Second Day of Sock Yarn

On the Second Day of Sock Yarn, Simply Sock Yarn gave to me....

a huge bag of yarn from Cascade!

To have a chance at the big bag of Cascade Heritage shown below and pattern book from Cascade Yarns, simply answer the following question in the comments below:

Do you have a favorite holiday recipe? Savory or sweet? Or perhaps one that you're hoping to make for the first time this year? Do tell!

You all have given me some great recipe ideas for the past decade+, and I hope I've inspired you with ideas too! This year, I'm going to make a new-to-me cookie recipe, Brown Butter Snickerdoodles. We love a good Snickerdoodle cookie recipe in my home (and the boys think its fun to roll the balls in cinnamon sugar), and I thought the browning the butter would take it over the edge. I love the nutty flavor that brown butter imparts on baked goods. Here's one that I'm considering using. And if you want to try one that I've made a lot, give look at Martha's Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies. These are a fave with a great cup of tea.

We have a stunning selection from Cascade Yarn right now in Cascade 220 Superwash (150+colors) and Heritage Sock (80+colors). But we also have their spankin' new sock yarn ReFine, which is a 100% recycled content sock yarn for a really good price! This comes in a variety of heathered hues and it's about time. I've been pestering Cascade for more heathered sock yarns for years now and I'm so glad we have that now for you. I'm knitting it myself right now in color 13-Rainforest and this Winter Frost pattern, which is free from This Handmade Life. It's a really nice, festive combo.

Want another chance (or three) to win a big bag of Cascade Yarn? We are giving away two bags in the shop this December - if you shop in person with us on one of our once-a-week open days (we ship the other days) you can easily enter to win one each time you're in the shop in December (remaining days are Dec 18 and 21 from 10-4, so two more chances to enter). And if you go to Instagram or Facebook today, you'll see a post there where you can enter to win another bag of yarn! So many chances to win $150 worth of Cascade Yarn at SSYC!!

We have 10 more Days of Sock Yarn coming up, so do stop here at the SSYC blog (our shop journal - I've been writing/sharing shop and life news here for over 16 years) every day until Christmas Eve so you can win. Full details of the contest can be found here.

Comments

[Bonney]

We love our Chex Mix at Christmas. Made with lots of butter and slow baked in the oven it's just the thing to go with any drink!!

[Patty Sheridan]

Christmas morning breakfast of Chocolate gravy and biscuits. Chocolate gravy was my grandmothers recipe. She made it every morning with biscuits when we would visit her.

[Kristina Dew]

My favorite holiday recipe is Chocolate Pixies. It's a heavy chocolate cookie rolled in powdered sugar before baking. I think they are called crinkle cookies now but my Grandma made them before I was born so they were always around for Christmas time. Still my favorite.

[Joyce]

I have to admit food isn't a huge consideration at Christmas for me. I don't sit down to a big dinner, and I'm doing no baking this year. My absolute favorite holiday dish is from Thanksgiving and it's Tyler Florence's Whipped sweet potato and banana casserole. It's amazing.

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/whipped-sweet-potatoes-and-bananas-with-honey-recipe2-1946616

[Denise]

My mother always made meatballs for us kids on Christmas Eve and the adults got takeout chinese food. Now that I am an adult, we get takeout. Although as a child me and my sisters all baked a different cookie for Christmas, I don't bake cookies much anymore as my son is not a fan. He and I do make the pretzels with hershey kisses and an M&M on top. My son is a fan of cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning, but he likes them from the can! No baking for me.

[Bonnie]

Trader Joe's Mini Gingerbread People and their Dark Chocolate Covered Peppermint Joe-Joe's are cookies we buy every year. In terms of recipes, this year I'm going to make Homemade Cinnamon Sugar Pecans from this recipe: https://joyfoodsunshine.com/cinnamon-sugar-pecans/.

[Natalie]

Mine is not so much a recipe but that my family got together ( children now adults) and had a cookie making day. It was so much fun and we had so much to share with one another. I am hoping this becomes a family tradition...

[Aimee]

One of our favorite recipes was one I found a couple years ago but it shot to the top. It’s a cranberry salsa that gets served over cream cheese and is eaten with ritz or club crackers. It’s super addictive. The recipe I use is from sparrows & lily but there’s lots of versions out there.

