Daily Olive

Holidays

Holiday Cookbook Gift: King Authur Flour Cookie Companion

This book is just in from the award-winning team that put together the "King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion: The All-Purpose Baking Cookbook." "King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion" is a thorough, comprehensive guide to everything you need to know about cookies. The first few chapters are devoted to cookies developed from one or two "essential" recipes. These are ingredient-based cookies such as Sugar Cookies, Chocolate Chip Cookies, and Molasses Cookies. Later pages cover an incredible range of cookie varieties, separated into chapters such as Bars and Squares, Drop Cookies, Roll-Out, Shaped, Batter, and No-Bake. Each recipe is as tempting as the next, but what makes this cookbook so special is that you get tons of tips, techniques, and explanations that lead to a complete understanding of what goes into making a great cookie. The King Arthur team includes hints on measuring molasses without making a mess, intricate illustrations that outline steps for essential techniques, and sidebars with informative tidbits on certain ingredients. Unlike many cookie books, which only give one recipe for each type of cookie, you can make every cookie-lover happy here with chewy and crispy versions of many of your favorite cookies.

Whether you want to build a gingerbread house for the holiday season, or simply have a hankering for a big whoopie pie, the "King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion" is a cookie resource you will return to again and again for years to come.

Getting Ready for Holiday Baking

Halloween kicks off the holiday baking season, so whip out your favorite recipes or start testing new ones. Every year, we have favorite recipes for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and we also make sure we try new ones. Whether we find new baking recipes in our local newspaper, in our recipe clippings, or in current magazines, we also consult some of our favorite cook books. Here's a couple of our standards for baking reference during the holidays.

King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion | Baking Illustrated

Christmas Holiday Drink Recipes

Epicurious.com offers their favorite selections of holiday drinks from their recipe archives. Mix, drink, enjoy, and be safe.

More holiday drink ideas can be found at whattodrink.com.

RECOMMENDED READING - Raising The Bar: Better Drinks, Better Entertaining from New York's Gotham Bar and Grill and Gramercy Tavern manager Nick Mautone

Christmas Entertaining Ideas from Gourmet Magazine

Looking for ideas for your Christmas holiday entertaining? Gourmet Magazine's website epicurious.com offers a collection of their best recipes, drinks, and how-tos for your Christmas party and more.

Bon Appetit also offers their holiday ideas from holiday dinners to desserts.

Holiday Recipe: Cajun Deep Fried Turkey

Each year it seems we hear more about people deep frying their Thanksgiving turkey. So this year, we set out to find out about this Cajun tradition of deep frying turkeys.

We found excellent articles about turkey frying in general--"Deep-fried Turkey" from Texas A&M University, and another from native New Orleanian Chuck Taggarts' website The Gumbo Pages. And another site called Jim's Cajun Deep-Fried Turkey Page, comes with pictures of a fryer set-up in Jim's driveway.

Of course, we have to include a fried turkey recipe from Emeril, the star of Food TV.

Related Link: Turk N' Surf Electric Turkey Fryer

Roasting Chestnuts for the Holidays

Whether you're listening to Bing croon a few "chestnut" tunes or you're wanting to snuggle up in front of the fireplace, roasting chestnuts over an open fire is the perfect pastime. Delmarvelous Chestnuts from Delaware offers two pounds for $14.50 or $30 for five pounds. See their assortment of chestnut gift baskets too!

Holiday Gift Idea: Photo Cookies

Looking for a unique gift idea for a birth announcement, wedding or anniversary favor? Or maybe you're looking for a corporate gift?? Mrs. Beasley's offers the perfect solution--photo image cookies! Your photo is printed with edible ink on sugar paper and glazed onto a shortbread cookie, simply amazing!

Holiday Recipe: Cranberry Sparkler

With the holidays fast approaching we've found the perfect cocktail--the Cranberry Sparkler. Food & Wine's Grace Parisi has created a cocktail showcasing Stoli's Cranberry Vodka.

-- 1/4 c vodka
-- 2 tablespoons of lime juice
-- 2 tablespoons of Rose's lime juice
-- splash of seltzer
-- serve over ice with cranberries and lime

With this great tasting cocktail in hand, it's easy to have one too many! Remember to be safe this holiday season!