I’ve decided that the Christmas shopping season has officially begun. Not because there are toy catalogs arriving in my mailbox daily or because every other commercial has my children pointing at the television and screaming “I want that!” It’s officially the Christmas shopping season because I’m ready for the roasted nuts.

You know what I’m talking about. Every year you write out a Christmas list, make a budget, head to the mall, and begin your shopping. But just as you walk through the doors of the mall you forget your list and follow your nose to the sugary, spicy, roasted nuts. There is nothing more Christmas-y than that smell, not even the baby Jesus himself. Surely I’m not the only one who feels that way, am I?

This year, rather than paying over $1.00 for an ounce of roasted nuts, why not make them yourself? Oh, because you can’t? It’s too hard? You don’t know how?

Actually, you can. It’s simple. I’ll show you how.

I always say this, I know, but this recipe is so simple. You get such great results with ingredients that you most likely have on hand. Please. Make these. You will not be disappointed.

Just grab a big can of nuts, any will do. Almonds, pecans, peanuts, mixed nuts, whatever. I used mix nuts. Variety is the spice of life, after all.

Dump ‘em in a big bowl, pour in a beaten egg white, stir it up and dump on the sugar and spice. Mix it up, pop the nuts in the oven for 30 minutes or so and all of your dreams will come true.

These are yummy right out of the oven (be careful, though, they are hot), but they store perfectly. I just save the containers the nuts come in and dump any leftovers back in there. They stay fresh for, well, I don’t know how long. I eat them all within in a week or two.

Make these for your next get-together. You’ll be a hero.

Sugar and Spice Candied Nuts
Recipe adapted from Smitten Kitchen

• 2 pounds nuts (any kind, I prefer mixed)
• 2 egg whites, room temperature
• 2 tbsp water
• 2/3 cup dark-brown sugar
• 1 1/3 cup white granulated sugar
• 3 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper (you could use paprika if you’re a scaredy-pants, but the cayenne works well)
• 2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Pre-heat oven to 300 degrees. Add nuts to large bowl. In a small bowl, whisk together the egg whites and water until frothy. Pour over nuts and stir to coat all the nuts. In a separate bowl, mix together the sugars, salt, cayenne pepper, and cinnamon. Pour over nuts and stir to coat. Spread nuts in a single layer on a parchment (or wax paper) lined baking sheet. Bake for 30 minutes stirring occasionally. Remove from oven and separate nuts if they are stuck together. Serve warm or at room temperature. Store in an airtight container.

Well, that’s quite a mouthful, isn’t it? Hot and Melty Oven Baked Ham and Swiss Sandwiches. I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t just title this “Ham and Cheese sandwiches.” Who would be interested in that? And I want you to be interested. I want you to be very interested.

You see, these little sandwiches are amazing things. They are so very simple, they’re perfect for feeding a crowd, they can be an appetizer, a snack, or a main course. They are great man food and are postively perfect for Sunday football. They’re also great girl food, since they are little mini sandwiches and everyone knows that all girls think mini foods are cute, right? No? That’s just me? Well, then.

I found this recipe on Dine and Dish back in August and since then I’ve made these about 10 times. I just can’t help myself. They are delish! I serve them when my husband has his buddies over for football, I served them along with a big pot of chili on Halloween, and I serve them for dinner when I’m in a hurry and need something tasty and easy.

You can really feed a crowd with these and it only takes minutes to prepare them. You just slice a package of King’s Hawaiian Rolls in half, layer the bottoms with ham and cheese, place the top pieces of bread on, and then pour the delightful butter mixture over them. The original recipe says to refrigerate these overnight or for several hours, but I find that even 30 minutes works just fine.

The topping is a mixture of melted butter, worchestershire sauce, ground mustard, poppy seeds, and dried onion flakes. I leave out the poppy seeds and onion flakes because my picky little family would have a stroke if I put something like a poppy seed on their bun. I can just hear them now, “What is this? Bird food?!” And let’s not even consider what would happen if I put chunks of dried onion on these. I do add a bit of onion powder, though. Sneaky, aren’t I?

