Party Eats

Cookie Monster and I recently hosted a party. This was the first time I'd cooked for several of my friends, so I wanted to impress. I also wanted to use the flavors of the season.

Here's what I made:

Hazelnut brown sugar cookies

(recipe from my Better Homes & Gardens cookbook)

Cranberry sauce over cream cheese, served with crackers

Bacon-wrapped dates

Homemade pumpkin bread

Caramelized onion and blue cheese flatbread (L) and pumpkin ricotta phyllo turnovers (R)

Ginger molasses cookies

(Both cookies were served in my Snowman cookie jar, 

which plays "Jingle Bells" when you lift his head off)

And, the pièce de résistance, Cookie Monster's famous eggnog.

Also, I mulled hot cider in my Crock pot and served that, too.

So, things turned out pretty much awesome. There was very little food left at the end of the party. Yay!

Here are the "recipes" of some of the dishes. I made these all up, so there are no exact measurements.

Bacon-Wrapped Dates

Be sure to make a lot of these babies. They go fast!

I feel silly even typing a recipe for these. It's just combining two delicious things and making them into one uber-delicious thing. Simply cut strips of bacon into thirds, wrap each slice around a dried date, and bake at 350 until the bacon is crisp. They are salty, sweet and amazing. Highly recommended.

Caramelized Onion and Blue Cheese Flatbread

Butter

Yellow onions 

S&P

Blue cheese (I used  a tub of blue cheese from Trader Joe's)

Flatbread (also from Trader Joe's)

Heat a large skillet to medium-high heat. Melt few tablespoons of butter and add onions, salt and pepper. When they begin to turn brown, reduce the heat to very low. Continue to stir until they break down and turn very brown and caramely. This usually takes a while--about 30-40 minutes.

Brush flatbread lightly with olive oil. Spread a thin layer of caramelized onions over bread, then sprinkle with chunks of blue cheese. Bake at 350 until cheese is melted and edges of bread are crisp, about 10-15 minutes.

Pumpkin Ricotta Phyllo Turnovers

Sheets of phyllo dough

Canned pure pumpkin

Part-skim ricotta cheese

Grated Asiago cheese

Freshly grated nutmeg

Hot sauce

S&P

Prepare filling: Stir together pumpkin, cheeses and spices.

Prepare phyllo: Take one piece of dough and brush lightly with olive oil. (Be sure to cover unused phyllo with a damp kitchen towel; this will prevent it from drying out.) Add another layer and brush with oil. Repeat until there are four layers of phyllo. Place layers of dough lengthwise on a cutting board like a flag. Cut horizontally into four even strips. Working with one strip at a time, spoon ricotta mixture onto bottom and fold up corner to form a triangle shape. Continue folding until you have one large triangle, and tuck the last end under the bottom. Continue with remaining strips. Cut three air slits into top of each triangle, and brush tops with olive oil. Bake until golden brown in a 350 oven, about 25-30 minutes.

Spiced Cider

As the days turn colder and the season barrels full-speed toward Christmas, you may want something warm to drink after a hard day of playing in the snow, cutting down a Christmas tree, or napping on the couch. Enter: hot spiced cider!

 First, you'll need apple juice, preferably something with such an ingredient list as: "Apples, water." (I.e. not from a can.)

Pour your apple juice into a saucepan and add the following spices:

Cinnamon sticks

Whole cloves

Freshly grated nutmeg

And a dash of cardamom. Go easy on this stuff; it's a potent flavor.

Then, just turn on a low heat and let the cider heat up and steep, infusing all those holiday flavors into your cider as well as kitchen and the entirety of your oddly shaped long apartment. For a holiday party, pour into a Crockpot on low to keep it warm. Just remember to fish out the cloves and cinnamon before serving! A clove is not a sufficient snack.
Spirits, such as AppleJack, rum or Buttershots, added to the cider make it especially festive.

Merry ChrisKwanzaaKuh!

Irish I Were Drinking Coffee!

A certain Irish holiday just passed, and just before said holiday, it was a bit cold here. So, with the inspiration of the Irish, Cookie Monster and I made some delicious coffee. With a hint o' the Emerald Isle. 

Enter the cast of characters: 

*French press Stumptown coffee (some of the very best you can get)

*Irish cream

*Jameson Irish whiskey

*Whipped cream

Pour the whiskey. Notice the measuring device? Actually purchased in Ireland!

Then the coffee. Pay homage to your home state in drinking vessel (optional).

Next, the Irish cream. 

Concede the camera to your husband, who will randomly take pictures of your butt.

Admonish husband for taking said butt photos and resume camera duties. Yes, there are more. No, they will not be published.

Top Irish coffee with whipped cream.

Admonish husband again for sucking down copious amounts of whipped cream directly from can into mouth. Laugh at his slight propellant high from said sucking down of whipped cream.

Delight in a delicious, warming beverage. Slainte!

Cranberry Sauce (juiced!)

Cookie Monster and I did not host Thanksgiving dinner this year; we were guests at his boss' house. So, in order to ensure our favorites were around after the Big Day, we made some of them just for us. Cookie Monster's favorite is a turkey, cranberry, stuffing, cream cheese sandwich (and I happen to like them, too), so we cooked up all of those things. Yes, for the two of us, we cooked a 14 lb. turkey. It was the smallest I could find! So, after two Tupperwares of that turkey, plus some leftover his boss sent with us, we are pretty damn tired of turkey right now. (Nevermind the two more Tupperwares full in the freezer!)
Anyhoo, I'm getting off track. The cranberry sauce. It's tasty. It's tart. It's a bit sweet. And, in our case, it's juiced. With liquor, that is.

Obviously, it started with these:

And then I stripped an orange naked.

And Cookie Monster did this to said naked orange.

...until there was a half cup of orange juice.
Then came the good stuff!

A little for the cook...
(Glass from Portugal. Appropriate, no?)

And then some sugar.

Boil everything together 'til the cranberries burst and it reduces into a lovely, thick sauce.

Makes the best sandwiches! Also great in oatmeal, too.

Orange Port Cranberry Sauce

1 bag fresh cranberries
Zest of 1 orange
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup port wine
3/4 cup sugar

Combine all ingredients into a saucepan and bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer until all cranberries are broken down and mixture becomes gelled.