Some of my favorites....

I've been spending some time yesterday doing menus and finding recipes for the upcoming holidays in November and December. I have also been planning some easy meals for myself on the few nights I am actually home to eat at a decent time. In doing so, I was going back through some of my old posts and found some food pics of things I've made before and I made myself so hungry I had to get up and get a snack. But here are some of my favorite food photos of actual stuff I have made here at home. I am not a great photographer by any means, but I do think I have a talent for "staging" my food photo shoots. The first category of pictures is actual meal food instead of junk food. This is my homemade vegetable beef cabbage soup (the kind you can get at Shoney's)

And my first time making homemade spaghetti sauce from scratch...no recipe. It was really good but I've been afraid to make it again. Didn't know if I could have two successes in a row.

My famous homemade pizza bread. This is something I have on a really regular basis and it never gets old.

I'm craving bacon. I don't know if I will have it as bacon sandwiches or grilled cheese with bacon or twice baked potatoes with bacon and cheese. Maybe just simple breakfast of bacon, eggs, biscuits and gravy. But whatever I do, I will have bacon.

This is a school cafeteria soup recipe that I found online. It's my favorite veggie soup recipe I make.

Since I do eat out occasionally, I am planning to go to a local eatery, Frank Allen's. It's the best hot dogs and hamburgers in the world. I went with friends last year and this is a pic of what we all had. I usually get the hot dog with chili and mustard because I just love hot dogs.

My favorite is when I make them at home. I buy the Pepperidge Farm top sliced hot dog buns and then you grill the sides with butter in a warm skillet before putting your toppings on. I like these with Hormel chili with no beans as the chili and then add mustard and onion.

But my favorite thing to plan is desserts. I normally make oatmeal cookies many times in the winter. For awhile, I was just using my jelly roll pan and making them and cutting into squares like an oatmeal cookie bar. (I must have been working on my Thirty-One calendar when I made this picture.)

But most of the time, I make them in the normal "drop by a spoonful onto wax paper" recipe.

Last year was the first time in about 25 years that I did not make my orange cookies at Christmas. I am going to do it this year. The band was selling oranges so I bought a gift box set that has 8 oranges (to be used for my cookies and frosting) and a jar of marmalade (to be used to baste my ham at Christmas.) The recipe for these makes 72 - 96 cookies, depending on how big you make them. With orange juice and orange zest in them, the flavor is phenomenal.

I made these one time and they were delicious but time consuming. So the next time I made them in mini muffin tins as mini muffins. But the cinnamon sugar is to die for.

No holiday is complete unless I make homemade peanut butter candy and chocolate candy. Not to be confused with fudge because fudge is creamy and this is more a firmer-but-melts-in-your-mouth kind of candy/fudge.

A picture of my monster cookies I made that I had lost the recipe for. But thanks to my blog research yesterday, I found one in the Taste of Home recipe book.

My first ever Bundt cake that I made that didn't stick to the pan. This was so good. I made a lemon pound cake mix but instead of the called for water, I used 1/2 Sprite and 1 /2 fresh squeezed lemon juice. Then the icing has lemon zest, confectioner sugar and lemon juice with just a touch of milk The whole thing was out of this world.

My brownie cookies I like to make. Just make brownies and spoon them out on cookie sheets. Easy peasy deliciousness.

One year, I even made some frosting and put sprinkles to make them festive.

Molasses cookies I tried a few years back. They were really good and I don't even like molasses. They were a store bought mix and I added some ginger to the mix.

Reese's peanut butter fudge. Four ingredients.....Carnation cream, sugar, Reese's chips and a stick of butter. This is so easy because it's a timed recipe not a "soft ball stage" type hit and miss fudge.

Graham cracker pie. I love meringue (a lot of people don't) and this is the only pie I will eat. Vanilla pudding inside a graham cracker crust and covered with meringue and graham cracker crumbs. This is a must have at the holidays. Hubby always made it and he's been gone two years so I haven't had one since. And my last two Thanksgivings I regretted not making it so I am going to make one this year.

Then of course there are those items I love around the holidays that are not food or homemade desserts. Once is hot chocolate with candy cane ground up on a nutmeg grater, mixed with hot chocolate and covered with tiny marshmallows. Top it off with some more of the ground candy cane sprinkles (I call it Peppermint Dust) and add a candy cane for garnish. I always make this in my favorite Hershey mug because it's a big mug and the drink is delicious.

Ever since I was a little girl I have malted milk balls at Christmas time. But not just any brand, they have to be Brach's. Well nobody has carried them around here for years. But two years ago, I found where you can buy them by the pound at a local hospital gift shop. So I go get a couple of pounds of them on Thanksgiving weekend and make them last through the holidays. One of my favorite things to do is to eat these and chocolate covered raisins, drink orange Crush and wrapped Christmas presents while I watch Christmas comes to Willow Creek on DVD about the middle of December.

I made myself hungry when I was looking up these pictures. And now I made myself hungry talking about them. Time for some lunch.