Hot and Melty Oven Baked Ham and Swiss Sandwiches (Or: Oven Ham Sammies)
adapted from Dine and Dish

• 1 12 count package Kings Hawaiian Rolls
• 12 slices swiss cheese
• 12-16oz thin sliced ham
• 1/2 cup butter melted
• 1 tsp ground mustard
• 1 tsp poppy seeds (optional)
• 2 tsp onion flakes (or 1 tsp onion powder)
• 2 tbsp worcheshire sauce

Place ham and cheese on the bottom of the sliced rolls. Cover with the top half of roll. Mix together the remaining five ingredients in a small bowl and spoon over the tops of the sandwiches. It will look like you have too much, but just dump it all on there. Let sit overnight or a couple of hours. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 350 for 15 minutes or until warmed through and the cheese is gooey and melty. Enjoy!

There are things in this world that most everyone loves and Deviled Eggs and French’s mustard are two of those things.

If you’d like to view my recipe for deviled egg dip and enter a giveaway from French’s, please click HERE.

I’m going to make an educated guess here and say that you love muffins. I mean, come on. Everyone loves muffins! They are easy to make, delicious to eat, portable, freezable, and delectable. Delectable. I don’t think I’ve ever used that word before. I just really needed another “-able” word to round out that sentence. Forgive me.

Now, these muffins. I came across them in an old Taste Of Home magazine and I ripped the recipe out and stuck it in my To Bake Soon pile. All of my recipes are in the To Bake Soon pile. I don’t bother ripping out recipes that I don’t want to make as soon as possible. I’m wild and crazy that way.

Enough about the piles of papers littering my house, let’s discuss these muffins.

They did what every muffin should do, and that’s bake up nice and tall. I hate when I make a muffin that doesn’t achieve that beautiful round top. Flat muffins are bad, man. My kids loved these muffins, but I had one complaint. The orange zest in them gave them a bit of an odd flavor. Next time (and, yes, there will be a next time) I will make these without the orange zest. These were still very good and I still ate more of them than I care to tell you, I just found myself wishing I had left the orange zest out. If you choose to make these (and why wouldn’t you?), go ahead and add the orange zest if it sounds good, or leave it out if it doesn’t. The world will keep on spinning either way. True story.

This muffin recipe mixes up like most others, wet ingredients and then dry. Easy peasy.

I was supposed to end up with twelve muffins, but I had enough batter for twelve regular muffins and twelve somewhat skimpy mini-muffins.

The streusel topping is just flour, brown sugar, and butter. Cut the butter into the flour and brown sugar and sprinkle a little (or a lot) of the topping on the muffins before baking. You could also add a bit of rolled oats to the streusel topping if you want to feel all healthy and virtuous.

Bake these guys for 20-25 minutes at 375 degrees. Your house will smell lovely.

Let the muffins cool on a wire rack and try your darnedest to keep your kids away from the streusel topping. Something about streusel topping just begs kids to pick it off.

Look at how tall and round and perfectly muffin-like they are?

I love muffin-like muffins. Am I still even making sense? Did I eat too many muffins and now I’m in the midst of some sort of pumpkin muffin overload and it’s causing me to type things without even caring if they make sense?

It’s totally possible.

Pumpkin Steusel Muffins
adapted from Taste Of Home

• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 2/3 cup canned pumpkin
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons molasses
• 1 teaspoon orange zest
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ginger
• 1/8 teaspoon cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

STREUSEL TOPPING:

• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons cold butter
• 2 tablespoons rolled oats (optional)

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees. Cream together butter and sugars until creamy. Beat in pumpkin, buttermilk, eggs, molasses, and orange peel. Combine the dry ingredients in a small bowl and mix into the batter. Stir just until combined. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin tins 2/3 full of batter.

