Southern Living Christmas Cookbook

I got this cookbook last year and made 7 recipes out of it for a Christmas Eve open house. Every single recipe turned out perfectly and was beyond delicious. I'm not sure what went wrong the with recipes that S. Robinson tried but my experience was the absolute opposite of hers. Here's what I made: Buttery Blue Cheese and Walnut Spread (served in a bread bowl-yum! I don't even really like blue cheese and I loved this dip) Gingerbread Bites with Orange Cream Cheese Frosting (my neighbor couldn't even speak when she tasted these because they were so good-and she still talks about them a year later!) Pear and Goat Cheese Tarts (Gourmet and foolproof, these are excellent hot or cold-they might make you cry, they're so good) Sparkly Cranberry Scones (so easy to make it's silly-I have used all kinds of different fruits in this recipe and they turn out perfectly every time) Chocolate Mint Cake with Ganache Frosting (Oh. My. God. I messed up the recipe and doubled the butter and it was still one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten in my life!!) Peppery Cheese bread (Savory and delicious, it was easy to make and even tasted good warmed up the next day) Brown-Sugar Pecan Coffee Cake (decadent and delicious, we had this Christmas morning and I couldn't stop eating it even though I was still full from the night before) I have to note that I am not an extremely experienced cook and although it took me a lot of time to make all of these, they weren't difficult. I can't recommend this book enough. I also bought the Willams Sonoma Holiday Entertaining book and it just sat forlorly on the shelf, while this book got heavy use. I have about 30 more post-it notes in it on the recipes I still want to try!

I own several other cookbooks (including Rachael Ray) and this one is by far my favorite. The recipes I have tried have been fantastic! One in particular, the beef ravioli in basil-cream sauce, was restaurant-quality. There are also lots of recipes for healthy vegetable dishes, something I am trying to make more of. It's not just for Christmas either, I use this all year round. The only drawback I have found is that it is laid out by "menu" and not by dish type, but that is not a big deal to me. I have even passed on several of the recipes to my friends. Highly recommend!

The recipies are easy to follow, do not require a lot of ingredients, and most of the ingredients are things that you already have on hand. Since the ingredients are common, if you do need to buy them, you will use them again for a lot of other recipes.

This book is a must see if you are having the holiday dinner at your house. Appetizers to Desserts. This book is broken down by specific meals ie breakfast, bruch etc with menu's included. You also get quick supper ideas and 5 ingredient 15 min ideas gifts. Great year round book.

It's a long time until the holidays but I can't wait. I started flipping through this bookbook and right at the front (page 18) Busy Mom's Super-Quick Supper jumped out at me. Well, I'm not a Mom, but perhaps they will allow me to substitute Busy Dad for Busy Mom. We dads get busy too. The super-quick supper has Praline Chicken with a preparation time of 5 minutes, and a Coconut-Pecan Chess Pie with a preparation time of 8 minutes. I'm sitting here just imagining the flavor that pralines will add to chicken. Then when you take two things that taste as good as coconuts and pecans and mix them together how can it not be wonderful. Oh well, that'd dinner for tonight. Being a southerner, I then had to go look and see what they had for recipies using grits. They have a garlic-cheese recipie that looks pretty good. My only complaint is that they specify quick-cooking grits. Not good, I'll use high quality stone ground yellow grits from some place like the Old Mill at Guilford (NC) or Bob's Red Mill (Portland, OR). Officially designated at the Christmas cookbook, there are lots of deserts. That's OK, because my circle of friends tends to have lots of pot-lucks, and deserts are definitely in order. Besides the normal cakes and pies, here are some wonderful sounding candies: chocolate-Praline Truffles, Roasted Nut Clusters, Millionaires (sometimes called Turtles), and of course fudge (can it be Christmas without fudge) and Mississippi Mud Brownies. This is a Sunset book, you know what to expect, and you won't be disappointed.