The Christmas treats I’m sharing today are some of my favorites for many reasons:

• They are festive and come out of the oven dressed to party.
• They’re extremely easy to make.
• The masses love them. So do the non-masses.
• You can take them to work and your co-workers will love you.
• They make your house smell divine.
• They can tell the future, and so much more!

I should warn you though. They also have an identity crisis, and I’m afraid it confuses the children. After eating these, my kids have been known to say some pretty odd things. Check these doozies out.

» Finish reading Holiday Squares (Sunshine Bars) Recipe at TheCookingDish.com. »

© Chris Mower for The Cooking Dish, 2011. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Baking, Christmas Recipe, Christmas Seasons, Extra Nice, Family Favorites, Holiday, Holiday Square, List, Orange Juice, Oranges, Recipes, Squares, Sunshine, Sunshine Bars, Tasty Dessert

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Being the sugar cookie addict that I am, I naturally opted to use the sugar cookie dough. Sugar cookies have long been a holiday tradition at my house, one that I hope my kids continue and pass down to their own families someday.

As part of our cookie submission, General Mills also asked us to make it kid friendly so that moms (or dads!) can make it at home with their kids. For those of you who read my blog regularly, you already know that I love cooking with my little girls. They’re especially fond of any recipe that lets them play with dough.

This particular Christmas cookie idea combines two of my children’s favorite things. The first is making dough snakes. My kids jump at the chance to make them, and believe me, we can play that game for hours. The second is suckers. Their love for suckers nearly surpasses my own for sugar cookies.

» Finish reading Christmas Lollipop Cookies Recipe at TheCookingDish.com. »

© Chris Mower for The Cooking Dish, 2011. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Baking, Christmas Cookies, Christmas Lollipops, Cookie Decorating, Cookie Lollipops, Cookies, Cookies Recipe, Food and Drink, Fun, Fun Christmas Cookies, Holiday, Pillsbury, Pillsbury Cookie Dough, Snacks, Sugar Cookie, Sugar Cookie Dough

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My family looks forward each year to buying our pumpkins from one of the local pumpkin patches. You arrive, get a wheelbarrow and leisurely stroll around the pumpkin rows looking for the perfect pumpkin. I always buy a couple extra just for the seeds. My kids run around in utter delight trying to carry the largest pumpkin they can find. Depending on the patch, they may have hay bales and tractors set up for kids to play on. The owners of the patch we went to this year was giving tractor rides and had created a free corn maze for the kids.

We bought two big pumpkins for my wife and I, and three small pumpkins for our kids, and then a few of those really really small pumpkins just for the heck of it–actually, the kids seemed to be rather attached to them, and it was impossible to resist.

This past Monday, we hollowed out the pumpkins and let the kids carve theirs, so I’m sure the pumpkins will be overly shriveled come Halloween day, oh well. From the 5 hollowed out pumpkins I ended up with 6 cups of fresh pumpkin seeds–perfect for three different batches. Now, I’m the type of guy who rarely orders the same thing at a restaurant each time I visit because I like to experience different foods and flavors. So although I’ve already created pumpkin seed recipes that I like, I couldn’t resist whipping up some new ones either.

This year I’ve created three new recipes: Chipotle Ranch, Sugar ‘n Spice, and Lemon Picante. The Lemon Picante has become my new favorite.

» Finish reading How to Make Pumpkin Seeds: Year 2 at TheCookingDish.com. »

© Chris Mower for The Cooking Dish, 2010. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Holiday, Pumpkin, Snacks, Spicy

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Yeah right.

I don’t know of anybody who has ever successfully done that. Before too long, it just starts gnawing away at you because you know it’s there… eat me, eat me, eat me… *sigh* … Two years ago I bought my Halloween candy on October 31st, Halloween Day. I went to the store to find nearly empty shelves and ended up coming back with the stuff nobody wants: stale pumpkin peeps, Sunmaid raisins, and a mini-size candybar mix. Mini size. Really? Halloween is about packing in the goodies, not skimping on treats that you don’t even have to chew before swallowing.

So this year I decided to–yep, you guessed it–buy my goodies early. I bought them two weeks ago during a “weak moment” on aisle 5. Needless to say, I’m going to have to buy more. Dangit. At least there is one huge benefit to buying your Halloween candy early; besides having to buy and eat twice the amount of candy for Halloween, you get the best of the best. No stale pumpkin peeps for me this year.

So this year I’ve rounded up a list of the 10 best Halloween candies (I cheated and added more than one candy to some numbers), that if I had to buy twice this month, I wouldn’t complain.

In no particular order, behold the list…

» Finish reading The Best Halloween Candy — No, Seriously. at TheCookingDish.com. »

© Chris Mower for The Cooking Dish, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Chocolate, Holiday, Snacks

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But before we get into that, and above all else, I wanted to send a grateful shout out to Maren, my friend from Seevetal, Germany (near Hamburg). Over Christmas Maren sent me a really really awesome Christmas package full of German delight!

