Red velvet cakes always draw comments. Comments about the shocking red color, the indescribable flavor, and the delicious cream cheese frosting that always accompanies it.

Though recipes for this cake vary, red velvet is always characterized by three things: buttermilk, cocoa, and the red color. Though it contains cocoa, the flavor can't really be described as "chocolate," nor can it be characterized as just a "vanilla white cake." Some say it's just a Devil's food cake with red coloring. You'll have to try it to know.

Making red velvet cupcakes from scratch requires a whole bottle or two of red food coloring. And you know what that means... red-stained clothing and stained fingers. I always manage to get it somewhere on myself.

Having learned my lesson, this time I just "doctored" a pre-boxed red velvet cake mix. (I know this is totally cheating, but please forgive me!) To add some weight and flavor to the mix, I used buttermilk instead of water and an extra egg.

Contrasted with luscious white cream cheese frosting on top, these dramatic red cupcakes really take the cake.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Makes 24

1 box red velvet cake mix

1 cup buttermilk

3 eggs

Follow instructions on the back of the box, except use 1 cup buttermilk where they ask for water (the amount of buttermilk will be less than the amount of water asked for in recipe), and mix in 3 eggs rather than however many eggs asked for.

Bake according to box directions.

Top with Cream Cheese Frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Enough for 24 cupcakes

8 oz cream cheese, room temperature

8 oz (half a stick of butter) unsalted butter, room temperature

6-8 cups powdered sugar

1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped OR 2 teaspoon vanilla extract (the vanilla extract will color the frosting so it loses it's pure white color)

In bowl, cream together cream cheese and butter, until uniformly combined. Add vanilla extract/vanilla bean and mix. Add powdered sugar, 1 cup at a time until desired pipeable or spreadable texture is met.

My mom nicknamed my sister and me her "bread machines" because every time we go home for a visit, she always puts us to work making homemade dinner bread rolls, wheat rolls, raisin bread, challah, or some other bread.

Making bread is a labor of love. You've got to deal with live yeast, kneading dough, resting the dough, waiting for the dough to rise, punching it down, more kneading, forming, more rising, baking, and cooling. And you've got to have a large chunk of time on your hands since the entire process can take hours. Hence, that's what my mom gets my sister and/or me to do it.

Here's my favorite challah recipe. The recipe makes two beautiful loaves and is totally worth the time and effort. Keep one and give one away, or keep both! (The leftovers make great French toast.)

Challah

Yield: 2 loaves.

4 1/2 to 5 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2 Tbs sugar

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 package of Fleischmann's dry yeast

1/2 cup margarine softened

1 cup very warm tap water (120-130 degree)

4 eggs room temperature

1 tsp cold water

Poppy Seeds and/or Sesame Seeds, optional

Add yeast, water, sugar, margarine, salt, and 1 1/2 cups flour; blend well. Stir in 3 eggs, 1 egg white (reserve 1 yolk), and enough remaining flour to make soft dough. Knead on lightly floured surface until smooth and elastic, about 6 to 8 minutes. Place in greased bowl, turning to grease top. Cover; let rise in warm, draft-free place until doubled in size, about 40 to 60 minutes.

Punch dough down. Remove dough to lightly floured surface; divide in half. Set aside 1 half. Divide remaining half into 2 pieces, one about 2/3 of the dough and the other about 1/3 of the dough. Divide larger piece into 3 equal pieces; roll to 12-inch ropes. Place ropes on greased baking sheet; braid. Pinch ends to seal. Divide remaining piece into 3 equal pieces. Roll to 10-inch ropes; braid. Place small braid on large braid. Pinch ends firmly to seal and secure to large braid. Repeat with remaining dough to make second loaf. Cover; let rise in warm, draft-free place until doubled in size, about 40 to 60 minutes.

Beat reserved egg yolk with 1 teaspoon water; brush over loaves. Sprinkle with poppy or sesame seed, if desired. Bake at 400 F for 20 to 25 minutes or until done, switching positions of sheets in oven halfway through baking time. Remove from sheets; let cool on wire racks.

Here's my tried and true weekday recipe: Shrimp Fra Diavolo.

It's got a lotta shrimp, a lotta garlic, and a little wine. The recipe is from little Food Network's resident bobble-head Giada De Laurentiis. Seriously, she's got the biggest head ever, right? Or maybe her body is exceptionally small...

