This year for Christmas we gave everyone homemade marshmallows. They were easier than I thought they'd be to make, and super fun. Seriously, if you have kids you should make this right away. The way Rob's eyes widened as the marshmallow fluff tripled in size in the mixer...I can only imagine his excitement if he'd been 5 years old.

There are lots of recipes online, and this one does a good job borrowing the best wisdom from many of them. My version is below.

2 1/2 packets of gelatin (about 2.5 tbsp)
1 cup water
1 cup corn syrup
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 tsp salt
peppermint extract (or vanilla for plain marshmallows)
red food coloring or gel icing (optional)
corn starch and powdered sugar, combined into a mixture of equal parts
cooking spray

You also should have on hand a stand mixer with whisk attachment, wax paper, and a candy thermometer. You can use a 9x13 pan, or a smaller one for thicker marshmallows.

1. Put 1/2 cup water in stand mixer bowl and sprinkle gelatin on top.  Let sit while you do the next steps.

2. In a saucepan, add 1/2 cup water, corn syrup, sugar and salt.  Over low heat, stir until sugar dissolves.

3. Turn heat to high and let boil until candy thermometer reaches about 250 degrees. Use a fairly large pan because the sugar mixture bubbles up a lot as it’s cooking.

4. While that’s cooking, prepare the pan.  Line the bottom and sides with wax paper, then brush on a generous amount of oil and coat with corn starch/powdered sugar mixture.

5. Once sugar mixture on stove has reached 250, carefully pour into mixing bowl with gelatin and water in it while mixer is on medium speed.  Whisk until sugar mixture is completely incorporated.  

6. Turn mixer to high speed.  Mixture will start to get light and fluffy and will expand a lot.  It starts to look like marshmallow creme.  It’ll get about 3 times more voluminous.  Keep mixing until it doesn’t get any puffier (between 5-10 minutes). Right at the end, add a little peppermint extract. Use your judgment on amount as a little goes a long way.

7. Pour into prepared pan. Squeeze red food coloring/gel icing on top over top and swirl with a knife. Smooth top with oiled spatula, if necessary.

8. Let sit overnight.

9. The next day, lift entire marshmallow block out of the pan, and flip it onto an oiled surface dusted with corn starch/powdered sugar mixture. Peel off wax paper and cut into squares with powdered scissors. Dust each marshmallow in corn starch/powdered sugar mixture.

Makes 2-3 dozen. Store in an airtight container.

(I got the candy boxes and decorative wax paper at Williams-Sonoma. They made for a classy gift package, but I couldn't order the boxes without a monogram and so our marshmallows were a bit more pretentious than intended.)

The problem with gingersnaps, for me, is the snap. I don't like a hard cookie; I prefer my cookies soft and chewy. I adore the flavor of ginger, though, and so I've always eaten gingersnaps by dunking them into coffee or hot cider. Until I discovered this recipe. It's the softer side of the gingersnap.

What I particularly like about these is that I can eat them guilt-free. With wheat germ and whole wheat flour (which was my change to the original recipe from Cooking Light), they are relatively healthy. Totally acceptable for breakfast, I say.

These are the perfect accompaniment to hot apple cider. And while we're on the topic of hot apple cider, might I recommend you add a bit of butterscotch schnapps to yours? One shot glass per mug. Do it - you'll thank me.

I've also served the ginger crinkles with lemon ice cream, which is a nice complement. And this weekend we're eating them alongside pumpkin ice cream, which we bought from our local ice cream shop. And since it's nearly Thanksgiving and all, let me say how very grateful I am for that ice cream shop.

2/3 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/3 cup stick margarine or butter, softened
1/4 cup molasses
1 large egg white
1 tablespoon chopped crystallized ginger
1 1/3 cups whole wheat flour
3/4 cup toasted wheat germ
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Cooking spray
2 tablespoons granulated sugar

(You can omit the chopped crystallized ginger and increase the ground ginger to 1 1/2 teaspoons.)

Beat brown sugar and margarine at medium speed of a mixer until light and fluffy. Add molasses and egg white; beat well. Stir in crystallized ginger. Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, wheat germ, baking soda, ground ginger, and cinnamon. Stir into molasses mixture. Cover; freeze 20 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350°.

