make-ahead

Creamy Crock Pot Tortellini Soup

As you may have gathered from the gnocchi soup post, I have quite the love for creamy soups.  And as you might be guessing from the scarcity of posts of late, I’m also a little short on time.  Over the years I’ve tried and tried to find a good slow-cooker…

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Butterfinger Blondies

I had no Trick-or-Treaters this year.  Zero.  Zilch.  Nada.  Very disappointing.  And what made it more disappointing was that there were kids Trick-or-Treating on my street, but they were too lazy to walk up my long front stairs to come get the candy.  It’s like that every year, but at…

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Vanilla-Bourbon Pear Butter

If you saw the apple butter pie or plum butter posts, you probably are getting the message: fruit butters are easy to make even if you’re super busy.  I was at the grocery store the other day and saw that pears were on sale.  So clearly I was required by…

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It’s fruitcake time!

Do you like fruitcake?  Let me rephrase that.  Have you tried fruitcake?  Because it seems that about 99% of fruitcake haters have never taken a single bite of fruitcake.  And don’t get me started on people who hate it when you tell them it’s fruitcake but love it when you…

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Sweet and Tart Crock Pot Plum Butter

It’s definitely time to get started on my homemade Christmas gifts for the year.  Up first is this plum butter! When I told my mother I was making plum butter she just kept saying “Ew!” over and over again.  I’m not sure why.  Plums are delicious, so plums cooked down…

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Apple butter pie!

Fruit butters are super-easy to make.  You just puree some fruit, cook it with sugar until it’s the right consistency, and then can it.  Simple, inexpensive gifts.  Right?  Well somehow I made a batch of apple butter that tasted great but looked really bad after I canned it.  Light beige…

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