For topping, combine the flour and brown sugar and oats (if using)  in a small bowl. Cut in butter until the mixture is crumbly. Spoon streusel topping over the muffins and bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack. Enjoy!

This may be a cooking blog, but I find myself sharing some of my deepest, darkest secrets (never having tried oatmeal before, for instance) here. So far you all have accepted me and all the horrible things I’ve kept hidden for years and years. I can only hope that you will continue to stand by my side as I reveal this next bit of private information about myself.

I prefer my brownies to be made from a box mix.

I’m sorry, okay? It’s just who I am and I have to be me. Writing a cooking blog isn’t going to change who I am. It just won’t, okay?

Except, well, I’ve recently discovered a brownie recipe so beautiful and delicious and rich and fudgy and chocolatey and oh goodness, I should just go ahead and admit it. I’m over the box mix brownies. No more, I say! No more!

Just go ahead and scroll back up there and look at those brownies! So full of chocolate! So gooey! So fudgy and scrumptious!

This recipe starts out by melting butter and sugar together in a sauce pan, and I know, there are lots of one boil brownie recipes out there, but these guys are worth the extra dirty dish. Especially if your kids are your dish washers. me.

You’ll need to prepare yourself for this next part. You’re going to dump the cocoa powder into the sugar and butter. You’ll want to shove your entire face into your mixing bowl, but don’t do it. The butter is still hot and if you eat it all, we won’t have brownies!

Alright, so one lick won’t hurt anyone.

Look! Brownie batter bokeh! Yet another reason to love these brownies!

After you’ve mixed in the remaining ingredients, pour the batter into a buttered 9×13 pan and bake for about 30 minutes. What comes out of the oven is this amazingly delicious chunk of gooey, warm, melty chocolate. Let it cool and then slice and devour!

Fudge Brownies
Recipe adapted from King Arthur Flour

• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter
• 2 1/4 cups sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 1 1/4 cups cocoa powder
  
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
  
• 1 teaspoon espresso powder, optional
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  
• 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

1.Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9×13 baking dish.

2. In small saucepan over low heat, melt butter completely. Stir in sugar and continue cooking for 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly. Do not allow sugar mixture to boil.

3.  Pour butter mixture into a large bowl or stand mixer, beat in cocoa powder, eggs, salt, baking powder, espresso powder, and vanilla extract. Mix until well combined.

4. Stir in the flour and chocolate chips until well combined.

5. Pour into prepared pan and bake for about 30 minutes, until a tester comes out mostly clean. The edges should be set and the center should still look slightly moist, but not uncooked.  Cool on a wire rack.

I know I’ve mentioned my love of raspberries before, but let me just say it again. I love raspberries. They are sweet and tart and juicy and delicious. They’re like candy. Yummy, tasty, healthy candy.

I don’t bake with raspberries that often because I usually eat them raw as soon as I buy them. I have no self control.

The other day though, the grocery store had some delicious looking raspberries and I bought enough to eat as a snack when I got home and enough to bake this scrumptious Raspberry Buttermilk Cake with.

This batter is a cinch to whip up. Mix it, dump it in your cake pan (I used a 9 inch springform pan) and then scatter a cup of raspberries over the top. Sprinkle with sugar and pop it in the oven for 25 minutes.

The cake develops a gorgeous crackly sugar crust on the top as it bakes. The inside is so light and airy with raspberries hiding here and there.

Let me just say this one more time: I love raspberries. Oh, and I love cake too. So, if you’re wondering if you should make this, the answer is yes. Go make it right now.

Raspberry Buttermilk Cake
Recipe from Gourmet

My little family likes things simple. They don’t do fancy food. They don’t want to look at it. They don’t want to smell it. They certainly don’t want to eat it. They don’t even want to hear the word fancy in relation to food. It’s a tough life I live.

