2008 Holiday Party

This year's party went very well -- we were cleaned out by the ravishing hordes! One dish I thought was kinda weak was the first one gone, and only one do I have much of anything left.

Muhamarra
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This is a red-pepper/walnut dip from this year's Bon Appetit magazine Thanksgiving issue. It's delicious and nutritious. It's now one of my go-to party recipes.

Crab Rangoon Dip with homemade crackers
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Not that popular -- I have a fair amount left. The original net recipe I doctored said to pour duck sauce over the top, which I thought ludicrous. I've since tasted the leftovers and it's better with a little duck sauce. The homemade crackers are just wonton skins brushed with sesame oil, duck sauce and sesame seeds.

Cobb Salad Deviled Eggs
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Every year, I'm challenged to come up with a new deviled egg. This year was cobb salad: flavored with blue cheese, avocado and green onion, garnished with bacon, chicken and mini plum tomatoes. All gone.

Taleggio Pizza
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After having this at Avec, and seeing a near-identical recipe in Martha Stewart's Appetizers (except she used Robiola), I had to try it. Very nice, but somewhat time-consuming to make, as it occupied a whole oven for an hour to make six of these. Delicious with truffle oil brushed on the top.

Parmesan Frico Caesar Salad
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Parmesan cheese fricos (again, Martha Stewart's Appetizer book is a great party book), with homemade caesar dressing and garlic croutons. I violated caesar purity adding some julienned red pepper and carrot for color, but great nevertheless.

Bacon, Butterscotch, Apple, Thyme from Alinealinked with linkr
Another restaurant duplication (although I still haven't made it to Alinea). I made about 96 third-slice pieces, and laid the pieces horizontal instead of hanging them. Mmmm bacon.

Papas Huacainas
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From South American Table. Tasty, but I forgot the salsa criollo, and it was a little weird... ended up with a lot left over.

Orange Sauteed Chicken
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From a cookbook called "Tapas", I thought this was dull, but it disappeared. The sauce is marmalade, raisins and walnuts.

Meatballs in Almond Sauce
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Another from the "Tapas" cookbook -- neither of which I ate while in Spain. 20 cloves of garlic in the sauce, how could it be bad, eh?

Potato and Lamb Keema Samosas
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From Julie Sahni's Classic Indian. The lamb ones were little dry, but still awesome. The red color is food coloring we used to tell the potato ones from the lamb.

21st Century Beef Wellington
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From the Gourmet cookbook. A cilantro, spinach and pine nut pesto (original called for walnut, we had walnut in too many other things). This was awesome. Sue's pastry work on this was gorgeous, the cam doesn't do it justice.

Cookies
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Kolacky's (including homemade grape jelly), Lemon Bars, and Salted Nut Bars
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Nut crescents, peppermint cookies, "Dark and Stormies" (from this year's Trib contest -- no we didn't enter), pinwheels
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The other Kolacky's, english toffee, spice cookies and orange raisin bars (mostly invisible)