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Dough Face By LittleRoq	Turtle Bread

This year for Christmas I ordered the Alpha-Bakery and Rainbow Bakery Children's Cookbooks from Gold Medal Flour for a lot of the kids. When they arrived I took a peek through them and found something very surprising, these aren't recipes just for kids. They are great, simple baking recipes for people of all ages.

We have made several recipes from the books already.

From Rainbow Bakery
Twisters Biscuit Sticks- a versatile and easy breadstick recipe
You Can Dough It! Baked Dough Creations- a salt dough recipe to make keepsake ornaments, decorations, or beads

From Alpha-Bakery
T is for Turtle Bread-This bread is really fun to make. I had never made a fun shaped bread before. It could also be shaped into an oval or round loaf or baked in a loaf pan.

If you are looking for a great gift for some kids in your life or you just want to get your hands on some simple, yet wonderful recipes then you may want to order the Gold Medal Flour Children's Cookbooks.

Happy New year everyone! In 2008, I'm going to try to make a post EVERY DAY. Which may or may not prove impossible. But here's to hoping.

Also, no one go to the strip tonight, there be monsters there.

As most of you know, up until now EU has been a group of authors that love cooking, baking, or food, but have no formal training on the subject. Well, now we are proud to announce that a professional chef has joined our writing staff. Chef 2 Mom will be bringing to our site her amazing cooking knowledge and fun personality. I know that she has a great love for organic foods and will hopefully be giving us some insight into why that is so very important.

Please welcome Chef 2 Mom!

Due to Tele falling ill this week, I was in charge of the Thanksgiving meal. I had no choice but to step up and accomplish the task. So, I did. I made the whole meal.

I forgot to take pre-eating pictures of the Thanksgiving table, but I did get you the after pics.

The left side of the table in clockwise order: mashed potatoes, Praline Yams, Whole Cranberry Sauce, Cranberry Relish, StoveTop Cornbread Stuffing, and HoneyBaked Ham.

The right side of the table starting from the back of the table and moving forward: Dutch Apple Pie with Never-Fail Pie Crust, Sweet Corn Muffins, Cranberry Salad, CornBread, Honey Maid Cinnamon Sticks and Bees for the fluff, Fluff with fresh strawberries, PineCone Spread with Original Triscuits.

Not pictured but included in the food lineup of the evening: Corn on the cob roasted under the broiler and Chatham Village Cranberry Herb Stuffing.

The only thing I didn't get to make was my grandma's Pumpkin Cookies. But the apple pie was so yummy it was okay that the cookies were missing.

I had this great plan to do a Thanksgiving count down. At the beginning of October I wrote down a list of the recipes I would like to share with our EU fans. And then life happened, a trip to the ER, the house work getting behind, ohh and let's not forget my current bread baking obsession which has taken up a lot of my spare cooking time. So there you have it, my excuse as to why this won't be a perfect, recipe a day, count down.

I will however throw you a few of my absolute favorite recipes over the next couple of weeks. These are recipes that I have made many times and also look forward to eating each holiday season. I hope you enjoy them too.

My mother's family has Thanksgiving the Saturday before the actual holiday so as to free everyone up for other obligations. This year was no exception. We opted to go potluck style this time around. I was in charge of whole cranberry sauce, cranberry salad and rolls.

For the rolls I made:

• one batch of Buttery Rolls shaped as crescents
• one double batch of Cornbread baked in my Pampered Chef Rectangular Baker
• one batch of Susan's Farm House White Bread shaped into 36 rolls and baked on two cookie sheets

It seems like a lot of work, but it wasn't. Both cranberry dishes are make-ahead, so no pressure there. I made the Farm House White Rolls the day before. The dough for the Buttery Rolls was put in the fridge the afternoon before so they could be shaped, risen and baked the morning of. And I made the Cornbread the night before. So there you have it. Five different dishes all made in a day and a half with low stress!

All of us here at EU just want to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope your kitchen is full of wonderful smells right about now. Mine smells of a made from scratch Apple Pie that I just pulled from the oven.

Rather than a turkey we have opted for a HoneyBaked Ham. That has left the oven free for me to do all sorts of baking today. Next on the agenda is cornbread. I have yet to decide if I am going to make sweet corn muffins or basic corn bread. I'll have to get that figured out shortly. Also, I am going to try to squeeze in a batch of my grandma's Pumpkin Cookies.

Happy Baking!

I have been finding that many of my most favorite recipes come from the test kitchens of companies I already use products from. The recipes on the sides of cans and boxes can be some of the most reliable recipes one can use. I love when a company offers a cookbook. Often you can get these cookbooks for free with a UPC and shipping/handling, other times you have to pay for them. This one from VeryBestBaking.com is totally free! So check out their site and get your free booklet...I just signed up for mine.