I’ve included tip on hosting a holiday cookie exchange after the recipe 🙂

Chocolate Cherry Cookies

Ingredients:

2 cups of unbleached flour
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of salt
1 cup (2 sticks) of softened unsalted butter
3/4 cup of sugar
3/4 cup of brown sugar packed
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1 tablespoon of bourbon or whiskey
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cup of Milk Chocolate Chips
1 cup of Dried Cherries

Directions:

Preheat Oven to 375 degrees

In a medium bowl mix together flour, baking soda and salt. Add to mixer softened unsalted butter, sugar and packed brown sugar beating on a medium speed until creamy and smooth.

Using a small bowl beat eggs, vanilla and bourbon until well blended.

Turn mixer on low add 1/2 the flour mixer and 1/2 egg mixer to the sugar cream. Beat until completely combined then add the rest of the flour and egg mixture to the batter lightly mixing for 1 to 2 minutes.

Be careful to not over mix as cookies will not be light and fluffy.

Using a spatula fold in the chocolate chips and cherries to the batter. At this point batter will be a little sticky, so use a tablespoon to scoop and drop cookies onto a lightly greased cookie pan spacing 2 inches apart. Bake for 9-11 minutes or until cookies are lightly golden brown.

Remove chocolate cherry cookies from oven and allow to cool for approximately 3 minutes and then remove from pan and place on a cooling rack to finish cooling.

One of my favorite thing to use when baking is coconut cooking spray.  It makes baking easy and you can lightly grease your baking pans without having a chemical taste you might get from some of the other cooking sprays.

Quick Variation on Chocolate Cherry Cookies

Drop the cookie dough into a lightly greased 9×13 cake pan and spread the batter evenly around the pan.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and bake for 20 – 25 minutes or until a butter knife comes out clean when poked into the batter.

Remove from oven and cool for 5 -7 minutes then cut into 2 inch square bars.

Remove from pan and finish cooling on a cooling rack.

HOW TO HOST A HOLIDAY COOKIE EXCHANGE 

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But then I have the problem of having so many that my freezer cannot close and that is when I make my favorite bourbon banana bread.

This is an easy recipe and will make a great treat to have around the house with to serve with coffee when friends. The reason I love to use bourbon in this recipe it will enhance the vanilla and make the banana bread moist.

Also you don’t have to worry about the alcohol as it cooks out during the baking process.

Bourbon Banana Bread Recipe

Ingredients:

4 or 5 Ripened Bananas
1 ½ Sticks of melted and cooled unsalted butter
½ cup White Sugar
¾ cup Brown Sugar
2 large Eggs
2 tablespoons of your favorite Bourbon
1 teaspoon Vanilla
2 cup Flour
1 ½ teaspoon Baking Soda
½ teaspoon Salt

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a medium bowl combined flour, baking soda, and salt and mix with spatula and set aside. Make sure when measuring your flour you level off the top with a straight edge for proper measurement.

In a small saucepan melt the butter, immediately remove from heat so to not burn the butter and allow to cool. While waiting for your butter to cool take 2 bananas and mash then set aside.

Place the remaining bananas into your mixer adding white and brown sugar to the bowl and beat on a medium speed until the banana sugar mixture becomes a cream.

In a small bowl combine cooled butter, eggs, bourbon and vanilla and beat with a fork until completely mixed. Then slowly pour butter mixture into banana cream and beat at a slow speed until all liquid is added to the cream mixture.

Once butter mixture has been complete added beat mixture on a medium speed for 3min.

Stop the mixer at this point and add ½ the flour mixture (dry ingredients) to the banana butter mixture (wet ingredients).

Mix on slow speed for 30 seconds and turn off mixer. Using a spatula scrap down the sides of the bowl and add the remaining dry ingredients. Turn the mixer on to a medium speed for 1 minute.

The mixture should look like a wet cake batter mix upon completion.

At this point, you mix in the remaining mashed bananas.

Be careful not to over mix the mixture or your bread will not be light and fluffy.

In order to bake these, you can choose from several different types of baking pans.

Muffin or mini loaf pans both work great, but I like to use the paper miniature loaf pans. This way you are able to freeze them or give them away to your friend and family if you have too many.

Filling the pans ¾ of the way full, then place on a cookie sheet and bake for 20 – 25 minutes.

After 20 minutes, test the bread to see if it is done. Test the bread by inserting a toothpick into the center of the bread; if it comes out clean the bread is done, if it comes out wet give the bread a few more minutes.

Remove the finished bread from the oven and place on a cooling rack to cool. When the bread is cool slice and enjoy.

STEP BY STEP BOURBON BANANA BREAD DIRECTIONS

In a medium bowl combined flour, baking soda, and salt and mix with spatula and set aside. Make sure when measuring your flour you level off the top with a straight edge for proper measurement.

