How to Make Christmas Lebkuchen
Lebkuchen are honey and spice cookies that are traditionally served in Germany during the Christmas holiday season. You can make Lebkuchen (LAYB-koo-kuhn) up to 3 months in advance, so you save time during [more…]
Quick and Easy Appetizers for Your Christmas Gathering
Appetizers are a must for holiday parties and meals. Many appetizers are time- and labor-intensive to prepare, but the following list offers timesaving selections. You can attend your own Christmas party [more…]
Creating an Antipasti Tray for Your Christmas Party
In Italy, antipasti can include rice dishes, egg dishes, fish and shellfish, and more, but for your pre-Christmas dinner purposes, a lighter selection is just fine and will fit into even a tight budget [more…]
Crisp Cookie Dough for Purim Hamantaschen
This delicately sweet cookie dough is perfect for making hamantaschen at Purim. These triangular Purim cookies begin with dough cut in circles. Basically, you take three arcs of each dough round and fold [more…]
How to Make Chocolate Almond Rum Balls for Purim
Chocolate stands for celebrations, and these scrumptious sweets make great additions to the traditional Purim gift boxes of treats — if you manage to resist eating while you’re shaping them! The mixture [more…]
How to Plan Christmas Dinner with a Budget
Naturally, cooking Christmas dinner for a crowd can be expensive, so it’s important to plan with a budget in mind. begin with a firm look at your budget. If you’re the one making Christmas dinner for the [more…]
Tips for Making Latkes for Hanukkah
After the Hanukkah candle lighting, it’s time for singing songs and feasting on latkes. Making latkes is pretty easy, but the tips included here will help you make the best latkes for your Hanukkah celebration [more…]
Discovering Sufganiyot — Hanukkah Doughnuts
To most Jews in North America, latkes mean Hanukkah, but to Israelis, sufganiyot say Hanukkah even more than levivot, the Hebrew word for latkes. Soofganiyot are light doughnuts without holes. They are [more…]
How to Make Sweet Hanukkah Fritters
Hanukkah fritters are light puffs of batter or simple dough that have been fried. This recipe makes fritters that are quick to prepare, because they use a batter leavened with baking powder instead of [more…]
How to Make Cinnamon Applesauce for Hanukkah Latkes
Most people simply serve their Hanukkah latkes with applesauce from a jar. Try making your own applesauce instead for entertaining or to be true to tradition. Homemade applesauce is tastier than store-bought [more…]
Savory Leek and Mushroom Topping for Hanukkah Latkes
This savory leek and mushroom topping for Hanukkah latkes is scented with cumin and thyme. It enlivens any vegetable or potato pancakes. If you’re including dairy foods on the menu, top each latke with [more…]
Chickpea and Green Soybean Salad for Purim
Chickpea and Green Soybean Salad is a healthful, savory salad for Purim that's quick to prepare if you used canned chickpeas. For optimum texture — and to adhere to holiday custom — use dried chickpeas [more…]
A Purim Treat: Poppy Seed Hamantaschen
Poppy seed hamantaschen are a traditional Jewish cookie made for the Purim festival. To make a delicious, creamy filling for hamantaschen, simmer the poppy seeds with milk and honey, and accent the mixture [more…]
Condiments You Must Have behind the Bar
Running a bar is more than just mixing alcohol, mixers, and ice. You might be surprised by what you need to have on hand to keep the drinks flowing to happy customers. This short list contains items bar [more…]
How to Make Candy Gifts
When you get really good at candy making, you can give gifts of your special candies. Be assured that everyone on your gift list will eat them right up. The gift ideas in the following list can help you [more…]
How to Buy and Use Fireworks Safely
As spring turns into summer, Americans start gearing up for Independence Day. In many cases, that means loading up on fireworks. For most people, Fourth of July fireworks displays are fun nights full of [more…]
A Basic Bar Setup for a Limited Budget
Setting up a home bar can become quite costly. The variety of liquors available today is mind-boggling. How do you pare down your shopping list to the essentials? Some bartenders might scoff at the idea [more…]
Necessary Supplies for Your Bar
Bartending, even at home, requires lots of supplies, mixers, and garnishes. In addition to beer, wine, liquors, and liqueurs, a decent home bar should have the following supplies if you plan on serving [more…]
Knowing the Benefits of Menu Planning
Maybe you think you don’t have time to sit down and plan two weeks’ worth of meals. But when you plan 14 menus at once, you eliminate the nightly need to figure out what’s for dinner after a hard day at [more…]
Deciding What’s on the Dinner Menu
A healthy dinner involves more than a piece of meat (or other form of protein) and something to wash it down with. To build a menu, begin with the main course. From there, fill in with different kinds [more…]
Creating Your Own Two-Week Menu Plan
When you’re ready to create your own menu plans, start small and plan 14 days’ worth of meals. After you get the hang of menu planning, you can plan more weeks at once. [more…]
Halloween Decorating Safety Tips
Decorating for Halloween can bring out creativity in everyone, but many elements of Halloween decorating can pose hazards to unsuspecting visitors. Here are a few safety tips to keep handy when preparing [more…]
How to Make a Chocolate Cocoa Cake
This fudgy chocolate cake is the base for spooky haunted mansion cake that is perfect for a child’s Halloween party. Although you have to stack up a few cakes for this creation, you don’t have to worry [more…]
How to Make Stiff Decorator Frosting
If you have a lot of ground to cover decorating-wise on your cake, or if the intricacy of the design will require time and patience, this frosting is an excellent choice because it holds its shape for [more…]
How to Make Buttercream Frosting
This is a versatile buttercream that you can use to decorate your Halloween jack o’lantern or skating rink cake, but keep this recipe on hand for other cakes as well! It spreads and pipes wonderfully, [more…]