Some days I plop down in the middle of my kitchen floor and I sob about it all. Other days, like today, I embrace the simple life. If I’m considering cooking something for my family but I’m not sure if they’ll eat it, I just ask myself one question.

Does it have ketchup in it?

If the answer is yes, there’s about a 95% chance they’re going to eat it.

With that rule in mind, I put together today’s lunch for me and the kids. These little Barbecue Biscuits are simple food, they contain ketchup, and not only do my kids love them, but so do I.

Let’s make these, shall we?

Quite a lot of my favorite recipes start like this: Dump a pound of ground beef into a pan and start browning it. I can’t help it. Ground beef is so versatile and kid-friendly. Also, it’s pretty yummy.

I always make one pound of ground beef for this, but I usually have a bit of left over meat. I like having the leftovers for lunch the next day, but if you aren’t a fan of leftovers, just use 3/4 of a pound of meat.

While your beef is browning, let’s make the sauce. Again, nothing fancy, this is just homemade sloppy joe sauce. You can’t go wrong with sloppy joe sauce. If you already have a favorite sauce, go ahead and use it. If you don’t, try mine. It’s pretty darn good, if I do say so myself.

This sauce is just ketchup, brown sugar, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, onion powder, and salt. Stir it together and dump it into the pan of cooked ground beef and let it simmer for about 10 minutes. Told ya this was simple.

While the meat is simmering, grab your muffin tin. I always use regular sized muffins, but my tin was at my mama’s house so I had to use my mini muffin tin. It was kind of a pain in the butt, but I persevered.

Grab a can of refrigerator biscuit dough (or make up your favorite recipe of dough) and roll each biscuit into a ball. Flatten it out and press it into the muffin tins so that you have a little bowl shape. If you are using a mini muffin tin, use a half biscuit for each muffin.

Spoon as much as will fit into each biscuit and bake at 375 degrees for about 10 minutes. I let mine bake a little too long today and they got a bit crunchy. That didn’t stop my son from eating his weight in barbecue biscuits, though.

If you think your family can handle the excitment of it, go ahead a sprinkle a little grated cheddar cheese over the tops as soon as you take them from the oven.

(I was concerned about the above picture being kind of ugly, so I asked my husband what he would think if he just stumbled across that picture on the internet. “Would you want to eat that,” I asked. He looked at it and replied, “No. I’d ask myself what the heck they did to that muffin.” I have to say, I’m thrilled to provide y’all with such stunning photography here on Buns In My Oven.)

Barbecue Biscuits

• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 cup ketchup
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
• 2 teaspoons prepared mustard
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 can refrigerated biscuit dough (regular sized biscuits, 10 total)
• grated cheddar cheese, for topping

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees. In a large skillet, cook ground beef until no longer pink. Drain fat. In a small bowl, mix together ketchup, water, brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, garlic powder, onion powder and salt. Pour onto ground beef and stir to combine. Simmer over low heat for ten minutes.

While meat is simmering, roll each biscuit into a bowl, flatten and stretch the dough to fit in the muffin tin.

Spoon the meat into the biscuit cups and bake for about 10 minutes or until the dough is starting to brown. Remove from oven and sprinkle with cheese immediately.

Winter is coming and what do you do in winter? You hibernate. It’s officially Fall now, which means that it is time to start preparing for winter. How do you prepare for winter and hibernation? You eat a lot of desserts. It’s the law, okay? I don’t make the laws, I just abide by them.

I should probably go ahead and apologize for the abundance of chocolate and oats recipes that I’ve been posting lately, but there is just something about the combination that makes me happy. I, obviously, have an addictive personality. I find something that I like and I make it until I can’t stand the thought of eating it ever again. Just ask my husband. The poor man has lived through a sloppy joe phase, a meat loaf phase, a Hamburger Helper phase (what is my obsession with ground beef?), and now he is trying to survive the current chocolate and oats phase. To be perfectly honest, I think this is his favorite obsession of mine so far. He just better pray that I don’t start adding the chocolate and oats to ground beef. Chocolate chip meat loaf, anyone?

