The Top 12 Recipes of 2025
+ What Christmas looks like when you live in an RV, More cookie recipes, and two very special LIVE classes next week
Welcome to Let’s Get Lost! I’m Rebecca, a recipe developer, food photographer, passionate people watcher, and chaser of new experiences. You might know me from my recipe websites, Of Batter and Dough and A Little and A Lot.
My husband and I are nomads without a home base but with many modes of transportation, namely an RV, a motorcycle, and a sailboat. I write recipes and stories for curious people who believe experiences are more important than things and who want more adventure.
I don’t think I properly understood the phrase, decorating for Christmas, until I met my husband’s family.
There were certainly Christmas decorations in my childhood home. There was always a tree and a variety of Christmas decorations scattered throughout the house. Christmas plates, a nativity scene, stockings, maybe a wreath or a garland. Like, a normal amount.
But, my mother-in-law, and her mother (my husband’s grandmother), and most of the people in my husband’s family completely transform their homes for Christmas. Pillows, blankets, and even the pictures hung on the walls are switched out with holiday themed decor. There are multiple trees and holiday decorations to discover in in every corner. I’m not exaggerating here. Every corner.
Decorating for Christmas takes days. Being in my mother-in-law’s home when it’s all decked out for Christmas is magical.
In the house where we raised our children, I also decorated for Christmas. Like the family in which I was raised, I decorated a normal amount. Actually, if I’m honest, it might have been less than a normal amount.
There was always a Christmas tree and a few other decorations scattered around the house. I loved the idea of going all out and transforming our house into a holiday wonderland. But, I simply could not muster the energy to spend days decorating. More than that, I didn’t want to spend days putting it all away.
Now that we live in an RV, decorating for the holidays takes about 20 minutes. Well, 20 minutes to put everything up and then twice as long to vacuum up the fake snow that falls off the garlands. 😂
We have a cluster of glittery trees that I place on the kitchen table and a mini Christmas tree, hung with hand painted ornaments created by my very talented mother-in-law, in our bedroom.
And, in the evenings, after the sun has set, I switch on the tiny lights on our tiny Christmas tree and light all the candles that are scattered throughout our tiny home and it feels very cozy and magical. Because one of the best things about living in a small space, is that a few decorations go a long way.
Yesterday, my friend Jenn Sharp and I sat down in our living rooms, me in Colorado and her in Louisiana, and talked on a live streaming video about some of our favorite holiday traditions. I stood up and took everyone on a short tour around our RV home to show off our decorations. Jenn sat in front of her magnificently decorated tree and told us a truly magical story of how their ornament collection grows year after year.
If you’d like to watch that replay, you’ll find it here.
Happy Holidays, From My Home to Yours
What a delight to sit down with my friend Jenn Sharp, me in Colorado and her in Louisiana, to talk about some of our favorite holiday traditions. I stood up and took everyone on a short tour around our RV to show off our decorations. Jenn sat in front of her magnificently decorated tree and told us a truly magical story of how their ornament collection grows year…
Mind, Body, Spirit, Food with Nicki Sizemore
I got my hands on an early copy of Nicki Sizemore’s newest cookbook and friends, it’s as breathtakingly beautiful as you might expect.
For everyone baking cookies this week…
lisa who writes The Naturally Sweet Life newsletter put together an incredible, and drool worthy, collection of holiday cookie recipes. I was delighted to contribute a recipe for chocolate orange biscotti, but friends, there are so many delicious looking cookies here, I hardly know where to start.
The Top 12 Recipes of 2025
It’s always an interesting experience to look back over a year and see which recipes were the most popular. Obviously, I have no real way of knowing this. I can look at stats, comments, emails, and other data points, but I’ll never really know how many times a recipe was made.
So this list of Top 12 Recipes is limited to the information available to me, which is still something. Some of the recipes in this list were published here, in this newsletter, the others were published on my two recipe websites, Of Batter and Dough and A Little and A Lot.
I would love to know if you’ve tried anything on this list. And if these recipes are all new to you, I hope one or two makes it into your kitchen sometime soon.
