As Rach predicted, since the weather was fair, I got a huge turnout for the cookie party. People showed up immediately at the appointed start time – 5:30 – and I had dips & spreads out but nothing to dip or spread them on. I still had all the cookie platters under plastic wrap, cheeses coming to room temp upstairs, safe from cats. I had good help tho – Pat sliced bread, and topped the onion puffs (new this year and I think a keeper). Heike’s brothers went and retrieved the cheeses, and Max made the cracker baskets.
The food was mostly hits – I made the standard Heinz chile sauce meatballs, with the sauce that is supposed to be a 50/50 mix of Heinz chile sauce, and either grape jelly or canned cranberry sauce – neither of which I have ever used (you’re supposed to buy the meatballs, too – never done that either). I usually use red currant jelly, but I forgot to buy any – so decided to use the frozen since Thanksgiving cranberry sauce, and it was delish. Four pounds of meat – all that will fit in my big Dutch oven – and still they went so fast I never got one.
I tried a crab rangoon dip – deconstructed crab rangoon; the cream cheese and the crab baked as dip, with wonton skins made into chips, instead of wrappings. That also went in seconds.
I usually make Mollie Katzen’s pesto-peppercorn torta – neufchatel and ricotta cheese wrapped around pesto – but I wanted something more dramatic – and I had a lot of cream cheese (Costco) – so I made this sun-dried tomato & pesto torta – it’s huge and all but about 1 tablespoon got eaten.
Edamame hummus – not so much – coulda had more of the regular hummus, and probably shoulda stuck with my vision of a trio of dips – edamame, green; hummus, white; and muhamarra, red.
Mark Bittman’s idea of potted shrimp – again, good – but people didn’t snarf it like the other stuff – I think I’ll use it for pasta sauce (maybe with that 1 TBLS of the torta that’s left).
Chive sour cream cocktail buns with ham & cheese – I made about 3 dozen buns and could have made twice as many – I had enough ham for more sandwiches, and plenty of cheese. Heike’s brother tried out a bun with a meatball.
Some of the other stuff sort of goes with out saying – spicey peanut dip with blanched broccoli from the co-op and cauliflower, beauty heart radish, and yellow and orange carrots from my CSA box. Leek tart – I ended up making 2 rectangular quiches and then sliced them into squares instead of doing the individual shells. Bacon dates. Baked Brie – with American Spoon tomato preserves inside. Devilled eggs. Cheese & crackers. Layered dip – refried beans with corn & poblano salsa, sour cream & cheese. Roasted squash quesadillas, with cubes of squash, Cafe Flora pumpkin seed parsley pesto, and pepper jack. Wienies in poppin’ dough with the good 4505 meats dogs. Caponata that I made last summer from the freezer. Boursin and red pepper tarts with red pepper relish, also from the freezer. Because I bought the Boursin at Costco, I now have a lifetime supply of Boursin – too bad it doesn’t actually keep that long.
Heike washed a lot of dishes and Ann also did a lt of washing up at the end. My schedule was kind of brutal – cookie party Friday, then off to Minneapolis for Al’s graduation party Saturday. I got up and threw together the hot spinach dip that I hadn’t done done for the party and made a pan of peppermint patty brownies – a hybrid of Maida Heatter and Milwaukee Journal, with melted unsweetened chocolate instead of cocoa – because I didn’t want the Dutch process cocoa disaster to happen again. They came out really good – I promise to write up the recipe real soon now™. [And ha, I already did; I kind of thought so. So all I have to do is add the melted chocolate option].
Picked up Al’s grilfriend and off to the Twins. Nice party thrown by the parents of one of Al’s roomates – it’s a house of 5 guys, and lots of their parents, AND girlfriends’ parents came for the party. The kids went off on a party bus -I asked the next morning where they went and at the same time, Al said, “Hudson” and Emma said, “divey townie bar” and Al explained that the point of the bus is to be on the bus – the driving is supposed to be better than the destination. I went over to Tincher’s, via East Riverside Drive. Took him his cookies, and nodded off while he was skyping with his sweetie. In the morning I knew I could walk back the way I drove over, and walk by the river, so I did. Had coffee with Tincher, took the kids to brunch, and home by 5:00. Whew. Of all my trips to the Twins, this had to be the best for NOT getting lost.
I thought yesterday – Sunday – with the driving and all, might be my first cookie-less day since Thanksgiving, but I ended up decorating the gingerbread, and making the marzipan dates. Today I shipped off 13 more boxes, bringing this year’s total to 20. Whew again. And still various platters and Tupperwares to deal out to people around town. And I hope to take a cookie tray to the homeless at Savory Sunday on Christmas Day.
