Certain Holiday rituals are simply timeless, like “Auld Lang Syne” playing when the ball drops in Times Square on New Years Eve. In our house, some kind of  au gratin or escalloped potatoes are as much a New Year’s tradition as that old Scottish tune imortalized by Guy Lombardo.

The dish is really very versatile as you can mix and mach the cheeses and toppings. The magic is in the “mornay” or cheese sauce you create by melting your favorite into a basic bechamel. One year I might use a sharp Wisconsin cheddar and the next a blend of Swiss and Gruyere. Even the topping is open for interpretation. The family heirloom recipe was made with dry buttered bread crumbs but we’ve also  tried using crushed potato chips or pretzels in the past. The outcome is always different but you rarely can go wrong.

The version I’m sharing today is what we just served for our New Year’s dinner. I made it with Vermont cheddar and chives and topped it off with panko bread crumbs. Unlike many recipes, this one begins with baked russets not raw sliced potatoes. It can be made a couple days in advance. Afterall, there are more festive places to be on  New Year’s Eve than stirring sauce on top of the stove.

(Note- this recipe is for 4-6 servings but can easily be doubled for a 3 qt casserole or two 1 1/2 qt casseroles.)

3 large russet potatoes

4 Tbs butter

1 clove crushed garlic

4 Tbs flour

1/2 tsp salt

2 1/4 cups warm whole milk

1 1/2  cups grated Vermont cheddar cheese

2 Tbs snipped chives

2 Tbs grated Parmesan cheese

1/2 cup panko bread crumbs mixed with 1 Tbs melted butter

Preaheat oven to 400° and place potatoes on a baking sheet. Bake for 1 hour and remove from oven. Pierce with a fork to let out steam and allow to cool to room temp.

Meanwhile, make the sauce by melting butter in a medium saucepan and sauteing garlic. Blend in flour with a wire whisk then slowly blend in milk, stirring until thickened and smooth. Blend in 1 cup of cheese until melted and stir in chives.

Carefully pull the skin off of potatoes that have puffed away and become loose but leave the skin that still clinging to the potato. Slice in thin slices and arange standing on side in a 1 1/2 qt buttered casserole dish.

Cover potatoes with sauce and sprinkle with remaining 1/ cup of cheddar cheese.

Combine Parmesan with panko bread crumbs.

Spoon over casserole.

Cover and refrigerate until you are ready to bake. Preheat oven to 400°  and bake 45-55 minutes or until bubbling and golden brown on top. (If you are baking this right after assembling, reduce the cooking time by about 15 minutes.)

No I’m not talking about a deli sandwich wrap but warm cinnamon rolls to share in the morning while preparing Turkey Day dinner.

To be honest, I enjoy baking for Thanksgiving more than I do for Christmas. I’m not exactly sure why but perhaps it’s because I have just a little more time on my hands than when the holiday crunch sets in. I can promise you one thing, these turkey rolls are about as easy as it gets without buying something from the bakery.

And this is what I mean by easy— I buy cans of seasonal cinnamon roll dough from Stop & Shop  that has pumpkin icing. If you can’t find these in your local store, don’t worry. You can get the same result by blending in some pumpkin butter (similar to apple butter) into the provided frosting.  If you can’t find that you can use apple butter.

Next unroll three rolls for the body and neck of the turkey and use the remaining two rolls to cut into tail feathers. Arrange on parchment paper to look like this:

Bake in a preheated 375° oven for about 10 minutes or until lightly brown. Don’t overbake or they will be dry. While warm, spread with icing and decorate the faces with raisins and cranberries.

Now gobble gobble!

As fall aproaches, I like to pull out this recipe from my 2006 CT Post column for caramel apple cakes. I like making the small batch recipe but you can always double it for a bake sale.