» Finish reading An Awesome Gift + Where I’ve Been at TheCookingDish.com. »

© Chris Mower for The Cooking Dish, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Chocolate, Cookies, Holiday

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It’s been a while since I’ve had the chance to sit and down and work on The Cooking Dish, which is unfortunate because I have some delicious foods I’ve been wanting to post. Unexpectedly, however, I now have 4 to 5 days to work on it, if I’m up to it. For the past two weeks I’ve been fighting off a cough and intermittent fevers, and I finally thought I was getting better… BUT I woke up last night at 2:00 a.m. with a sever chest pain which kept me up for the rest of the night. Straight away this morning I contacted the family doctor and after a visit to the office left with a note saying, “stay home from work, you’ve got bronchitis and other junk” and some prescriptions to fill. Oh joy. I’m personally not a fan of involuntarily taking time off from work, but I don’t want to infect my co-workers either (you guys can thank me later–when I get back to the office).

So, without going into many more details, I’m stuck here at home and at the same time, trying to keep my distance from my overly-cute kids so they don’t get sick. That’s nearly impossible.

Well, thanks for listening to the rant… on with the show.

As of last year (2008), we started a new tradition in my department at work: The Annual QA CCP (Quality Assurance Christmas Candy Party). Although next year, we’re thinking of taking on a P at the beginning so it’ll be the QA PCCP (Pajama Christmas Candy Party).

Since my mom has been teaching my siblings and I how to make Christmas candy since we were only little squirts (just tall enough to burn our fingers on the stove top), and my brother and I work in the same department, there’s twice the trouble-making at the CCP. These CCPs have usually lasted an exhausting 6+ hours, but they’re always loads of fun.

» Finish reading 2nd Annual QA Christmas Candy Party at TheCookingDish.com. »

© Chris Mower for The Cooking Dish, 2009. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Holiday, Party

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Her entry: “What Child is This”.

» Finish reading December Cookie Cutter Giveaway Winner at TheCookingDish.com. »

© Chris Mower for The Cooking Dish, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Cookies, Giveaway, Holiday

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This contest will run through Friday sometime (December 11th), and then I’ll ship them a.s.a.p to the random lucky winner.

» Finish reading December Giveaway: Cookie Cutters at TheCookingDish.com. »

© Chris Mower for The Cooking Dish, 2009. | Permalink | 22 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Baking, Giveaway, Holiday

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Here’s why you’ll want to use and should use “The Ultimate Kitchen Gift List”:

1. I’ve done all the research for you, spending days reading customer reviews and finding the best products. I’m confident in this list, and you can be too.
2. I didn’t use Consumer Reports. Sure, they’re handy, but in my opinion, when it comes to kitchen tools and stuff, it’s best to get the word straight from the horse’s mouth, so all of these products are rated at least 4 (most of them 4.5) stars out of 5 by those who use them, and not a test lab.
3. I’ve tried to pick the best rated and most well-liked item for each price range in the specific category. This means you’ll find similar items in both less expensive and more expensive price ranges in this list. All you have to do is match your budget to the item.
4. I have a receding hair line and ‘they’ say that guys with a receding hair line are smart… or at least try to be.
5. Did I mention that you’ll save yourself gads of time by using this list?
6. I’ve added pictures below each item group so you don’t have to click a link to see what the item is. I love picture books. The pictures are in the same order as the list above them. If in doubt, just hover your mouse’s cursor over the picture and a little tooltip will display with the picture’s title.

Items marked with an asterisk * are my personal favorites in each category. Items with brackets around the asterisk [*] are items that I personally own and love using.

» Finish reading The Ultimate Kitchen Gifts List at TheCookingDish.com. »

© Chris Mower for The Cooking Dish, 2009. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Christmas, Extreme Happiness, Gifts, Holiday, Lists

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I do know, however, that at different times of the year you can still buy bagged, uncooked pumpkin seeds in the grocery stores.  Yes!  A reason to still create this blog entry.  As always, a printable version is available at the bottom of the post. In today’s case, both pumpkin seed recipes are available.  Here we go.

» Finish reading How to Make Pumpkin Seeds: Year 1 at TheCookingDish.com. »

© Chris Mower for The Cooking Dish, 2009. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Holiday, Pumpkin, Seeds, Snacks

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Seeing how today is Saint Patrick’s Day, I decided I’d write down some ideas for you to mix up your food routine. Keep in mind that the possibilities are endless. I’ve taken the time to just write out a few. Think GREEN with everything you make and you’re well on your way to a festive St. Patrick’s Day meal.

» Finish reading Fun St. Patrick’s Day Green Food Ideas at TheCookingDish.com. »

© Chris Mower for The Cooking Dish, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Fun, Holiday, St. Patrick's Day

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