Safe Bet

As I was going about my preparations for Christmas, I found I was lacking a source for food inspiration. Normally we've had the cable upgraded throughout the football season, and I've been gathering recipes and ideas there. This year we decided it just wasn't worth it, even for the Wolverines, and I was struggling to get inspired about menu planning.
Some of my menu planning is automatic. Kurt and his brother Peter always make us great pizza on Christmas Adam. My mother-in-law treats us to a dazzling array of pies--my favorite is raspberry. Stuff like that I can just pencil in and forget. The rest of it takes some planning.

I tried browsing Food Network's website, but it didn't have the same appeal as watching The Barefoot Contessa or Good Eats. Sam's Club has an excellent selection of cookbooks, some of them a bit off beat like the above, Church Suppers cookbook. In it I finally found a recipe for a blueberry, cream cheese breakfast casserole that I'd seen on Good Housekeeping and not gotten written down. My Kurt loves blueberries and I can't imagine a better treat for Christmas than a breakfast featuring his favorites. It also has an intriguing recipe for gingerbread waffles that has me thinking. However, all this stimulation just wasn't having the same affect. I needed more.
My favorite PBS cooking show is America's Test Kitchen, but we're in the middle of the local station's fundraising efforts and the schedule is all screwed up. (I want my Masterpiece Theater back! It was just getting good.) I have their Family Cookbook, but I've mined all the sorts of things I do for Christmas out of it. Fortunately Barnes and Noble sent me a coupon for a members extra 25 percent off, so I went cookbook shopping. I found The New Best Recipe Cookbook which is authored by the same group as the America's Test Kitchen guys. It is even better than the Family Cookbook. Each recipe includes an account of their trial and error testing that I find fascinating and the recipes are sensational. I'm now ready to finalize the menu and draw up the monumental shopping list.
I haven't done any baking this year. It's my concession to pregnancy. My hope is to get in the kitchen after the holidays and catch up. Kurt's taken an extravagant vacation this year, so I'll have another week after the big day to pursue holiday pleasures. Here's hoping you are having a very inspired Christmas, and not just about the menus!