It’s that time of year again when you’re shuttling a bunch of kids around  to all of those non-stop after school activities. In my day, that meant Mom would pick up a car pool of kids, pile them in the back of our station wagon then pick up two-dozen hot glazed donuts from Lucy Lynn Bakery and deliver her cargo to the Girl Scout meeting. These days, many schools are encouraging parents to steer clear of greasy, hydrogenated junk food as in-school treats, favoring fresh fruits, yogurt and healthy snacks. I applaud these efforts. However, when 3:00 PM hits so does hunger and sometimes a box of trail mix just won’t do the trick. When the natives are restless you want to keep them happy! You could drive them through MacDonalds or your could consider the retro concept of home made cupcakes. You control the ingredients and your kids learn to bake something new. In September, I look to the classic apple theme for inspiration. What could be a better back to school tradition than caramel apples on a stick? (The cinnamon candy kind always got stuck on everyone’s braces.) These easy to mix cupcakes are topped with melted caramels, garnished with chopped walnuts and have sticks in the center, just like old fashioned caramel apples.

(MAKES ABOUT 1 DOZEN) CUPCAKES:

1 2/3 cups all purpose flour

1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp allspice

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup applesauce

1/4 cup sour cream

1 Tbs lemon juice

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

1, 14 oz bag of caramels, wrappers removed

2 Tbs milk

1/2 cup toasted, chopped walnuts

12 popsicle sticks

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, allspice, baking soda and salt in mixing bowl. In separate bowl blend together applesauce, sour cream, oil, lemon juice, egg and vanilla. Mix into dry ingredients. Pour batter into paper lined muffin tins and bake 20 to 25 minutes. Cool on wire rack. Melt caramels milk in a double boiler, stirring until smooth (start . Spread caramel on the tops of cupcakes.

Sprinkle chopped walnuts around the edge of cakes and insert a popsicle stick in the center of each.

Note: you may have to bake a square 9” x 9” cake 30 to 35 minutes.

With Labor Day rapidly approaching it’s time for summer’s last hurrah. This year you wouldn’t know it with a 90°+ heatwave but that’s all the more reason to celebrate with warm weather favorites like corn on the cob. My favorite way to do this is to shuck the ears and leave the stems on giving your guests a handy handle.

Next I cream together some softened, unsalted butter and add some seasoned salt and herb mixture. (Here I’ve used Bousari, but you can come up with your on combination of herbs and spices using whatever you have in your pantry). Wrap corn in squares of foil.

Now you can just cook these on the grill for about 25-30 minutes. Too much meat taking up grill space? These work just as well baking in the oven at 375° for have an hour for the roasted corn effect. These are hot when they are ready so let rest a few minutes before serving.

It’s been nine summers ago since I first came up with the idea of using coconut heads in my Connecticut Post kid’s column. This morning, I decided to check in on my now retired little friends and see how are were doing. Considering that they owe their personality to a hot glue gun, they’ve held up pretty well in a sweltering attic visited by squirrels!

Funny thing about the coconut heads, they’ve always seemed (to me) to have a sort of “Muppetesque” quality:

Hmmm…What do you think?

Well, maybe next summer I’ll sew up some bodies for them and turn them into puppets that sing “I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts”. In the meantime, I’m going to start growing some grass toupees! You can read the how -tos in the transcript from the publication below:

Top off Summer Vacation Making these Wacky Planters

Sometimes kids like to putter alongside parents when it comes to gardening or using tools in the workshop. With adult supervision, it provides an opportunity to learn new skills and develop hobbies that will carry into adulthood. I always used to watch dad with total fascination as he made something out of nothing with a few of his gadgets on the basement workbench.” I wanna hold the drill!” was OK— “I wanna hold the blow torch!” was NOT OK. This is one of those family bonding projects that requires some initial parental involvement but results in months of summer fun. Together you can transform coconuts into cartoon-like characters. Kids water and nurture the crop of grass that grows from their heads. Best of all it teaches maintenance and responsibility. Without weekly hair cuts with some kitchen shears, their “flat tops” will turn into Rapunzel’s long locks.

