A classic sugar cookie with the inclusion of spices, perfect for the holiday cookie tray.

Sugar and Spice Cookies

Certain spices just speak to the holidays don't they?

They make their way into a lot of baked goods during the season and just the aroma can stir up some memories of holidays past - those days we all seem to miss and long for in today's trying times.

Most spiced cookies use molasses though, and the flavor of molasses can be a bit overwhelming. I didn't really want that depth of flavor in these cookies. I was searching for a lighter sugar cookie with just a hint of the flavors of the holiday.

Snickerdoodles, a light, pillowy-soft and chewy sugar cookie, finished with a roll in cinnamon before baking, are a long held favorite.

Classic Snickerdoodles

Most of y'all who have followed this blog for awhile, know that I am not super huge on sweets and I am certainly not much of a baker. I do love to make all kinds of bread (because I am a bread addict), and I especially enjoy the quick and easy, sweet batter breads, because they aren't overly sweet like layer cakes tend to be. I do love a simple old school coffee cake, but overall, I'm one of those people who scrapes off the icing from most layer cakes. Yep. Blasphemous, I know.

Homemade Sour Cream Coffeecake

Homemade from scratch Sour Cream Coffeecake, a dense and rich, great tasting cake that is at its peak flavor when served the next day, once the sugars and flavors have settled a bit. Make it ahead whenever you can!

Sour Cream Coffeecake

Many of us are familiar with the classic Duncan Hines sour cream 'Sock it to Me' bundt cake, or at least with some family-adapted version of it. It's an enhanced cake mix cake, made with a swirl of brown sugar, cinnamon and nuts in the center, a recipe that's held its own for years and is still well-loved.

I have nothing against cake mixes at all, although, depending on the brand, I often find them overly sweet to my taste buds, but like most everybody else, I certainly use them from time to time. In fact, some of my favorite cakes start with one!

Southern Candied Yams (Sweet Potatoes)

Sweet potatoes baked in a spiced, sugar syrup.

Candied Yams

We eat a lot of sweet potatoes here in the Deep South, and especially in Mississippi and Louisiana, because they are state crops for us, fresh and in abundance, especially in the fall and winter months.

Baby carrots made with a traditional butter and brown sugar glaze.

Brown Sugar Butter Glazed Carrots

Honestly, what would a holiday be without some kind of glazed carrot on the table? One of my favorites is Julia Child's savory glazed version, slow stewed in beef stock and butter, but the orange juice and cane or maple syrup glazed is another great version too. This is probably the more classic holiday glazed, candied carrot, made with a traditional brown sugar and butter glaze.

Easy spiced peaches, made from canned peach halves and a spiced vinegar and brown sugar syrup - a perfect holiday side.

Spiced Peaches

Lots of folks still put up peach preserves and butters and jarred slices and peach halves in the summer, and many of them are sure to include a few jars of them spiced.

They really are delicious.

Did you know that you can get that same tasty flavor for a practical holiday side dish, with no canning and just a few basic, pantry items? These really are so simple to put together and just the perfect accent to the holiday meal.

Stewed apples, seasoned with brown sugar and apple pie spices, wrapped in flour tortillas and baked in a buttery sugar syrup.

Apple Enchiladas

Okay, okay.... even though the weather down here isn't completely cooperating with the Fall season, I broke down and did something sweet with apples finally - well, besides just slicing and eating them, that is. Apples are one of my favorite snacking fruits, so I've certainly been doing my share of that!

Sure wish the prices would come down some more, but that might be wishful thinking in this economy, I guess.

A nice tender quick bread, seasoned with cinnamon and studded with walnuts, made using some of that garden bounty of zucchini.

Zucchini Nut Bread

I suppose just about anybody that grows zucchini has a collection of recipes for their abundant bounty, including one for a sweet quick bread. On the other hand, those of us who are lucky enough to be the recipient of bags of that bounty, sometimes just don't know what all to do with them! This recipe is for the latter of us.

Little fried hand pies made with fresh fruit or dried, your choice of pastry and either pan fried, deep fried or baked. No matter how you prepare them, they are a true Southern Classic!

Southern Fried Hand Pies

A reader over on the Facebook page asked about these little southern delicacies and we started chatting about everybody's favorites, and of course, impressionable me, decided I had to make some right away! I get cravings thrown on me like that all the time.

Sugared Pecans, Almonds, Cashews or Walnuts

Sugared nuts are a holiday tradition. Made with pecans, cashews, walnuts or almonds, tossed first in an egg white wash, then dredged in a sugar and spice mix and slow roasted. Add a tiny pinch of cayenne for a little kick.

Sugared Nuts

Sugared and spiced pecans, almonds, cashews and even walnuts, have been a holiday favorite in many a Southerner household for many years. It's a very simple way to dress up plain nuts to serve at a party, to give away as favors, and even to add to a holiday goodie tray or special occasion gift basket.

They are even good chopped and crumbled on top of savory dishes and salads.

Cinnamon rolls semi-homemade and made easy using frozen Rhodes bread dough.