[Susan Leber]

We like to make Rudolph cookies using Nutter Butter cookies and chocolate bark.

[Jody Laake]

I’m not much of a cook or baker - those talents must’ve skipped my generation lol! But I always get asked to make my mom’s macaroni and cheese for Christmas Eve dinner. It’s been a holiday staple in my family as long as I can remember.

[Becky Creighton]

I like to make Mexican wedding cakes, butterballs, and ginger nuts. My mom baked 10-12 different varieties of cookies to make cookie platters as gifts. These are my 3 favorite ones.

[Melissa]

This is the time of year for rugelach.

[Karen]

I like to make mini pecan pie cookies called tassies using my grandmother’s recipe.

[Annabeth]

My family has a breakfast bake that we make and it’s is something I look forward to every year. It has potato bread, eggs, sausage, and onion and we always assemble it the night before. We pop it in the oven when everyone is awake, and it’s done by the time we finish presents! It’s the taste of Christmas morning for me. :)

[Gail L.]

My favourite holiday recipe is Molasses Spice cookies - this is my preferred gift to give because the cookies can be frozen if the recipient has received lots of edibles.

[Stephanie]

I don't really have any traditional Christmas dishes. Though my favorite treat that's readily available this time of year is Fernwood mint chocolates - yum!

[Caity]

I love snickerdoodles! I might just have to try the brown butter ones :). We don't really do traditional Christmas food in my family, we're doing Italian for Christmas dinner with extended family this year, but my immediate family has always made monkey bread for breakfast on Christmas Day, which is pretty much our only food tradition.

[Nicole Acuna]

I love making snowball cookies! They have been a family favorite for generations :)

[Lynn B]

We have always made an assortment of cookies. However, now it is mostly sugar cookies and we eat them all.

[Stephanie]

I always make the traditional cut out sugar cookies. This year though I'm adding Mexican wedding cakes to the baking list. My 27 year old son claims he's never had them before. I've been such a neglectful parent. 🤣

[Shirley Nygaard]

My family’s favorite is cornbread and andouille sausage dressing. It’s a recipe from Emeril and is a must every Christmas.

[Virginia Harnischfeger]

My favorite cookie recipe is what we call “snow cookies”. The real name is Holiday Crescents. Itis a crescent butter cookie made with crushed pecans, covered in confectioners’ sugar. Just lovely.

[Sara Moening]

Family favorites are buckeyes and oreo balls. Both are chocolate dipped and the secret is adding paraffin to the chocolate! This year I'm trying the gingerbread recipe on Helen Stewart's blog. I'm going to have to try the gingerbread recipe you posted now too! I love a good gingerbread.

[Laurie Bowman]

I love white chocolate covered fresh cranberries - just the right combination of sweet and tart!

[Elizabeth]

My favorite holiday food is my grandmother's pasta with homemade sauce on Christmas Day - no recipe for that! And my favorite holiday recipe that I can make is these chocolate ginger cookies, with added crystalized ginger for a little extra pop of flavor: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/chocolate-gingerbread-cookies-recipe

[MarthaO]

I haven't baked in years but a favorite cookie recipe was Cherry Winks found on a Kellogg's Corn Flakes box. Dough rolled in crushed corn flakes and topped with half a maraschino cherry. Also loved Rice Krispee treats.

[Tara]

The one “can’t miss” recipe each Christmas is our Christmas morning Monkey Bread. I’m allowed to tweak the recipe a bit, but it has a permanent spot for Christmas morning breakfast!

[Laura G.]

Pumpkin pie!

[Helen George]

My favorite holiday recipe is Caribbean black cake soaked in port wine and rum, covered and matured in an almond marzipan and icing. 😋

[Susan]

I made Antipasto this year, I used to make it every year but hadn’t for quite a few years. I’ll be giving jars of it to family and friends for their holiday snacking (if my husband doesn’t eat it all first).

[Diane]

I am going to make homemade Chex mix for the first time. My husband likes to eat something crunchy with his sandwich at lunch; it can be chips, Chex mix, small crackers, etc. I hope he likes it as much as he likes the brand name product! I am also planning to make homemade shrimp fried rice for the first time; there is a young man who has a seafood business and goes to NC from VA once/week during good weather and brings back fresh seafood from the boats that come in, and it is WONDERFUL!!! He is making his last trip this week so we have delicious seafood for the holidays; he’ll bring it back on ice, and we can freeze it fresh till next week.