FOR EACH PLANTER: one coconut marking pen cross cut saw vise knife drill with half inch bit whole, unshelled almond 3 Brazil nuts 1/2” to 3/4 “ hobby eyes glue gun potting soil rye grass seed. Mark off the upper third of the coconut with a pen. Drill a hole or two in the bottom of the coconut for drainage. Anchor the coconut in a vise and saw along the line. Allow cut coconuts to dry out for several days so that the white coconut meat begins to pull away from the hard outer shell. Cut cube-like scores into coconut meat and pry out of shell with a knife. Use glue gun to attach an almond in the center of each for a nose. Glue on a Brazil nut as a mouth underneath the nose and on each side of the “coconut head” as an ear. Glue on hobby eyes. Fill coconut with potting soil and moisten with water. Cover coconuts with a thick layer of grass seed and water daily, checking to be sure the soil is moist at all times. Keep in a sunny place and grass should begin to germinate in 3 to five days. Note: Grass seed may be started outside of the coconut heads in clear plastic , disposable drinking cups. Once the grass has begun to grow in can be transplanted. This has the educational advantage of watching the root system develop before your eyes.

Guess who? That’s six year-old me visiting Colonial Williamsburg for the very first time. I will never forget that Independence Day when my parents drove us halfway across the country to give kids from Kansas City the experience of being in one of the original thirteen colonies. Now that I’ve become a Connecticut Yankee, being surrounded by remnants of the Revolutionary War doesn’t seem quite as exotic as it once did.  That’s not to say I feel jaded by the antiquity. I’ve grown to love this holiday more than any other and feel privileged to watch fireworks from my street which was once an 18th century gun battery. As I see the rockets launched from a barge on the Long Island Sound, I think of how they dug up cannonballs when they built this house. Little did I know that  summer when I became infatuated with my three cornered hat that I would someday live where all the action took place. HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA!

 Hat’s off to this Patriotic Dessert

(transcript from The Connecticut Post)

When I was in first grade, my parent’s decided that we should spend July 4th in the tradition of our founding fathers. Mom and Dad packed up our station wagon and drove off on a pilgrimage from Kansas City to Williamsburg and Jamestown, Va. After three days of “Are we there yet?” and many pit stops, we arrived in the magical land of three cornered hats. At least, that’s how I saw it… Oh there were lots of neat carriages, cannons and drums but I was most intrigued with the black, felt “tricorne” worn by everyone from the docents at Governor’s Palace to the proprietors of the gingerbread bakery. Once inside the souvenir “shoppe”, the salesperson in an eighteenth century costume tried to convince Mom to buy a lacy Martha Washington bonnet for me… No way!!! There wasn’t a single kid running around the streets of Williamsburg in one of those. Like all the other girls in the store, I picked out the hat with gold braid trimming the edge. It became inseparable from my head for the rest of the summer. I wore it in restaurants, at church– even to the swimming pool (much to the chagrin of my parents) Before the first day of school, my hat mysteriously disappeared. It was nowhere to be found in the house? For most people, fireworks are synonymous with July 4th. For me, I will always associate the the holiday with that wonderful trip to Williamsburg and my three cornered hat. It’s easy to make one out of chocolate brownie cake for a unique patriotic dessert. In keeping with the Yankee Doodle tradition of our state song, ad a feather for a colorful effect.

THREE CORNERED HAT CAKE

10.25 oz brownie mix

baking parchment chocolate covered donut

toothpicks

16 oz can of dark chocolate frosting

gold craft cord (a least 1 yard)

red , white and blue craft feathers

strawberries and blueberries for garnish whipped cream or whipped topping and pastry bag fitted with a rosette tip

Line a 9” cake pan with a circle of baking parchment. Prepare mix according to directions and spread into pan*. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 28 minutes. Cool and chill in refrigerator (or stick in the freezer ) before cutting, Cut a triangular shape from the circle, saving the three sliced edges. Trim about another half inch of brownie off of each side of the triangular piece. Stand the curved brownie slices along the smooth edges of the triangular piece and secure with toothpicks. Since brownies are very pliable, you can pinch the edges together to form points at the corners. Place the donut in the center as the crown of the hat. Fill the center of the donut whole with a scrap of from the brownie trimmings. Frost the cake with chocolate frosting. Gently press gold craft cord around the edge of the hat against the frosting and trim at joining corner. If feathers are long, cut about 3” down from the tip and stick in the corner of one side of the hat. This cake can be presented on a platter decorated with fresh blueberries, strawberries and rosettes of whipped cream for a red white and blue finale.

*Note, if using a 1 lb 3.9 oz family size brownie mix, you can make two cakes by simply adding another donut and can of frosting.