Raspberry-Almond Shortbread Cookies

Back when I was in college and home on break, my mom and I went to Nonni's house to make raspberry jam. So far it's the only time I've made it but I really enjoyed it. My mom got the raspberries fresh from a friend of my parents who has raspberry trees on his property. Although that day had been my first time making jam, we had always had a jar in our fridge for years. I honestly can't remember when we started using homemade jam along with store bought jelly. I'm pretty sure Nonni has always had at least one jar of the stuff in her fridge. So I kept that in mind while I searched for a cookie that would allow me to also use up the bag of slivered almonds that sat in my pantry (when planning Christmas presents, Mom told me that almond is a flavor Nonni likes). While looking through my collection of magazines, I came across a recipe in one of the Better Homes & Gardens magazines for Raspberry-Almond Shortbread Cookies that I could easily alter to include the slivered almonds (which is as creative as I'm gonna get when baking).

Butter Rolls

I decided this year that I wasn't going to make New Year's resolutions. Over the last few years, any that I've made ended up being broken within a month. However, in the last couple weeks I kinda made one: make use of the recipes I've saved both online and in hard copy. I'd somewhat started back in November with breakfast (something that I hope to do again) with ... interesting results, but this time I was leaning more towards the rolls I sometimes have with dinner and the dessert I always have with dinner. For the rolls, I looked through the dozens of recipes I've saved to my Bread/Rolls board on Pinterest. I finally decided on some butter rolls that looked similar to the store bought cloverleaf ones some people get for a holiday dinner.