Recently I’ve started making King Arthur Flour’s Easiest Loaf and we’re very much enjoying it. I do roughly half whole wheat flour, half bread flour, and the result is a light, fluffy, bread with a flavorful crust.

Highly recommend this recipe, the dough is not too wet and easy to work with. Shaping takes a bit of practice, but even mishappen loafs are tasty.

Made Kenji’s basic square pan pizza twice now and it’s a hit. Paired with a simmered down pizza sauce it’s a total crowd pleaser. Bonus points because I can make trays and trays of this a day or two ahead and then just top it and bake it. No fussing with dough that needs to be kneaded and shaped!

The pizza comes out almost like a focaccia, pillowy soft and slightly crunchy on the crust. I find that baking it at the temperature from the recipe burns it crispy within half the allotted baking time, so either the thermostat in my oven is off or it produces way too much radiant heat. In any case, ten minutes seems to be the sweet spot.

Our christmas dinner was pizza.

I never made Risotto before but do enjoy it very much. I stumbled over Chef Jean Pierre’s Recipe and it turned out great. Will make this again ­ maybe next time I can try making a mushroom Risotto.

We got these beautiful heirloom carrots from a farmer that sells the best sweet corn at the side of the road. A side was needed and I recalled watching Thomas Keller’s Masterclass about glazed carrots and decided to go with that.

The process is simple: cut your carrots (I went with oblique cut) and bring them to a boil with just enough water to cover them. Cook until most of the water is gone, add butter and some sugar, keep cooking on low heat until they are covered by the syrup and shiny. Add a little salt and Parsley. Voila.