40: Peppercorn Chicken Breasts

Here’s one I’ve made in the past–there’s even my Sharpie notations to prove it. I remember making 6-40: Peppercorn Chicken Breasts for my mom, since she’s not a red meat eater and I was making another recipe from this book for everyone else that was heavy on meat. I’ll cover that one eventually, and update this to reflect that. 😉

My notations claim that it’s easy. It is, when you use the right ingredients. If you don’t, it gets a bit tougher…


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12-7: Fettuccini with Creamy Chicken

12-7: Fettuccini with Creamy Chicken

Here’s a recipe I’ve actually made before–it’s been a while since we’ve seen one of those. When I was about 8 or 9, my mom decided that she, my dad, and I were going to take turns making dinner each week. One of the recipes I actually planned for and made (before this grand plan inevitably fell apart) was this one: 12-7: Fettuccini with Creamy Chicken.

I probably was drawn to this one because my favorite meal as a kid was fettuccini Alfredo, and this one seems relatively similar (to an 9-year old). I also remember being fascinated with the fact that I got to use alcohol in something.


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11-12: Creamy Sautéed Shrimp

11-12: Creamy Sautéed Shrimp

Alright. This is my FAVORITE recipe out of this entire book (at least, as far as I know). My mom always referred to it as “Shrimp Something”, but its official name is 11-12: Creamy Sautéed Shrimp. 

You can tell by the state of the card how often we cooked this recipe. This was always a big deal for me when I was a kid and my mom would make this dish.

I also cooked this one for my husband (then-boyfriend) when we were first dating, as a “here’s who I am” kind of a thing. What I’m trying to say is that this dish has a lot of feels attached to it.


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4-19: Twice-Baked Potatoes

4-19: Twice-Baked Potatoes

Here’s another potato recipe for you. I had a LOT of potatoes to cook. This was the complement to 11-16: Indian Fried Fish, which I posted a few days ago.

4-19 Twice-Baked Potatoes

This one got stuck to the page before it in the book–hence the destroyed-looking card. You can still see the important parts though–these are mighty tasty. My notes indicate I made it in a chipotle-style a few Christmases ago–we’ll do it legit for this one. For science. 🔬


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6-22: Crispy Chicken Drumsticks

6-22: Crispy Chicken Drumsticks

Who doesn’t like drumsticks? Vegetarians, I suppose. But this is not a recipe for them. Book 1, Group 2 (Main Courses), Subgroup 6 (Poultry & Game) gives us 6-22: Crispy Chicken Drumsticks. This was cooked in tandem with 4-21: Herb-Roasted Potatoes.

Drumsticks were on sale, so drumsticks you will get. I think this is one of the ones I was making before I went out of town a few weeks ago, but I’ve been a bit behind, so the details have escaped me a bit. Not that it matters to you, anyway. 🙂


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