Lightly coat hands with cooking spray. Shape the dough into 30 balls, about 1 tablespoon each. Roll the balls in the granulated sugar. Place the balls 2 inches apart on baking sheets coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 10 minutes. Cool cookies on pans for 3 minutes. Remove from pans, and cool the cookies completely on wire racks.

Yield: 2 1/2 dozen

(By the way, a great site for recipes, with a focus on desserts, is The Craving Chronicles. I think the photos are as yummy as the food.)

This is a recipe from Cooking Light, although I've tweaked a few small things. (The original version is here.) We've made this a couple times now and really like it. Great with a baked sweet potato and broccoli.

I imagine kids would like helping with the dredging part, as there's a fun little assembly line of messy things to dip the pork chops in. That's assuming your kids are willing to touch raw meat, though. That always grossed me out. (In college when I was cooking for myself, chicken was the only meat I would consider making, but I couldn't handle the ick factor of preparing it, so my mom bought me rubber gloves so I wouldn't have to touch it directly.) I'm over it now, although somehow the task of trimming meat almost always falls to Rob.

1 slice whole wheat bread, toasted and torn into pieces
1/4 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon mustard
2 large egg whites
4 (4-ounce) boneless pork loin chops, trimmed
1 1/2 tablespoons canola oil

Place bread in a food processor or blender; pulse bread 10 times or until coarse crumbs measure about 1 cup. Combine breadcrumbs, cheese, sage, and pepper in a shallow dish. Place flour in another shallow dish. Combine mustard and egg whites in another shallow dish, stirring with a whisk.

Working with one pork chop at a time, dredge pork in flour, shaking off excess. Dip pork into egg white mixture, allowing excess to drip off. Coat pork completely with breadcrumb mixture. Set aside. Repeat procedure with remaining pork, flour, egg white mixture, and breadcrumb mixture.

Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add oil to pan, swirling to coat. Add pork; cook 5-6 minutes on each side or until browned and done. (Cooking with the lid on will keep pork chops juicy.)

This is my mom's recipe, which I adjusted to be whole wheat. In addition to being healthier, the whole wheat version has a denser, more satisfying texture. Once a month we host Rob's work team for a chili night, and these muffins are always on the menu. I can't imagine chili without cornbread. And people seem to love them, so I thought I'd share the recipe.

It's fucking COLD here right now, really cold. The kind of cold that compels people to say, "Jesus it's fucking COLD!" whenever they step in from outside, followed by five minutes of shivering. Perfect weather for chili and cornbread.

1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup sugar
4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup milk
1 egg
1/4 cup oil

Mix well with a whisk. Spoon into muffin pan and bake at 400° for 15 minutes.

Makes 12.

Every dinner I ate in Italy was pasta. I couldn't not order pasta. Each pasta dish I had was so good that the next time around I wanted to order pasta again, hopeful that this time it would be even better and confident that even if it didn't outperform the last, it would still be fantastic. And much of the pasta I ate was gnocchi. Because it does not get any better than those doughy pillows of delight. Am I right? LOVE gnocchi.

But I'd never served gnocchi at home. I'd ordered it in restaurants here in the States (not the same!) but for some reason I'd never made it myself. So when we came home, one of the first things I did was look for an easy gnocchi recipe. And unlike the dishes I'd had in Venice (in which the gnocchi nearly floated in decadent cream sauces), I wanted one that was relatively healthy. I've made this one twice now, and been quite pleased both times.

1 small carton of mushrooms, chopped (any kind - I like baby bella)
16 oz. box vacuum-packed gnocchi
1-2 shallots, chopped
olive oil
thyme
Parmesan cheese

Prepare gnocchi by directions. (Or you can make your own. Next time I'm going to attempt this, since it seems fairly easy and would surely add an extra level of divine.)

Meanwhile, sauté mushrooms and shallots in small amount of olive oil. Season with thyme and allow to cook for several minutes.

Add generous amount of Parmesan cheese to mushroom mixture, and stir in several spoonfuls of water from boiling gnocchi.

Drain gnocchi and mix with mushroom sauce.