These banana bread cookies satisfy both my need for chocolate and my new obsession with oats. With three whole bananas and two cups of oats, these little guys have at least some nutritional value, so quit glaring at me for making you fat.

My son, a true banana bread connoisseur, devoured half of these in the time it took me to shout at him to save one for his mama. To say he liked them is putting it mildly. I’m inclined to agree with him, these are so moist and flavorful, but be warned, you must have a nice tall glass of icy cold milk nearby. It’s another one of those laws I keep talking about.

I’m not sure if you can tell from the above photo, but the texture of these really is like banana bread. The flavor of the bananas is subtle, but it’s there and it’s delicious. If you’re one of those crazy people who enjoy nuts in their cookies, then I imagine these would be just divine with some diced walnuts thrown in the mix.

Try these. Fatten yourself up. It’s almost winter, after all.

Banana Bread Cookies
adapted from allrecipes.com

• 1/2  cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 3 ripe bananas, mashed
• 2 cups rolled oats
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

In the bowl of your mixer cream together the butter and sugars until creamy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. In a separate bowl stir together the flour, baking soda, cloves, and cinnamon. Add to the creamed mixture and mix well. Mix in the mashed bananas, oats, and chocolate chips until well incorporated. Drop by rounded spoonful (I used my cookie scoop) onto a greased or parchment lined cookie sheet and bake in a pre-heated 375 degree oven for 10 to 12 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

The other day I was playing around on my iPhone when I came across an app for allrecipe.com’s Dinner Spinner. It is the neatest little app and I am officially in love. I am in the process of reserving a flight for me and the dinner spinner. We are running off together and never coming back. Goodbye forever.

Before I go, I thought I would share a recipe that I discovered while sitting in the car at the grocery store parking lot wondering what the heck I was going to make for dinner that night. Dinner Spinner totally saved the day.

Country Pasta with Mozzarella is a delicious little recipe that I need to go make again, right this minute, because my husband ate it all before I could stop him. Doesn’t he know that the pasta is mine and he was supposed to eat all the grilled meat and leave me the girl food? It must be the bacon in this pasta that made him forget the rules.

This recipe is simple and quick. I made it as a side dish with grilled chicken, but it’d be a perfect lunch on it’s own.

First things first, let’s boil up about 8 ounces of pasta. I used farfalle. I love the shape. The original recipe called for rigatoni, but, let’s be honest here, rigatoni is boring.

While the pasta is boiling, chop up two cups of fresh broccoli, eight slices of bacon, and a couple cloves of garlic.

Dump the bacon in a large frying pan and cook until it is almost crispy. Dump in the garlic and broccoli and cook them in the bacon grease for 4 to 5 minutes, until the broccoli loses a bit of the raw crunch. Don’t freak out about the bacon grease either. This is Buns In My Oven, you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t love bacon grease.

Dump your al dente pasta right in the pan with the bacon and broccoli (and bacon grease, I SAID don’t freak out!) and top it with 2 cups of shredded mozzarella cheese, 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese (I used the powdered stuff, it was delicious), 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper, and 1/4 cup of fresh chopped parsley.

Stir it all up over very low heat and don’t panic. It will be a big gloppy mess. The mozzarella gets all stringy and melty and it isn’t pretty. Pasta doesn’t have to be pretty though, just close your eyes and take a bite. You won’t regret it.

Real quick, let me tell you about all the different ways you could make this dish your own. You could make this a main dish by adding cooked, chopped chicken. You could replace the bacon with the chicken (you’d need to add a tablespoon or two of olive oil to cook the broccoli in) or you could just use the chicken in addition to the bacon. You could substitute asparagus for the broccoli. You could chop up a bell pepper and cook it in with the broccoli. You could chop up a sweet yellow onion and add it while the bacon was cooking, but only do this if you aren’t married to my husband, because he would probably throw a fit about the addition of onion. You could play with the cheeses, adding different varieties or swapping the mozzarella for something else entirely. I’m thinking cream cheese would be beautiful in this dish.