Blueberry Pie Cookies: If you’re into things like buttery cookie dough, jammy fruit centers, and a snack that doubles as breakfast (and c’mon, who isn’t?), these might just become your new favorite cookie.
Homemade Krautburgers: I grew up on Krautburgers and they were one of my favorite things to eat when I was a child. I remember being so excited when my grandmother or mother made a batch! As an adult, I’ve been making them a couple times a year for three decades, and they are still just as much of a treat now as they were when I was a child.
Mushroom Ravioli in Garlic Butter Cream Sauce: Homemade mushroom ravioli blanketed in creamy garlic butter sauce is a labor of love in the truest sense - You’ll love the process of making ravioli and, most importantly, you’ll love the delicious, impressive result.
Chimichurri Steak Sandwich: This is one of those sloppy two-handed sandwiches for which you need a stack of napkins and a hearty appetite because there is no chance you’ll be leaving even one bite behind. No one has that kind of self control.
Orange Marmalade and Poppy Seed Muffins with Sage: These are truly one of the most delicious things I’ve baked all year. Think I’m overselling it? Make them and see for yourself.
Brussels sprout, apple, and cheddar salad: Apples and cheddar are one of my all time favorite flavor combinations. During the fall and winter months, Steve and I eat this apple and cheddar salad at least twice a week and we never get tired of it. This salad takes that combo and adds shaved Brussels, smoked almonds, and a tangy white wine vinaigrette. Every bite is a sweet and sour burst of flavor with plenty of crunch.
Easy Skillet Chicken Enchiladas: Two over-stuffed roasted chicken enchiladas covered in sizzling poblano salsa and melted cheese, served in a small cast iron pan. As is often true of the things I love the most, the best thing about these enchiladas is how easy they are to make.
Foolproof Pie Crust: This has been my go-to homemade pie crust recipe for over 25 years. I’ve used it to make hundreds of pies of every variety and it hasn’t failed me yet. I didn’t publish this recipe this year, but I taught a class with Betty Williams on how to make it and that class has more replays than any other, by far, so I’m including it in this list.
Banana Snack Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting: This banana snack cake is exceptionally soft, with a crumb so tender it’s almost creamy. It’s not overly sweet, packed with rich banana flavor, and the warm comforting hint of nutmeg and cloves.
Pistachio Pastry Cream: This gorgeously rich pastry cream tastes like pistachio gelato. It’s silky smooth, rich and creamy, and bursting with pistachio flavor.
Elderflower and Lemon Cake: This cake is quite possibly the lightest, softest cake I’ve ever eaten and is bursting at the seams with citrus flavor. The cake includes whole lemons that are blended right into the batter for a fresh lemon flavor like nothing you’ve ever experienced.
Slow-Roasted Pulled Pork Tacos with Green Slaw: This recipe is curtesy of the incomparable Betty Williams who can rightfully be called the taco queen. Betty made these for an in-person gathering of the Lost Supper Club in San Diego earlier this year and it’s an understatement to say that they were a hit!
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This year’s cookbook is soooooo close to being finished and I can’t wait to share it with you! It will be released later this month and available to all Lost Supper Club members to download for free.
Lost Supper club members also have access to the complete recipe index + the downloadable recipe cards, the entire library of classes, and the entire library of past issues.
Discount Links and Free Cookbooks for Members of The Lost Supper Club
Let’s Get Lost, Volume 1 and the No Recipe Required cookbook are available now. If you don’t already have them, here’s where to get them.
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Lovely, homey decorations. All you need to wrap that festive spirit around you. And may I say thank you for the banana snack cake. Pure genius, that name. Like, whenever anyone (like my post-menopausal metabolism) asks, "Wait, are you eating CAKE?!" I can answer in all truthfulness, "Oh, this? No, this isn't dessert...it's just a snack." Case closed.
I can see why these are the favorites. I'm planning on trying the krautburger and adding the peanut butter frosting to my banana cake recipe. Thank you!