January is always a busy month in the kitchen at my house. We had lots of great tasty items for Thade’s birthday, lots of homemade cookies for snack time, and I even got the family to try a new recipe too. Here’s what tasty treats  kept me busy in January.

I had a few cans of pumpkin hanging out in the pantry, so I decided to give a pumpkin roll a try.

The cake turned out great, but the filling needed something a bit more. I’m going to tweak the recipe a bit, and see if I can make it even tastier.

Sticking with the roll theme, I made a lot of dinner rolls in January. I love to knead dough, I count it as an arm exercise.

The dinner rolls were buttery and yummy too. They make a great side for Chicken and Noodles, or Beef Stew too. You can even just eat them all by themselves, they are awesome.

I had a yellow cake mix, and I tried my hand at Chocolate butter-cream. The frosting was awesome!

To celebrate the sorta snow day we made a batch of iced sugar cookies. The family loved them, but I got tired of rolling them out. They were really tasty though.

I made some banana muffins using frozen bananas. I let the frozen bananas defrost in the fridge, and they worked out just fine. So save those bananas, and bake with them.

I also made biscuits for breakfast for dinner night. I love to make biscuits, they make some tasty breakfast sandwiches too.

I’ve been trying to use what I have on hand, and use up what I’ve got. One day we needed cookies for an afternoon treat, so I made up a batch of toffee shortbread cookies. The kiddos didn’t care for them too much, but I thought they were awesome. They wern’t too sweet, and they had a great snap to them. Great for dunking in milk or tea. (P.S. they tasted like pecan sandies without the pecans)

To make amends with the kiddos for the shortbread I raided all of the chocolate candies left in the house from Christmas, and made some candy cookies. The boys loved them, they were their favorite colors red and green. They were really tasty, and a great way to use up some leftovers.

So when it was time for Thade’s birthday, he asked if he could bring cake pops to school. If you have made them before, you know it takes a bit to get them done. Thade was happy though. I ended up making enough for his class, his favorite teachers, and then a batch for us at home too.

To package the wraps, I wrapped them in little squares of waxed paper (my favorite kitchen tool), and tied them with silver twist ties. They were gone in a flash, everyone loves cake pops.

I finally had success with Chocolate Chip Cookies. They were my kitchen nemesis, but we’ve made friends. My family is thankful for it too. I think homemade chocolate chip cookies make the best afternoon snack after a really long day at school, or after a night of no sleep, and not enough coffee.

So here we are in February, and I’ll be busy cooking some tasty homemade treats. I need to restock the pantry again though, I’ve run out of sugar and flour.