The holidays are my favorite time of year for experimenting with new recipes. There is no better test audience than family. First of all, it’s a captive audience. And, second of all, you can always count on your little brother to tell it to you straight if you screwed up the pork loin. Here are a few of the new dishes to which I’m subjecting my family this year:

Veal cakes on Silky Eggplant.

Truffled Potato Gratin.

Bacon-Wrapped Tenderloin with Herb Stuffing.

And an old favorite, Martha Stewart’s Triple-Chocolate Trifle (I omit the peppermint part. It’s good, but sort of overwhelming).

Happy cooking. Happy eating. And Happy Holidays.

Well, more for the owner who has everything except an easy way to open a cold one at the dog park. This would make a pretty funny stocking-stuffer for your favorite dog (or brew) lover.

Target has Scratch and Sniff holiday cards! They’re available in Candy Cane, Ginger Bread and Pine Needles.

I tried in vain to find a recipe for this beautiful pumpkin cake from Dean and Deluca. I seriously doubt that I could get mine to look this good, but it’s vanilla spice cake with praline buttercream and fudge filling coated in white chocolate. I could eat that without the fancy Halloween shape. If you really, really want one and have $120 lying around, they ship overnight.

I’ve been out of town for about three weeks, which means that even though Halloween is my absolute favorite holiday, I’ve had zero time to think about a costume, much less put one together. So, I went on a search for some last minute ideas.

Let’s face it, I’m not going to pull-off anything complicated in two weeks. And if you’re busy pulling together costumes for kids, boatloads of candy and decor for your home, you probably don’t either. Luckily, Martha Stewart has a solution. Doesn’t she always? So, here are some cool, creepy last-second ideas for adult costumes that won’t take a nervous breakdown to get done.