Pear Cranberry Walnut Bread

I just wrote and deleted a whole post because it was super boring. Instead, I've decided to take the easy way out and share some of my favorite Christmas things on the interwebs. This is the last recipe I'll be posting until after Christmas. For those of you that celebrate, have a safe and Merry Christmas! For those of you that don't, enjoy the day off work!

Five Awesome Christmas Things:

1. These Christmas puppies:



2. The 12 Days of Grumpy Cat Christmas:

3. One of my favorite ladies of YouTube makes up a Christmas drinking game:



4. This video of Jimmy Fallon, The Roots, and Mariah singing All I Want For Christmas Is You (using classroom instruments!):



5. This bread. Yes, I included something I made on my list of awesome Christmas things. Oh my gosh. I don't know if my gushing will do it justice. It's totally Christmasey and delicious. Pears, cranberries, walnuts, and spices are brought together here for a super moist, super flavorful quick bread that needs to be on your breakfast table Christmas morning. I have tons of bread recipes on here because they're one of my favorite things to make, and I think this is my new favorite.

Chocolate Pecan Turtle Cookies

When I was a kid, Annie and I started getting revved up for Christmas in September. We went through a 5-Step Christmas spirit program, unintentionally designed to test the patience of our parents.

Step 1:
Blast Christmas cassette tapes on repeat. The ones full of really annoying Christmas songs such as the Twelve Days of Christmas (no good music involves counting, see also, 99 Bottles of Beer), The Little Drummer Boy (lovely message, but if I wanted to hear someone make instrument noises with their mouth I'd listen to a cappella), and The Chipmunk Song (if you need an explanation as to why this one sucks, I cannot help you) work best.

Step 2:
Re-decorate the basement with paper snowflakes and red and green construction paper chains. Who cares that your parents spent thousands of dollars waterproofing and finishing the basement? It looks great when decorated with garbage.

Step 3:
Time for Christmas movies! Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph, and A Christmas Story are best when watched thrice weekly beginning Labor Day weekend. Don't forget to watch videos of your Santa visits of years past.

Step 4:
Make your parents rue the day they signed you up for piano lessons. Subject everyone to Christmas music performances, complete with vocal accompaniment from Annie.

Step 5:
Rummage around in the mailbox on a daily basis until you've assembled the ultimate Christmas catalog trifecta: the JCPenney Christmas Big Book, the FAO Schwarz Catalog, and the American Girl Catalog. Since Santa buys the gifts, think nothing of greedily dog-earring half the pages in each catalog. Silently ponder what the 6-foot tall stack of boxes hidden under a sheet in the utility room contained, but continue to believe in Santa until you're 11 anyway. (Don't be a hater; I was a trusting child. And maaaaybe a little behind in the deductive reasoning department.)

(Apologies to my other sister who is 8.5 years my junior for excluding you here...by the time you had the dexterity to make paper snowflakes, I was a surly teenager who wanted to sleep in Christmas morning.)

I get into the Christmas spirit much later in the year in my old age, but with arguably equal intensity. My "psych myself up for Christmas" methodology has significantly changed and matured over the years. For example...

I've replaced The Chipmunk Song with Michael Bublé's Christmas album and old classics from Bing, Frank, and Dean. Instead of Frosty the Snowman, I'm now more of a Love, Actually kind of girl. A Christmas Story isn't going anywhere. Some things never change.

Old traditions like paper-chain making with Annie have been replaced by new ones such as our annual Christmas Eve-Eve ritual of wrapping presents while drinking rum from teacups. Don't knock it 'til you've tried it. 

While my parents are still very generous to me and my sisters at Christmas, I now love buying them gifts just as much as I once loved circling clothes in the American Girl catalog that would best suit Felicity Merriman's gingery-complexion. 

However, no amount of Christmas shopping or rum-drinking gets me in the holiday spirit more than putting on Christmas music, and making a batch of cookies. Do you put together a cookie tray at Christmas? These would be perfect a perfect addition. They're a simple chocolate cookie rolled in pecans, filled with caramel, and drizzled with more chocolate. After eating a few of these I found that a sprinkling of fleur de sel makes these even better, so feel free to add that before the caramel sets! Speaking of the caramel, it doesn't harden completely. The best way I can describe its final consistency is to compare it to peanut butter. Soft, but not pourable. In other words, perfect.

If you're looking for other Christmas baking ideas, look no further, as I have pulled some recipes from my archives:

Salted Maple Pecan Pie Bars
Soft Gingersnaps with White Chocolate
Monster Cookies
Bourbon Truffles
White Chocolate Cranberry Blondies
Cranberry Orange Walnut Tea Bread with Sweet Orange Glaze
Christmas M&M Cookies
Peppermint Chocolate Cookies
Gingerbread Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting
Cranberry White Chocolate Chip Cookies
Hello Dolly Bars
Pear Spice Cake with Walnut Praline Topping
Green Velvet and Red Velvet Cupcakes

No-Bake Blueberry Lemon Cheesecake Trifles

So, remember a few weeks ago when I mentioned that I was going to Mixed Conference courtesy of the nice people at Lucky Leaf? Due to a last minute work obligation, I sadly couldn't make it to the conference, however, I still wanted to share what I created with one of Lucky Leaf's tasty products.

Blueberry and lemon is probably my favorite flavor combination next to peanut butter and chocolate. I know blueberries are a bit out of season right now, but I couldn't resist using them in conjunction with some of Lucky Leaf's lemon pie filling. I came up with this insanely easy trifle recipe, and you don't even need to turn on your oven to make it.  What you're looking at here is a layer of crunchy, cinnamon and almond graham cracker streusel, fresh blueberries, a super-lemony no-bake cheesecake filling, and cubes of moist pound cake. All of these flavors and textures work together so deliciously that I inhaled my jar of trifle in about 90 seconds flat.

I have a minor obsession with consuming food and drinks from mason jars. Beer, iced tea, and all kinds of desserts simply taste better when consumed from one. It's science. Depending on the size of your mason jars, this makes about 8 servings. You can also make it a full-sized dessert in a regular trifle dish if desired, but it will be less delicious.