Easy Cheater Cinnamon Rolls

I am of the opinion that it is difficult to make a bad cinnamon roll, no matter what recipe you use.

Honestly, a good cinnamon roll needs basically three things. Generous amounts of butter, plenty of cinnamon sugar and a boatload of icing. Maybe not for the faint of heart - but we don't eat them everyday now do we? The dough itself is really almost secondary to those things, so I say why not get a little help there?

Paula Deen calls it the Ultimate Coffee Cake, Rhodes, the Butterscotch Bubbleloaf, some still call it Monkey Bread or Pullapart Bread. Whatever you call it, it's pretty darned delicious!

Butterscotch Pull Apart Bread

I'm sure everybody has a recipe like this, made with frozen bread rolls and butterscotch pudding. Even Paula Deen makes it and calls it the Ultimate Coffee Cake, and I made it too, so here it is! Mine is an adaptation of the Rhodes Famous Butterscotch Bubbleloaf, but it's virtually the same recipe that Paula uses too. Nothing could be easier either since you pretty much just dump very convenient Rhodes frozen dinner rolls into a bundt pan and sprinkle the top with butterscotch pudding the night before you want to have this for breakfast.

Ways to Cook Sweet Potatoes ... Baked and More!

Some of my favorite ways to cook sweet potatoes ... baked, twice-backed, microwave, french fried, roasted, grilled, skillet hash, mashed and pureed.

Ways to Cook Sweet Potatoes

I realize that folks all over the U.S. eat sweet potatoes, and I also realize that they are grown in a lot of states {and even overseas}, but sweet potatoes sure speak southern to me.

Did you know that over 235 million pounds of them are produced annually right here in our fine state of Mississippi? Vardaman, Mississippi, located in the northern part of our state, is only one of the top five Mississippi sweet potato producers.

Every year in the first week of November they host a National Sweet Potato Festival, and Vardaman, in fact, lays claim to the title of "The Sweet Potato Capitol of the World." In truth, North Carolina is the biggest producer in the U.S., followed by close competitors Louisiana, California and Mississippi. Even still, China is the largest producer of sweet potatoes - about 80% of the world's supply.

A delicious coffee cake known as Sock it To Me Cake, has the usual attendees of brown sugar, pecans and cinnamon, but, unlike most coffee cakes, it actually gets better as it sits - not that it'll be around that long.

Sour Cream Coffee Cake

When my Mama used a boxed cake mix, Duncan Hines Butter Recipe was the one she used. In my opinion, it is the best boxed cake mix on the market and worth the extra money over generic, though with coupons and sales you can often get a great price on them and stock up.

Old Fashioned Coffee Cake. A very simple, but classic and tender old fashioned coffee cake, made with brown sugar, cinnamon and pecans, comes together quick and easy. Serve with a drizzle of cream, or a scoop of vanilla ice cream & a piping hot cup of coffee.

Old Fashioned Coffee Cake

To me, this is what represents a true, old-fashioned coffee cake.

Nothing fancy, very basic, just a perfectly simple sweet batter that produces a light cake, topped with a crunchy trio crumble of brown sugar, cinnamon and pecans that pleasantly invades your senses. Perfect served at the kitchen table still warm from the oven, piping hot coffee in hand, over gossip with your best friend.

Pie filling, in this case apple, is sandwiched between layers of crescent dough and a bottom layer of sweetened cream cheese, topped with cinnamon sugar. Just delicious and so easy.

Apple and Cream Cheese Crescent Squares

Okay. Ya gotta admit. Doesn't that just look dreamy?

I just happened to have a package of crescent rolls and cream cheese in the fridge when I ran across this recipe in the Best of the Best from Mississippi Cookbook and it sounded so good that it haunted me until I made it!

How to Make Cinnamon Sugar

Combine 1/2 cup of sugar with 1 heaping tablespoon of cinnamon. Place into an old cleaned spice jar with a shaker top, cap and shake well. That's it!

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Nutella Crescents with Cinnamon Walnut Crumble

Crescent rolls, spread with Nutella, a little cinnamon sugar and finely minced walnuts. Quick. Easy. Heavenly.

Nutella Crescents

What a wonderful way to indulge in Nutella - wrapped in a sweet crescent. Tasty and really simple too - you will LOVE these!

A nice, thick highly seasoned, no beans, ground beef chili.

Homemade Stovetop No Bean Beef Chili

Gotta love a good pot of chili and personally, I love all kinds. With beans, without beans, spicy, not so spicy, I'm not one to argue that there is only one kind of chili. Let's enjoy them all!

Instead of all ground beef, I often use 1 pound of ground beef and 1 pound of a raw sausage of some kind, such as Italian, bratwurst, breakfast, or Mexican chorizo. I do recommend browning off then draining the ground meats for this chili, whether cooked stovetop or in a slow cooker just to remove some of the excess fat.

 

Tender muffins made with flour and oatmeal, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger, and fresh chopped apples.

Apple and Spice Oatmeal Muffins

A tender basic muffin made with oatmeal, apples and apple pie spices.