Frittata was the topic of the fourth cooking class I hosted here for Shawn's co-workers a few weeks ago because I consider it an essential recipe to have on hand for affordable, easy meals. I made my first frittata while trying to cook my way through my favorite Betty Crocker cookbook The meal felt fancy but came together very quickly and was unbelievably inexpensive to make. I was hooked from that point forward, and quickly introduced Betty's Savory Italian Frittata into my menu rotation (you'll find it on page 225 if you have the book!). I was getting to the point where I wanted to have the knowledge and confidence to cook without my recipe in hand so I hopped online and looked to see if a food blog called The Kitchn had a tutorial on how to make frittata. As it turns out, they did! If December has left your budget stretched or if your kitchen has been taken over by Christmas cookies, I encourage you to put frittata on your menu this week. Our favorite way to eat it is for dinner on Friday night so that we can enjoy the leftovers for breakfast on Saturday morning. Yum!
Speaking of Christmas cookies, we have been baking up a storm here in Texas. We wanted to take advantage of this season of giving and prepare some of our favorite holiday baked goods to share with our neighbors. When we moved here it was already warm enough that many of the locals had started their summer hibernation which meant we didn't get many opportunities to run into them as we were out and about learning the lay of the land. We want to be intentional about knowing the other families that live on our street so we are delivering Christmas cookies and introducing ourselves this week. Somehow knocking on a strangers door with cookies in hand feels much less intimidating than showing up empty handed. The cookies have been baked, cooled and packaged. Now our only task is to try and catch people home in between work, holiday parities and Christmas shopping.
Next year we won't need to bake in order to meet our neighbors, but something tells me we might have started a tradition. It's been incredibly fun to bake together as a family. Nicole loves to watch things swirl around in the mixer and she's been very attentive to all of the pans coming in and out of the oven. I think it's safe so say that her favorite part of the whole process is assisting Shawn in taste-testing each batch of cookies!
I'm pretty new to the holiday baking front. Starting when I was in graduate school, my friends and I did a Christmas cookie exchange every year. That was the extent of my baking because my mom makes the best Christmas cookies of anyone I know. I considered attempting to duplicate her delicious recipes but then decided against it because I knew I would feel crushed if my cookies didn't taste like home. Instead, Shawn and I paged through our cookbooks together and picked a few new recipes to try. So far the the unanimous winner is Mexican Wedding cookies. Surprisingly easy to make and super delicious.
What are your favorite Christmas cookies?
With love,
Erica
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