Anyway, this dish is easy enough to cook for one, yet fancy enough to be served to guests. Served with Lemon Spaghetti, it's delicious. It's been a staple in my cooking repertoire and I've been making it regularly for at least 4 years now. (Which says a lot because I rarely make a dish more than once.)

I hope you like it as much as I do.

Shrimp Fra Diavolo

1 pound large shrimp, peeled, deveined

1 teaspoon salt, plus additional as needed

1 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper flakes

3 tablespoons olive oil, plus 1 to 2 tablespoons

1 medium onion, sliced

1 (14 1/2-ounce) can diced tomatoes

1 cup dry white wine

3 garlic cloves, chopped

1/4 teaspoon dried oregano leaves

3 tablespoon chopped fresh Italian parsley leaves

3 tablespoon chopped fresh basil leaves

Toss the shrimp in a medium bowl with 1 teaspoon of salt and red pepper flakes.

Heat the 3 tablespoons oil in a heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the shrimp and saute for about a minute, toss, and continue cooking until just cooked through, about 1 to 2 minutes. Transfer the shrimp to a large plate; set aside.

Add the onion to the same skillet, adding 1 to 2 teaspoons of olive oil to the pan, if necessary, and saute until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes with their juices, wine, garlic, and oregano. Simmer until the sauce thickens slightly, about 10 minutes.

Return the shrimp and any accumulated juices to the tomato mixture; toss to coat, and cook for about a minute so the flavors meld together. Stir in the parsley and basil. Season with more salt, to taste, and serve. (Serve with Lemon Spaghetti)

Lemon Spaghetti

1 pound spaghetti

2/3 cup olive oil

2/3 cup grated Parmesan

1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (about 3 lemons)

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoon lemon zest

1/3 cup chopped fresh basil leaves

Cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water until tender but still firm to the bite, stirring occasionally, about 8 minutes. Meanwhile, whisk the oil, Parmesan, and lemon juice in a large bowl to blend.Drain the pasta, reserving 1 cup of the cooking liquid. Toss the pasta with the lemon sauce, and the reserved cooking liquid, adding 1/4 cup at a time as needed to moisten. Season with salt and pepper. Garnish with lemon zest and chopped basil.

If you've got kiddos running around the house this holiday season, put them to work by having them unwrap Hershey's Kisses.

These Chocolate Pretzel Buttons are a snap to make and cute to boot. Pretzel twists are topped with Hershey's Kisses, baked for 5 minutes so the chocolate melts, and then topped with M&M candies. The pain-in-the-butt part is unwrapping all those Kisses (so this is where you put those little rugrats to work).

Pretzel Chocolate Buttons

Ingredients:

Mini pretzel twists

A bag of Hershey's Kisses

M&M candies (You can use peanut butter ones, peanut, almond, or whatever)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 200 degrees.

Arrange pretzels on a baking sheet. Top each with an unwrapped Hershey's Kiss.

Bake for 5 minutes.

Remove from oven and immediately smoosh down an M&M candy into the middle of each chocolate. Allow buttons to cool completely before storing.

When cream cheese goes on sale at the Teeter, I can't help but buy four blocks. Why four? Four is the necessary amount blocks to make a big, honkin', at least 10-pound cheesecake.

For me, a good cheesecake is defined by a crushed cookie or cracker crust, a creamy baked middle, and THICK tall slices – no puny slices allowed. And none of that no-bake stuff either. If you are gonna make cheesecake, might as well go big or go home.

Cheesecakes are finicky things. One of the challenges of making a cheesecake is getting a smooth top. In the baking and cooling process, cheesecakes tend to split down the middle like the Grand Canyon, leaving it to you to come up with a creative idea to hide the crack. Also, it tough to achieve a creamy silky cake – sometimes they come out thick and dry. Some recipes require water baths, leaving the cake sitting in the oven for hours, sour cream topping, pre-baking the crust, etc. Blech, who has time for that?

Well, here is a simple, straight-forward recipe that yields a tall, creamy cake that comes out crack-free.

This plain vanilla cheesecake has a gingersnap crust and a blueberry lemon topping. Strangely, it's the easiest cheesecake recipe I've made and the results are the best yet. For a more traditional cake, feel free to substitute in graham crackers for the crust or to use canned cherry topping.