[Kila Day]

My favorite all time holiday recipe 😋 is from my grandma. It's coconut bonbons. No cooking necessary. You combine butter, powdered sugar, condensed sweetened milk mix and roll into balls. Freeze then dip in melted chocolate, so delicious

[Kim Monfils]

I always make snowballs. The kids and grandkids love them! What’s not to like with a cream cheese and Oreo middle and white chocolate on the outside. Yum!

[Amy]

We have a sugar cookie recipe from an old cookbook we make annually.

[Renee Anne]

A favorite recipe for me is my grandmother's graham cracker pie. Really, it's a vanilla custard in a graham cracker crust with meringue on top. But we just always called it a graham cracker pie. I believe she got the recipe from her mother-in-law (my great-grandmother). I'm glad I got it out of her before the Alzheimer's took her memory. My cousins and I used to "fight" about the pie...I was the youngest so I won. Since then, I've given both of them the recipe so they can have it whenever they want....but they still only make it at Christmas, too.

[Luann M.]

I have a recipe for cut out cookies that always turn out well. My family likes them and I enjoy making them.

[Susan Boisvert]

Pecan sticky buns!!!!

[Irene Lenihan]

I love all the Slovak cookie recipes passed down thru my family. Kruschki, kolache are very favorite.

[Rose Birchall]

I don’t bake cookies anymore. But when I did, the Betty Crocker Cookie Cookbook had all the family favorites.

[Claudia]

I am going to make myself some muddy buddies since I don't plan on having anyone over for Christmas. I am a single lady and have lost my father this year leaving me to celebrate alone with the dog. I figure candy will make me smile while I play with the dog and crank up the heat.

[Penny]

7 layer cookies and Mexican wedding cookies and of course lasagna on Christmas Eve. I may try to make homemade egg nog this year.

[Kate]

My favorite is something we call German Crisps. No idea what they are actually called but it is a roll out cookie that you sprinkle with cinnamon or colored sugar.

[Chris]

My favorite are the candied cherry cookies my mom makes. Chilled sugar cookie dough with bright red and green cherries!

[Diane]

I’m not a cook and have no favorite recipe but I do love to eat what others prepare. I really like Cascade Heritage….all the colors, soft, nice ply, good yardage and great price. Thank you.

[JudyAnn]

Casserole cookies—dates, nuts, coconut. Baked in a casserole, then rolled into balls and into sugar. Yummy!

[Jessica McConnell]

I make an overnight stuffed oven baked French toast for Christmas morning. Basically you take a loaf of your choosing, slice it and add a sweetened cream cheese and blueberries between the slices. Pour the egg, sugar, cinnamon, milk mixture over the top. Put it in the fridge and in the morning pop it in the oven while opening gifts!

[Geri Heagy]

Every Christmas morning we have to have Crack Potatoes! Hash brown casserole made with sour cream, ranch dressing, bacon bits, and cheese. Search for it on Pinterest. You won't be disappointed!

[Ann]

I have baked these ginger cookies to rave reviews summer & Christmastime—doesn’t matter.
2cups flour, 3/4 tsp soda, 1/4 tsp salt, 2tsp ginger, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/8 tsp cloves, 1/2 c butter, 1 cup Sugar in the Raw (crunchy sugar), 1 egg, 1/4 c dark corn syrup, 1/3-1/2 c Sugar in the Raw to roll cookie balls in before baking at 350 for 9-11 minutes. This recipe was published by Sugar in the Raw when they first introduced it to the market.

[Michelle starkey]

My kids and husband also really like snickerdoodles so I will have to try the brown butter ones this year! My favorite to make are ginger snaps and the peanut butter blossoms with the Hershey kisses.

[Jaime]

Every year we make spritz cookies. They are loved by all and would not be the holidays without them.

[Susan Mercy]

I always make vegetarian chili and simmer it in the crockpot all day on Christmas, so when we are ready for dinner, no one has to cook or do any heavy prep work. I serve it on tortilla chips, layered with lettuce, tomatoes, olives, onions, cheese, and sour cream/salsa/guac on top.

[Sidney]

Chili cheese spread. My mom always made it. I’ve changed it a bit over the years, but it still makes me think of her.