Country Pasta with Mozzarella
Recipe from allrecipes.com

• 8 ounces farfalle pasta
• 8 slices bacon, cut into 1 inch pieces
• 2 cups broccoli florets
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

1. Cook pasta according to package directions and drain.

2. In large skillet, cook the bacon until almost crisp. To the pan, add broccoli and garlic. Cook until the broccoli is slightly tender, stirring often, about 4 to 5 minutes.

3. Pour in the cooked pasta, mozzarella, parmesan, cayenne and parsley. Stir together over very low heat until the cheese is melted.

I have this secret that I’ve been carrying around with me my whole life. I’ve always been too scared to tell anyone for fear of what they would say. I want to tell you, but if I do will you promise not to call me names and leave me?

I’ve never eaten oatmeal before.

No, really. I’ve never eaten oatmeal. I mean, sure, yes, I’ve had it in cookies, but I’ve never just sat down with a bowl of oatmeal and ate it. I’ve never even tasted it in that form before. It just looks so icky and, if we’re being honest, a little bit creepy. Like maybe the oatmeal actually wants to eat me, instead of me eating the oatmeal.

You aren’t calling me names, are you?

I hope not, because I think I’ve finally decided to try oatmeal. I made these delicious no bake oatmeal bars yesterday and I actually tasted the plain oatmeal crust and, man, it was good. I doubt regular breakfast oatmeal tastes like this crust does (people don’t generally put 3/4 of a cup of butter in their morning oatmeal, do they?), but I’m willing to give it a go.

For now, let me show you these delicious no bake chocolate peanut butter oatmeal bars. And, yes, they are fairly similar to the chocolate peanut butter oatmeal cookies I just made, but these don’t require baking, are in bar form, and, well, they’re just different, okay?

This recipe is super simple. You melt 3/4 of a cup of butter on the stove, add in 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, 1/2 cup of brown sugar and 3 cups of quick cooking oats. Cook them over low heat for 3 or 4 minutes and then be brave and take a bite. It’s oatmeal and it’s yummy! The mixture is fairly thick and gloppy (mm, appetizing, no?), but that’s how we want it. Just use a spoon and scoop half of the oatmeal into a buttered 8×8 dish and press it down.

Add 1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips and 1/2 cup of peanut butter (smooth or chunky, your choice) to a microwave safe bowl and microwave until it’s all melted together. You’ll have to stop the microwave and stir every 30 seconds or so to avoid burning the chocolate.

Pour the chocolate and peanut butter over the top of the oatmeal crust, reserving a couple spoonfuls to drizzle over the top of the bars.

Gently press the reserved oatmeal on top of the chocolate and peanut butter, drizzle with the remaining chocolate and peanut butter and then refrigerate for a few hours.

Go ahead, try ‘em. Just be sure to eat them all as fast as you can before the oatmeal decides to eat you first.

No Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Oatmeal Bars
Adapted from allrecipes.com

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup butter
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 cups quick cooking oats
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup peanut butter (smooth or chunky)

1. Melt butter in a large sauce pan over low heat. Stir in brown sugar, vanilla, and oats. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes. Press half of mixture in to the bottom of a buttered 8 x 8 dish.

2. In a microwave safe bowl, microwave the chocolate and peanut butter, stirring every 30 seconds until melted and blended. Pour the chocolate peanut butter mixture over the crust, reserving a couple of spoonfuls to drizzle over the top.

3. Sprinkle the remaining oat mixture over the chocolate and peanut butter, pressing gently to form a crust. Drizzle the remaining chocolate and peanut butter over the top of the bars.

4. Refrigerate for 3 hours before cutting and serving.