Cream Cheese Lasagna

This is my mother-in-law's recipe, and I've never had a better lasagna.  Hello, cream cheese.  The Mrs. Dash also adds such a lovely zip to the dish.  Everyone I have ever made this for loves it!

This is what my kids ask me to make for birthday dinners. I add a pint of Ricotta cheese instead of sour cream, and sometimes swap out hamburger for Italian sausage.  My sister-in-law Savanah taught me to add add two teaspoons of brown sugar to the tomato sauce and browned hamburger, which is also amazing. 

The birthday dinner was complemented by garlic bread and an incredible fresh salad from the garden.  The reason you don't see those other foods in this photo is because I made the lasagna in the morning before it got too hot (Truman's birthday is at the end of August).  So I had the above piece of lasagna for lunch while kids were at school and hubby was at work.  Then we all had lasagna for dinner.  It's that good.

Also, just my personal opinion, there is no such thing as "oven-ready" lasagna.  You have to boil the noodles, people.  There's no escaping it.

In the oven and ready to make my house smell like love . . .

Soft Ginger Molasses Cookies

Last year, Allen's parents stayed with us for Christmas, and his mom asked me before they arrived if I had molasses and ground ginger on hand.  I did.  But I never guessed that these two pungent ingredients could combine to make the most heavenly Christmas confection known to man.

They are beautiful and crackly and festive.  They are soft and rich.  They are so fragrant and chewy and sweet, with the perfect hint of spice.  They may have actually TIED WITH CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES (gasp!) as my favorite cookies of all time.  In fact, these ginger molasses cookies differ specifically from CCCs in that, once I have eaten one, all I can think about is having another.  I can limit other kinds of cookies to one or two, but I feel like I never want to stop eating these.

This particular holiday treat comes with a pretty sweet story, too.  My mother-in-law clipped this recipe from her local paper years ago and everyone raved about the cookies . . . but then she somehow lost the clipping. Years later (tortured years of pining for the most-perfect-holiday-cookie-ever, no doubt) she went to the library and used the microfilm machine to look through years' worth of the Northwest Arkansas Times until she found it again.  The librarian copied it for her, and the rest is Renfroe family holiday history!

I love how Mom wrote out the triple-batch
amount to the side, which is what I put on the
recipe card below.  Go big or go home, people.

Mollie and I had so much fun making the cookies with Mom last year, made more fun by the adorable, matching, chicken-print aprons she sewed for each of us as an early Christmas present.

She gave me the recipe while she stayed with us, but then history repeated itself and I misplaced it.  Fortunately, I didn't have to use a microfilm machine--Mom just used her telephonics machine (read: iPhone 6) to snap a picture of her well-used recipe and send it to me via electronic mail . . . all taking about three seconds and zero research trips to the library.

I have made this tripled-recipe twice this December and am going for a third time tomorrow.  If you're going to make 24 dozen of any cookie during Christmas, this is the one . . .

My cookie helpers!

Brer Rabbit never tasted so good . . .

I hope we'll have some left for Santa--he might have to settle
for Oreos if we scarf through all seven dozen in the next four
days.  I wish I was kidding . . .

My house smells like Christmasy heaven . . .

Perfect cookies for large family / social / holiday functions!

Taco Soup

This is one of my mother-in-law's signature dishes and it is so satisfying.  The first time I had some, I knew I needed the recipe.  It's also one of the first recipe cards I ever made, and look how horrible it used to be:

Do not print this card--scroll down for new and improved recipe card.

The best thing about this taco soup is that you can have it in the crockpot (or in a regular large pot on your stove--I love making mine in my Amazon basics Dutch oven, one of my favorite Christmas gifts from my mom and dad!) in ten minutes.  It's fast and easy and the envelope of Ranch makes it so zesty.  Just be sure you buy a packet of Ranch DRESSING and not Ranch DIP.  I have made that mistake more than once, and believe me, they are not the same thing.

I really like to use elk burger or venison burger in taco soup, because the seasonings flavor the meat so well--no one can tell it's not beef.  I prefer frozen corn, but you can totally used canned corn. I also substitute other kinds of beans--usually Great Northern beans, sometimes black-eyed peas or garbanzo beans; Allen's mom always makes it with kidney beans.  I've added leftover rice, too--it's such a versatile, hearty soup!  I make it at least once a month, and always for hosting a large crowd.  The recipe makes a lot.  It feeds our family of six easily, and I freeze whatever is left (usually half) for a night when I don't feel like cooking.

My husband likes to crumble corn chips in his taco soup, but I prefer to DIP my chips.  Our kids each have their own style, too.  Leave a comment and tell me what your favorite brand of corn chips is!

Pecan Pie

I made this pecan pie for my favorite police officer, after he helped
me with an EPIC April Fool's Day joke {STORY BELOW}.
His talented wife, Amanda, in addition to being a good friend
 of mine, is a professional photographer and took this beautiful
picture for me!!!
~PHOTO by AMANDA C. PHOTOGRAPHY~

This is my husband's second favorite pie at Thanksgiving (after chocolate cream pie), and I got the recipe from his mom, who is both an excellent cook and a wonderful friend!  I've never been a huge fan of pecan pie myself, but I like doing nice things for my sweet hubby (especially when the nice things are this easy!).

Making your pie crust will take longer than making this simple, delicious filling.  The recipe calls for a single crust, and I often have one already wrapped up and frozen in the freezer, since my flakiest pie crust recipe makes a double crust.

These metallic or silicone pie shields are meant to keep your crust from getting too dark, but they also hold it up on the edge where it's supposed to stay, which I recommend for every single-crust (and some double-crust) pies, too.

  

Bake for 45 minutes, check the color (it should be a nice, caramelly brown), then bake for 5-15 more minutes, as needed.     

Serve on a caramel-covered plate like Amanda if you're feeling fancy.

Klejner

This is the biggest food tradition of my husband's family, right along with their other Danish food: aebleskiver. At Christmas time, my mother-in-law has several tins filled with these yummy fried treats--the love child of a cookie and a doughnut. How can you go wrong?

Aebleskiver: Traditional Danish Breakfast Pastry

This is one of my husband's family traditions: a yummy Danish breakfast pastry (along with their other Danish treat, klejner). It's sort of the love-child of muffins and pancakes, which means I am a huge fan. It's easy enough to mix the batter, but making the actual aebleskiver (pronounced abbleSKEEvuh) is time-consuming. the best thing we've found for turning them over is a nut-pick, but you can also just use a fork.

Use kefir in place of buttermilk, if you wish (click here for my What is Kefir? post).