Perfect New York Cheesecake

Ingredients:

2 cups crushed gingersnap cookies

2 tablespoons butter, melted

4 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese (room temperature)

1 1/2 cups white sugar

3/4 cup milk

4 eggs

1 cup sour cream

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9 inch springform pan.

2. In a medium bowl, mix cookie crumbs with melted butter. Press onto bottom and sides of springform pan. (Tip: Use the bottom of a glass to press and flatten the crumbs in tight.)

3. In a large bowl, mix cream cheese with sugar until smooth. (Tip: I use the paddle attachment on my Kitchen-Aid, not the wire beater. Also, don't mix too furiously. Beating in too much air contributes to collapsing, cracking, and a ruins the dense texture you are trying to achieve.) Blend in milk, and then mix in the eggs one at a time, mixing just enough to incorporate. Mix in sour cream, vanilla and flour until smooth. Pour filling into prepared crust.

4. Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour. Turn the oven off, and let cake cool in oven with the door closed for 1 to 2 hours; this prevents cracking. Chill in refrigerator until serving. Top with blueberry topping if desired.

Blueberry Lemon Topping

1 1/2 cups frozen blueberries

1/4 sugar

1/2 cup water

1 tablespoon cornstarch dissolved in a few tablespoons cold water

Boil blueberries, sugar and water until blueberries soften. Add in enough of the cornstarch mixture to thicken topping to desired consistency.

After I took advantage of the BOGO (buy-one-get-one free, for those who don't know grocery speak) pork tenderloin sale at Bi-Lo, I ended up with 20 pounds of pork. What's a girl to do? Well, make porky dishes, obviously.

For this Chile Pork dish, you just throw it in the oven and forget about it. After 45 minutes of marinating, you slow bake the pork for 1.5 hours at a low temperature. What you get is crispy, seasoned bite-sized pieces of pork perfect for making some tacos with.

Crisp up some corn tortillas for your tacos in a pan on the stove-top, then layer on re-fried beans, chopped pork, sour cream, pineapple salsa, a little Mexican rice, cilantro and cheese ... or whatever else you'd like, mis amigos.

Chile Pork

Ingredients:

3 teaspoons chili powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin

2 teaspoons minced garlic

1 tablespoon fresh cilantro

2 pounds pork tenderloin, cubed

1 dash ground black pepper

Directions:

1. Mix together: chili powder, salt, cumin, garlic cilantro and pepper. Coat pork cubes with mixture and let sit for 45 minutes in refrigerator.

2. Preheat oven to 225 degrees F (107 degrees C).

3. Bake 1 hr 30 min to 1 hr 40 min, or until crispy.

The Indian dish Tandoori Chicken is named after the special tandoor oven in which it is cooked. The tandoor is a cylindrical clay oven used for cooking and baking. Known for reaching temperatures around 900°F, the oven exposes the food to both live-fire, radiant heat cooking, and hot-air, convection cooking. Cooking Tandoori Chicken in such an oven results in juicy, slightly charred chicken.

So how do you cook it without the tandoor oven? I'll show you!

This recipe is from Cook's Illustrated magazine. The results were delish. My friend exclaimed, "This is the best f***ing chicken ever!"

The process isn't so difficult, just slightly more time consuming than your average mix and bake recipes. You have to make a marinade, massage the chicken, coat the chicken in sauce, bake it, then broil it.

Totally worth the effort though. I served the Tandoori Chicken with some mango chutney (Major Grey's) on this side and saffron yellow rice.

See that full-fat plain yogurt in the picture above? (I got the kind with "Cream Top"... extra rich.) That is very important. Make sure not to get the low-fat or fat-free plain yogurt.

Tandoori Chicken

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

5 medium garlic cloves, minced or pressed through garlic press (2 tablespoons)

2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger

1 tablespoon garam masala

2 teaspoons ground cumin

2 teaspoons chili powder

1 cup plain whole-milk yogurt

4 tablespoons juice from 2 limes, plus 1 lime, cut into wedges

2 teaspoons table salt

3 pounds bone-in, skin-on chicken parts, skin removed and trimmed of excess fat

1.  Heat oil in small skillet over medium heat until shimmering.  Add garlic and ginger and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute.  Add garam masala, cumin, and chili powder; continue to cook until fragrant, 30 to 60 seconds longer.  Transfer half of garlic-spice mixture to medium bowl; stir in yogurt and 2 tablespoons lime juice and set aside.