Serves 3-4

This recipe came about one evening when Rob was in the mood for soup and I wanted to get rid of a bunch of stuff we had in the fridge. He googled some combination of the items in our fridge with "soup" tacked onto the end, and came across a recipe that sounded decent. He adapted it, adding other stuff we had, and the result was delicious.

Driving home from somewhere not long before, we'd been flipping through the stations and came upon John Tesh talking about how to create family traditions. He claimed that just giving something an official name would make it feel to your kids like a tradition, even if you'd never done it before. He said, for example, that you could make some random casserole for the first time but calling it "Aunt Sally's Famous Tuna Casserole" would make it seem special to your kids. You all know I think John Tesh is a crock of shit, but this amused me and so when Rob made this soup the first time, I proclaimed it Rob's Famous Tortellini and Artichoke Soup. Maybe Tesh was onto something, though, because this recipe is quickly becoming a tradition as it is now on regular rotation at our house, changing slightly each time depending on what we have on hand.

Also, Rob cooks like his mom, so all of these measurements are bad estimates at best.

olive oil
1/2 chopped onion
2 tbsp. chopped garlic
4 oz ground Italian sausage
1 can broth (chicken, beef, or vegetable)
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can white beans (garbanzo, great northern, or navy)
3 artichoke hearts, chopped
2 tsp. Italian seasoning
pepper to taste
8 oz. cheese-filled tortellini, uncooked

First sauté Italian sausage, onion, and garlic in olive oil. Then add all ingredients to saucepan and boil until tortellini is cooked.

(For the crockpot: Sauté Italian sausage like above, then add all ingredients but tortellini to the crockpot and cook on Low for at least several hours. For last hour, add tortellini and cook on High.)

Makes 4 servings

Rob and I are not big fans of fish, but we eat it pretty regularly because it's good for us. We've found various ways to eat it without really tasting it, such as hiding it in tacos or sneaking it into pasta salads. But we also often cook fillets for dinner, and while we've come a long way, I wouldn't say the experience of eating fish is particularly enjoyable for us. Until now.

Rob's mom served us some delicious salmon a few weeks ago, and it was so good that I found myself craving fish (!) for dinner last night. So I made it, and it turned out so well that I feel compelled to share the recipe. Which isn't much of a recipe, actually, because Rob's mom does not measure. I mean, I know for a fact that she owns measuring cups and spoons, but I do not believe she has ever used them. Rob loves her blonde brownies, and when we were first married I asked her for the recipe so I could make them for him. And she was like, "Um okay, so I mix brown sugar, regular sugar, and a couple of eggs."

"How much sugar?"

"Oh, maybe a cup or so of each? Whatever looks right."

Whatever looks right? Are you kidding me? "Okaaaay...and is 'a couple of eggs' two?"

"I might put three in. Depends on the size."

I thought perhaps she was trying to jeopardize my blonde brownie making in some weird mother-in-law sort of way. I mean, she couldn't even tell me the temperature at which she bakes them! But I've since learned that she's like this with everything she makes. And Rob gets this trait from her - he'll just throw in a little of this and a smidge of that. It used to drive me crazy. You know, because things have to be perfect? I mean, how can you just toss that in there without checking the recipe?! Measurements must be precise! And FLOUR SHOULD BE LEVELED WITH A KNIFE.

But I've gotten much better, and now find myself loosening up a bit with my cooking. Not with bread or cookies or things for which being exact actually matters, but with other stuff. I remember the first time Rob saw me improvise something in a recipe. He asked, "Did I just see you put something in that pot without measuring it first?!" And I replied, "Dude, it wasn't even ON the recipe." He looked at me stunned, his pride apparent. And I exclaimed, "I KNOW, right?!"

Normally when I make a non-recipe from Rob's mom, I will measure what I do so I can document it and do it again the next time. But marinades don't need exact measurements, or really even recipes. So when I made the salmon last evening, I didn't bother to measure. I didn't even use measuring utensils! And that? That, people, is personal growth.

Ingredients:

several glugs of white wine
clod of brown sugar
large splat of lemon juice
hunk of salmon

Whisk together the first three ingredients. Marinade the salmon in this mixture for about an hour. Bake (375-ish) or grill, basting at least once. The fish will flake with a fork when done. I sprinkled a wee bit of brown sugar on the fillets before serving.