How To :: Classic Gingerbread House + Free Printable Pattern

I have an early Christmas gift for y'all today. 

I am thrilled to be able to share this How-To and as a bonus I've created free printable patterns, just for you.  Ho Ho Ho.

Making these Gingerbread Houses was a highly anticipated tradition as I was growing up, and now I enjoy making them with my own little girls.  It is so magical and fun and totally worth the mess.

Jambalaya Wraps

Hello easy.

I needed you today.

And this family favorite from my kid sister Shawny couldn't be simpler.  I'll admit I was at first a little skeptical--I don't often cook with sausage--but this dish wowed everyone.   

Would you like to know the very best part?  You only use one pan for this one-dish-dinner, making clean up a cinch.  Amen. 

Pani Popo, Samoan Coconut Rolls

Dinner rolls are indeed a sacred Thanksgiving staple.  Each year I mostly serve up the same traditional dishes, but I try to mix it up and add a few new ones too.        

These hover somewhere between the status of roll and dessert, and to be frank, they're da bomb. 

   

Chopped Broccoli Salad

Need a new salad recipe to whip out for the forthcoming Thanksgiving festivities?  

Then lucky you.  I have just the thing.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls with Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting

It snowed today.  First snow of the season, and a frigid cold day.

So the girls and I huddled inside and baked.

Caprese Salad with Honey Balsamic Dressing

At long last we've been able to enjoy our garden tomatoes.  With a cooler climate and shorter growing season its a race against the impending frosts to have them ripen in time.  Back off frost, my babies are still green out there.  

Lately I've found happiness in the form of this beautiful salad. 

I think I could eat this every stinking day of my life. 

Rainbow Sour Cream Cupcakes

My youngest baby girl Gigi recently turned one.  

She's my angel baby.  Sweet, quiet, cuddly and the calm observer amongst her two spunky, boisterous elder sisters.  And like all babies of the family, my unabashed favorite child.  

Revolutionary Mac N' Cheese

I have unfortunately allowed myself to watch a handful of those terrifying food documentaries.  Everybody has seen a few right?  Each one has left me in a state of paranoid anxiety, fearing that everything I'm feeding my family is unsafe and practically poisonous.  I seriously don't sleep well for days. 

The positive effect is that they reaffirm my desire to serve my family as much of a healthy, balanced and unprocessed diet as I can.    

And that is why my girls have been deprived of the infamous neon orange Mac N' Cheese in a box.