[Cheryl]

I'm one of the crazy people that loves fruitcake and while living in Florida I tweaked an existing recipe to create a Tropical Fruitcake - a light cake base with pineapple, mango, papaya, coconut and macadamia nuts. I still made my favorite dark fruitcake with all my favorite nuts and candied fruit as well.

Now the only constant is pizelle - so easy to make and eat!

[Dana Snyder]

This is actually the first year I am cooking a Christmas dinner so I don’t have any traditional recipes of my own but I love Christmas cookies and caramel popcorn! I’m making ham and a hash brown casserole, green bean casserole and a Christmas jello salad made with raspberry jello, whole cranberries, crushed pineapple and mandarin oranges!

[TAMI SHAUGHNESSY]

Not my recipe, but my mom used to make these awesome almond/peppermint candy cane cookies. I kind of miss them.

[LeeAnne Blake]

my christmas go to recipe is chex mix

[Sara]

I like Chocolate Ginger Biscotti. Found the recipes years ago and make it often.

[Kathy]

Moon cookies & Snack mix.

[Claire Sleeman]

It's a contest between my mom's chex mix and my dad's crab dip. Just thinking about them makes me hungry!

[Kimberly Payne]

Lefse always brings back memories of making it with my grandmother. And making spritz cookies, shooting the dough out of the cookie press!

[Sabrina Snyder]

My kids love my sugar cookies with lemon icing. I make them only for Christmas.

[Susan]

My family says it’s not Christmas until we have Kris Kringles. It’s my mom’s recipe using Rice Krispies, peanut butter, sugar, and corn syrup, with a frosting made using melted chocolate and butterscotch chips. Very easy, very tasty!

[Amy Hufford]

For me, a simple Chex mix. I put in rice and corn Chex cereal, pretzels (I found some Christmas shaped ones from…utz I think), peanuts, and goldfish. I use the seasoning packets Chex puts out, but my aunt used to make her’s from scratch. I always look forward to my mom’s rice crispy treats - she puts peanut butter in hers.

[Labrista wadkins]

Sweet potato casserole and peanut butter Chex mix.

[Nancy]

We love to have Swedish meatballs for Christmas dinner, although this year it will have to be on December 26 due to someone’s travel plans. Oh well, the date is not as important as the shared company. I’m grateful we can get together at all.

[czeitler]

I love Great Aunt Sarah's Molasses Cookies. Unfortunately, I'm in the midst of moving to a new home this year so I will not have time (or inclination) to bake. Happy Holidays and Merry New Year!

[Raquel]

we have to have Venezuelan Pan de Jamon (Ham stuffed bread). It's kind of a swiss roll made out of bread dough stuffed with ham (preferably smoked sweet ham), green olives, and raisins. it's the typical Venezuelan recipe where savory and sweet flavors are mixed together. In my family we usually make the bread together, always debating if it has enough ham or not!

[Gaylyn B]

I love my younger sister's Foaming Green Punch. She only maks it around the holidays. Made with pineapple juice, lime sherbert, lime kool-aid (yes, lime kool-aid), and ginger ale. You have to be careful not to drink too much of it before dinner. You won't be able to eat your fair share of all the other "holiday only" goodies!

[Terri B]

Ours is an oven breakfast souffle that we have for brunch on Christmas day. I make the day before and sits in the fridge until the next morning. It takes 1.25 hrs to cook, so we usually open present while it is cooking.

[Pat Phythian]

Our favorite Christmas dinner is really great sandwiches with Kaiser rolls, great cold cuts, cheeses, chips dips and my homemade chocolate chip cookies.

[Cindy Buchite]

We make homemade cherry mash bars and snickers every year. Sometimes we make it at other times of the year also, but I tend to eat too much of it by myself!

[elissa schoening]

I'm a sweet person, who does not have a favorite Holiday recipe. Though I do love an opportunity to make a vegan apple crisp! 😁
I've also been wanting to try my hand at Rugelach and I just happened to get an email with "12 Sweet & Savory Rugelach Recipes You’ll Want to Make Immediately". 😁

[debbie]

My favorite cookie recipe is a shortbread with pecans and salted cashews. I only make them at Christmas!

[Geraldine Scott]

Tex Mex layered dip on Christmas Eve, and egg casserole on Christmas morning…makes for cozy times! Our kids have carried these traditions to their own homes when we can’t be together….

