Top 10 best recipes of 2015 – All of the best, most delicious recipes of the year are featured here!
The Christmas holiday brings family traditions to the forefront of my consciousness. Nostalgic memories of sitting on the counter in my grandma’s kitchen and watching her cook are some of the fondest. All the reminiscing naturally leads to thoughts of reflection on the past year, what I’m thankful for, what went well, what could stand for some improvement. Yeah…there is always room for improvement. We’ll talk about improvements another time. For now, let’s chat about Recipes that Rocked here on the blog last year.
If you’re really lucky as a food blogger, one (or more) recipes will go viral on Pinterest or be featured on a major internet publication which causes a spike in traffic to your website. Anything that drives positive traffic to a particular recipe is a very validating for a food blogger. We can’t predict what gets a lot of attention or what (if anything) goes viral. We can’t work toward it because if we do, we’ll invariably drive ourselves crazy trying to read the internet’s collective mind, while simultaneously squashing our own creativity trying to cater to the unknown.
Popularity in self publishing is a magical internet kind of thing that’s as mystical as unicorn tears and rainbows. We have little control other than to just keep creating new content because we love it, and hope that you love it too. But when a recipe does hit the big time with readers? We totally live for that stuff! We love it almost as much as we love getting sweet comments and emails.
Almost.
Readers are the proverbial wind beneath a blogger’s wings. Ya’ll keep us inspired to continue to create and share snippets of our lives online. Fer realz. So with all the unpredictability of what will be popular versus what will tank in the stats department, I was pleasantly surprised that many of the most popular recipes visited on the blog this year were new recipes that I love, and not necessarily something from the archives that went viral on Pinterest two years ago that I’ve forgotten about. Hooray!
Let’s take a look at the top 10 best recipes of 2015, shall we?
Savory Energy Bars are my take on the ever-popular power bar. The one thing that makes me crazy about power bars/energy bars/meal replacement bars is that most of them are crammed with so much sugar that I end up crashing within 30 minutes of eating one. Do these taste like dessert like the store bought bars? Not a bit. They taste healthy, but in a good way. These Savory Energy Bars are loaded with whole grains, protein, omega 3’s and other vitamins for sustainable energy without all the sugar. Did I mention that cheese is involved? Because the cheese factor is in play.
This super easy Slow Cooker Roasted Chicken with Root Vegetables is in continual rotation on our monthly menu plan. I love coming home after a hectic day to the comforting aroma of roasted chicken; knowing that I have a complete dinner waiting in the crock that doesn’t come out looking anemic or tasting like mush as slow cooker recipes are wont to do makes it easy to avoid the “drive thru trap.”
If Instagram is any indicator, the vast majority of you prefer it when I make pies and desserts, but aren’t always thrilled when I post the food that actually sustains us. Imagine my surprise to see so many savory recipes in my Top 10 of 2015, let alone a salad! These simple Chef Salads in a Jar are easily made in bulk, taste fantastic, and help to alleviate the guilt of eating leftover cherry hand pies for breakfast. Or so I’m told…
Rounding out the savory category are these Omelette Muffins. The primarily egg muffin is stuffed full of sauteed vegetables, meat, and cheese. Omelette Muffins are great to have on hand for a quick, healthy breakfast or snack option. They are easily made in bulk and frozen for later!
Now on to the fun stuff…pie! Lemon Chess Pie is lush with deep Southern roots and plenty of lemony sass that’ll make you want to indulge in a slice while porch-sittin’ and chasing it down with a little sweet tea. I’m not going to say that a slice of this pie will make y’all go and slap yo’ mama, but the simple tang might inspire a little sass. This is one recipe that I almost didn’t share because it wasn’t as pretty as far as my pies go, but the flavor more than compensates for the presentation. And don’t worry..I’m fresh out of Southern colloquialisms…for now.
Classic Apple Pie isn’t bound by one geographical region, but it is every bit as rooted in tradition. It doesn’t get any better than a slice of apple pie, and this one is a favorite apple pie recipe for generations! Sweet apples make their own cinnamon syrup when baked inside of two buttery pie crusts. Yeah…that’s the stuff!
The Best Gluten Free Pie Crust making the Top 10 list makes me very happy. After a bucketful of recipe failures, oceans of tears, and a fair amount of swearing on my part, I finally came up with a gluten free pie crust that stayed together, and most importantly, tasted as close to my favorite all butter pie crust as it possibly could.
Riding the coattail of popularity of the gluten free pie crust is my Gluten Free, Sugar Free Coconut Cream Pie. I developed this recipe for my dad. The fact that it’s free of gluten and is made with a sugar free pastry cream that is actually creamy and not the consistency of paste makes this pie one of my favorite triumphs.
Pie wasn’t the only big star of the year. My mom’s recipe for Chocolate Crazy Cake was quite the social butterfly around town. Chocolate Crazy Cake is a sinfully decadent chocolate cake made from scratch that comes together in a jiffy. The recipe is a little crazy because it’s made without eggs, and yet the resulting cake is still rich with a tender crumb. Heck, I’m just going to say it…it’s MOIST. The cake is moist. Grab a fork and make peace with it. I was amazed at all of the emails from readers telling me that Chocolate Crazy Cake was one of their favorite family recipes, too! Our family’s Chocolate Crazy Cake goes by many other names, including Wacky Cake, Energy Crisis Cake (?!), Ration Cake, and Post War Chocolate Cake, to name a few.
I find it only appropriate the final recipe is also the last cake that I shared in 2015. Gingerbread Cake with Orange Cream Cheese Glaze was inspired by my grandma and her love of all things gingerbread and warm spices. The gooey orange scented cream cheese glaze along with the intense candied ginger crunch is the perfect compliment served alongside a cup of strong coffee or chamomile tea. I guess you could say that it really takes the…wait for it…cake!
Thanks for coming along this stroll down memory lane with the 10 best recipes of 2015. I can’t wait for you to see all the tasty bites and tidbits coming next year!
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