The Week in Cooking

Welcome to Sunday! I know it has been a week or so since my last recipe post, but as I promised, I have collected up gift-giving recipes for the month of December.

I will start this week out on Monday with a great recipe for Granola Cereal. My kids just go gaga over this stuff & one recipe doesn't even last for two days!

Tuesday finds us preparing a delicious beer bread. You can mix up all of the dry ingredients, & attach a tag describing how to finish it. It's best made with regular, not light beer, but I make it with what I have on hand, as usual.

On Wednesday we prepare homemade pasta. It's not as hard as you think! Once you master the basic idea, you can mix this stuff up without a recipe at all.

Thursday we prepare frozen wheat bread for gift giving. If you've never been sure about how to freeze bread dough to be cooked later, today's the day you'll learn how. I was a bit skeptical myself, but it turns out really well!

We finish up the week on Friday by making a delicious, fine textured poundcake. I have adapted the recipe so that you can use regular flour instead of the cake flour that is usually called for. This one can get a bit involved, but it turns out great & it just super for giving fresh. I make it as a "dessert" and the whole loaf disappears in no time!

I look forward to hearing what you think about these recipes. I plan on handing this stuff out as gifts this year rather than trying to purchase something special for everyone.

Next week I think I will focus on spice mixes. I might even do two weeks of that since I have so many recipes!