spiced rum meltaways

Dark rum didn't used to make me think of Christmas.

Now it does.

The Jamaican rum and spice in these buttery cookies make my whole house smell like the holidays.

They're easy slice-and-bake cookies, which is a good thing around here.

I'm not big into rolling dough.

Not with antsy toddler hands and a hot kitchen.

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cuban sandwiches

The Cuban -- it's pork love on a plate.

Take a slow-roasted pork loin roast, a couple slices of ham, Swiss cheese and a little pickle, stack it all between a bit of mustard and crusty French bread and grill it.

It has to be one of the best things we brought back from our year in Florida.

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buttery apple pandowdy

Or apple crunch cake. Fantastic and totally for fall.

The pandowdy is a layer of apple pie filling topped with a buttery, sugar-crisp cake layer dotted with toasted nuts.

It's based on my mom's old pandowdy recipe -- the kind that takes pie filling, a boxed cake mix and butter.

I don't go for boxed cake mixes, so I found a recipe at the Chickens in the Road blog to make my own mix from scratch.

I haven't tried the mix in all-out cake form, but it worked beautifully in this recipe.

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ultimate chocolate chip cookies

These are the best chocolate chip cookies.

The best.

I don't care that this New York Times cookie recipe has been around for awhile. I love it. It's fabulous. I had to post it.

I've gotta say, this is not your typical chocolate chip cookie recipe.

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