In a small saucepan melt the butter, immediately remove from heat so to not burn the butter and allow to cool. While waiting for your butter to cool take 2 bananas and mash then set aside.

Place the remaining bananas into your mixer adding white and brown sugar to the bowl and beat on a medium speed until the banana sugar mixture becomes a cream.

Note: The brown sugar needs to be packed or pressed into the cup before leveling off the sugar.

In a small bowl combine cooled butter, eggs, bourbon and vanilla and beat with a fork until completely mixed. Then slowly pour butter mixture into banana cream and beat at a slow speed until all liquid is added to cream mixture.

Once butter mixture has been complete added beat mixture on a medium speed for 3min.

Stop the mixer at this point and add ½ the flour mixture (dry ingredients) to the banana butter mixture (wet ingredients).

Mix on slow speed for 30 seconds and turn off mixer. Using a spatula scrap down the sides of the bowl and add the remaining dry ingredients. Turn the mixer on to a medium speed for 1 minute.

Mixture should look like a wet cake batter mix upon completion.

At this point you mix in the remaining mashed bananas.

Be careful not to over mix the mixture or your banana bread will not be light and fluffy.

In order to bake these you can choose from several different types of baking pans. Muffin or mini loaf pans both work great, but I like to use the paper miniature loaf pans.

This way you are able to freeze them or give them away to your friend and family if you have too many.

Filling the pans ¾ of the way full, then place on a cookie sheet and bake for 20 – 25 minutes. After 20 minutes test the bread to see if it is done.

Test the bread by inserting a toothpick into the center of the bread; if it comes out clean the banana bread is done, if it come out wet give the bread a few more minutes.

Remove the finish banana bread from the oven and place on a cooling rack to cool. When the bread is cool slice and enjoy.

A great variation on this recipe is to add ¾ of a cup of miniature chocolate chips when you add the mashed bananas. This will give the bourbon banana bread a deep rich chocolate flavor in every bit.

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These appetizers are crisp and delicious bites perfect for any upcoming holiday parties or as a side dish for your next family dinner.

Form small balls of rice from the leftover risotto and then roll the balls into flour, then egg and then panko. This can be a messy endeavor unless you remember to use one hand for the flour and panko and one hand for the egg.

If you don’t you’ll end up with panko crusted fingers.

Save a few calories by cooking these in an  Air Fryer. I started using an air fryer a couple years ago and I use it on an almost weekly basis. I love that it doesn’t require any oil, yet the air fryer cooks up food nice crispy just like you’d expect from cooking in oil.

It’s able to do this because there is a metal mesh cooking basket that allows the air to circulate completely around the food to evenly cook all your favorite foods.

 I love using the air fryer to “deep” fry foods. It saves lots of calories plus it doesn’t stink up the house like traditional oil frying.

I like to serve risotto balls with a side of marinara sauce, but they are just as delicious without the marinara sauce.

Pea & Sausage Risotto Balls Recipe

2 cups of chilled risotto
2 eggs, scrambled
2 cups of panko
1 cup of flour

Take a tablespoon of risotto and roll it into a ball. Roll all the risotto into similar sized balls.
Place the panko, flour and eggs into 3 separate shallow balls. Roll each risotto ball into the flour, then the egg and then the panko.
Place the coated balls into an air fryer and cook for 5-8 minutes until the risotto balls are crispy.
Serve hot.

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Luckily, raspberries are available year round in the grocer’s freezer section, or if you were lucky enough to freeze from the summers farmer’s markets, so you you can make this delicious cocktail any time of the year.

We prefer Vernors Ginger Ale to make this cocktail, but that is mostly a Michigan pop/soda/coke (depending on what part of the country you are from) so if you can’t find Vernors use your favorite brand.

Cran-Raspberry Whiskey Cocktail Ingredients

2 cups of Ice
3/4 cup of your favorite Whisky
Vernors Ginger Ale
Cranberry Simple Syrup (recipe included below)
Raspberry (Frozen or Fresh)
Cranberries (Frozen)

Cran-Raspberry Whiskey Cocktail Directions

In a 34oz pitcher add 2 cups of ice, 1/2 cup of raspberries and 1/2 cup of cranberries.
Add 3/4 cup of your favorite whiskey.
Add 1/3 cup of cranberry simple syrup
Fill the pitcher with ginger ale and mix well with a stir stick.
When serving I like to add some extra fruit to each glass.

Cranberry Simple Syrup

In a small sauce pan combine 1 cup of water, 1/2 cup sugar and bring to a boil and allowing sugar to dissolve completely.  Once sugar has dissolved turn heat down to a medium simmer and add 1/2 cup of cranberries, continue simmer for 10 minutes to allow the cranberries to flavors the syrup.  Cranberries will most likely break apart during this process.  Remove from heat and allow to cool.  Once the syrup has cooled use a fine strainer to remove cranberry pieces from your syrup.