[Brenda Babcock]

Chocolate Truffles! Cream cheese, cocoa & powdered sugar. Easy & yummy!

[Donna Gerber]

Hard to pick just one, but I guess I'd have to say for a sweet treat it would be Cream Cheese Spritz cookies. They are supposed to be put through a cookie press, but for years we've just dropped them on the cookie sheet like any other drop cookie. My thirteen year old granddaughter has now learned how to make them, and she does a great job. So yummy!

[Lisa]

We cannot go a Christmas without Dark Chocolate Buttercrunch, a very dangerous candy/treat from King Arthur Flour. We only make it at Christmas bc I have zero willpower around it.

[Tabitha Burks]

My mom and I are planning on making chocolate peppermint cookies for the first time this year!

[Linda]

Roasted red potatoes with thyme, garlic,olive oil and salt & pepper. YUM!

[Louann]

Cheesecake!! I have been making it every year..
I let my guests choose the toppings or have it plain.....yummmm

[Jeanne]

Wow, reading all these suggestions is dangerous for the diet! For years I continued a tradition that my mom started of making butter cookies with red and green sprinkles. It's been several years since I've made them - maybe this year!

[Filomena]

Our Christmas Eve tradition is a fish feast. My favourite is cod.

[Joan Brown]

On Christmas Eve we always have Tourtiere Pie a French Canadian pie of ground pork, Hamburg and potatoes.

[sherrie mckee]

My mother-in-law's cranberry salad, baklava for my son-in-law, candied pecans for my girls and bourbon balls for everyone!

[Sylvia King]

One of my favorite things is what we call “green stuff”. I think the real name may be Watergate Salad. Made with pistachio pudding, pineapple, cream cheese,and cool whip. Too rich except for special occasions,

[Diane]

Without fail my husband always makes his Scottish grandmother's fruitcake the day after Thanksgiving. It's a nice buttery orange pound cake like cake full of dried fruit that has to cure for a month. It goes great with a dram of Glenfiddich on a snowy winter night.

[Kate]

This year I took my basic biscotti recipe and added peppermint extract and milk chocolate chips to it and also a drizzle of chocolate on top after they cooled and they are so good! Also they've been loved by the family that I shipped them too! I love baking biscotti for gift giving because it travels so well!

[Sarah]

We always go for our soft homemade caramels. They are delicious!

[Lisa]

Caramel corn and peanut brittle. I gift a lot of it.

[Teri P]

It may not seem festive, but when my son was a toddler, I threw together a soup on Christmas Eve that turned out to be such a hit we had it every year. There's not a recipe as such, just a cream of potato soup base, with broccoli and diced carrot, Extra yummy served with homemade yeast rolls.

[Beverly J White]

I don't bake much since there are only two of us now days. But it isn't Christmas without Mexican Wedding Cakes. They have been a favorite since I was a kid. Maybe some Chex Mix would be good too.

[Susan]

Sweet potato crunch. Look forward to it all year. Sweet potatoes with beaten egg and vanilla and a topping of brown sugar, pecans and butter. Baked at 350 till bubbly. Fabulous leftovers. Enjoy.

[Leann Demeduk]

I like to make homemade turtle candies with a Rolo candy warmed up a bit, then top with with a mini pretzel and a pecan half. Awesome!

[MrsDtoo]

Vegan peppermint bark

[Brenna Delosier]

I make a chocolate pecan pie every year for the holidays. It’s from a Eagle sweetened condensed milk recipe book.

[L]

A fairly new recipe that quickly has become a personal favorite, Ginger cookie!

[Glenita Dearden]

I got a tub of chocolate hummus. Looking forward to trying it.

[Shaw Mumford]

Stained Glass Window cookies (https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/stained-glass-cookies-recipe) using smashed candy canes as the "glass". Thank you for the give-away!

[Brooke Smith]

We do a lot of holiday baking. Our family favorite is what we call a surprise cookie. A peanut butter cookie with a reeses bell tucked inside before baking. Our spin on the traditional hersheys kiss topped cookie!

[Beth]

I actually love trying new recipes every holiday - I'm usually in charge of dessert, and I have so much fun finding new recipes. I found a fantastic almond raspberry torte cake one year.