Salted Caramel Sauce

The Recipe: Caramel Sauce from Simply Recipes.

The Substitutions: Added a couple of pinches of fleur de sel to make it Salted Caramel Sauce.

The Verdict: Thumbs up. This is easy peasey. For some reason, this year I've become a little obsessed with homemade candy. I've always been afraid of all that stove-top sugar boiling, but now that my kids are old enough to stay out of the kitchen if I give them a stern warning, I'm a little more confident that I'm not going to fatally burn anyone with molten sugar. This sauce takes about five minutes to make and is pretty delicious. Next time I would have added more salt. That's all I have to say on the matter.

The Cooky Book: Scotch Shortbread

The Recipe: Scotch Shortbread from The Cooky Book by Betty Crocker

The Substitutions: none

The Verdict: I needed to make some shortbread, so I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone by doing the Cooky Book version. Meh. The dough was incredibly hard to work with, thus incredibly hard to roll, and incredibly hard to cut. The result is a very small yield of crumbly, time-consuming shortbread. Sure, it's buttery and all that, but disappointing. The plan was to serve these guys up with some salted caramel sauce and lemon curd, but I think I'm going to have to (wait for it...) go and buy some pre-made shortbread from the grocery store. Because I only ended up with about two dozen of these guys and I don't want to go through the pain of having to make another batch. Sad.

The Cooky Book: Candy Cane Cookies

The Recipe: Candy Cane Cookies from Betty Crocker's The Cooky Book

The Substitutions: I skipped the crushed candy topping (because I'm freezing them and it all would have fallen off anyway) and I used butter instead of shortening.

The Verdict: Surprisingly great. I'm officially going rogue on the Cooky Book for the holidays -- that is, I'm doing some of the recipes out of order so that I wouldn't have to make Candy Cane Cookies in July. I'm practical that way. I wasn't too excited about these cookies because cute novelty cookies are usually pretty short on flavor, especially in the Betty Crocker universe. Imagine my surprise to learn that these aren't only cute, but kind of delicious.

The dough in these cookies is basically a almond-flavored plain cookie dough and the almond really saves a day. Maybe it's just because I'm a sucker for marzipan, but these are really yummy. I realize my execution in twisting the candy canes is far from perfect, but I had the help of a very excited five-year-old, so I can blame the lack of perfection on her. Either way, these will be a pleasant addition to my Christmas buffet, which seems like a very Betty Crocker kind of thing to say.

Waldorf Salad

The Recipe: Waldorf Salad from Jamie Oliver's Jamie's America

The Substitutions: I didn't have an apple on hand, so I skipped it.

The Verdict: Pretty darn good. I love a Waldorf salad, if only for the sheer volume of goodies. Sure, I could always eat a handful of grapes or walnuts, but they just seem so much more decadent when they're hiding in a green salad. Sad, I know.

As far as Waldorfs go, this one probably won't pass muster with full-on purists, but it fit my purposes quite nicely. Here's the thing: I'm a weird freak who can not stomach mayonnaise. I'm sure I happily eat things with mayo in them all the time, but if I make it myself and I know that there's mayo in there, I get squeamish. This salad does not contain mayo. Instead, Jamie throws in some yogurt, which is another substance I can't handle on it's own, but I'm less grossed out by it when it's mixed with other things. Like I said, I'm a weirdo.

So, as a result, this salad isn't nearly as creamy as a real Waldorf salad. The dressing ends up like more of a vinaigrette than a creamy dressing, which is fine by my books. It was easy, tasty, a little more low-cal than the real thing. In other words: delicious.

Fennel and Apple Meatloaf

The Recipe: Fennel and Apple Meatloaf from the November 2010 issue of Everyday Food.

The Substitutions: None, though I will note that I made it with a combo or turkey and bulk sausage.

The Verdict: This is one of those change-em-up recipes, where they offer two or three meatloaf variations, each more delicious looking than the next. I'm a sucker for fennel, so this one called my name. And man, is it ever delicious. Like, super delicious. Adding sausage keeps the turkey from getting too dry, but I think all the veg in there help out too. I'm definitely going to try the other variations, but this one is so fresh and tasty it might become a dinner standard in our house.

Oven Roasted Potatoes

The Recipe: Oven Roasted Potatoes from AllRecipes. Recipe found here.

The Substitutions: None.

The Verdict: Pretty darn good. This is simple, simple, simple, but simple with spice, if that makes sense. You need to have a fairly well-stocked spice rack to pull this one off, but if you're missing a spice or two you probably can just skip it. My crew find regular roasted potatoes too bland (I know, they're crazy), so these were very well received.

Coconut Key-Lime Pie

The Recipe: Coconut Key-Lime Pie from the November 2010 issue of Everyday Food. Recipe online here.

Substitutions: None.

The Verdict: I'm kind of speechless over this one. First off, you should not know what goes into key lime pie. It's essentially an egg yolk omelet rounded off by loads of condensed milk and topped with whipped cream. Hello, heart attack. But if you can ignore that, this pie is unbelievable. Creamy, coconuty and even better the next day (especially if you eat it directly out of the fridge by the spoonful). My husband actually said it's the best thing I've ever made. I'm not sure I disagree.