2.  In large bowl, combine remaining garlic-spice mixture, remaining 2 tablespoons lime juice, and salt.  Using sharp knife, lightly score skinned side of each piece of chicken, making 2 or 3 shallow cuts about 1 inch apart and about 1/8 inch deep; transfer to bowl.  Using hands, gently massage salt-spice mixture into chicken until all pieces are evenly coated; let stand at room temperate 30 minutes.

3.  Adjust oven rack to upper-middle position (about 6 inches from heating element) and heat oven to 325 degrees.  Pour yogurt mixture over chicken and toss until chicken is evenly coated with thick layer.  Arrange chicken pieces, scored-side down, on wire rack set in foil-lined, rimmed baking sheet or broiler pan.  Discard excess yogurt mixture. Bake chicken until instant-read thermometer inserted into thickest part of chicken registers 125 degrees for breasts and 130 for legs and thighs, 15 to 25 minutes.  (Smaller pieces may cook faster than larger pieces. Transfer chicken from pieces to plate as they reach correct temperature.)

4.  After removing chicken from oven, turn oven to broil and heat 10 minutes.  Once broiler is heated, flip chicken pieces over and broil until chicken is lightly charred in spots and instant-read thermometer inserted into thickest part of chicken registers 165 degrees for breasts and 15 for legs and thighs, 8 to 15 minutes.  Transfer chicken to large plate, tent loosely with foil, and rest 5 minutes.  Serve with chutney or relish, passing lime wedges separately.

Ok, so they really aren't made of compost, but they are pretty much everything but the kitchen sink.

Momofuku Milk Bar, a bakery in NYC, makes cookies called Compost Cookies which are made with potato chips, pretzels, used coffee grounds and more goodies. These crazy cookies have a cult following on food blogs everywhere. After doing some research, I decided that I must try my hand at these ridiculous cookies.

• The original Momofuku Compost Cookie. Photo courtesy of http://ggeatsnyc.blogspot.com/

The recipe I used calls for crushed Fritos, potato chips and pretzels, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, and oatmeal. They certainly won't win a prize for the prettiest cookie, but man, are they pretty freakin' tasty. (I decided to skip the used coffee grounds since the idea is kind of gross and other bloggers said the taste isn't affected much by leaving them out.)

The CL staff thought these were pretty fantastic and everyone was willing to overlook the look of these ugly duckings. Five stars all around. Let's just say if food really is the key to a man's heart, I'd have a harem with these cookies.

As I busted out the bags of Fritos, chips and chocolate, I felt like I was having a junk food party for one.

Here is my final product: A pile of Compost ... Cookies.

A few of the cookies came out too flat for my liking. Could be because the extra oils from the potato chips and Fritos made the cookies spread too much during baking. Next time I'll try chilling the dough before baking it too.

Copycat Momofuku Compost Cookies (Adapted from Oatmeal CookieBlog)

Creamables

1 1/2 sticks butter

3/4 cup dark brown sugar

1/4 cup white sugar

2 tablespoons dry, used coffee grounds

Wet Ingredients

1 egg

1 tablespoon vanilla

Dry Ingredients

1 cup oatmeal

1 cup flour

3/4 cup roughly crushed potato chips

1/2 cup roughly crushed pretzels

1/2 cup roughly crushed Fritos

1/2 cup butterscotch chips

1/2 cup chocolate chips

1 teaspoon baking soda

1. Preheat oven to 350º.

2. In your Kitchen Aid or a large mixing bowl, cream together the creamables.

3. In a small bowl, combine the wet ingredients and whisk together until smooth.

4. Add the combined wet ingredients to the creamables. Mix together until well incorporated.

5. In a large mixing bowl, add the dry ingredients. Using a spatula, fold together until evenly distributed.

6. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the combined creamables and wet ingredients. Mix until evenly combined. (*Optional: Chill dough for 2 hrs or overnight.)

7. Shape dough into balls--about 2 tablespoons each.

8. Place dough balls about 2 inches apart on Silpat- or parchment paper-lined cookie sheets.

9. Bake at 350º for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Remove the cookie sheets from the oven and let stand for 2 minutes. Then place cookies on wire racks to cool.