Thursday, December 3, 2009

Christmas Party Planning

My darling fiance and I are having a Christmas party again this year. Last year's party was a lot of fun, but we planned it on the spur of the moment. We literally decided to have the party, then had the party a week later. I was also in Houston for work for three days during the week prior to the party. I quickly came up with a menu, and I think that most of the food was pretty tasty, but I want to seriously revamp the menu this year.
Last year we had:

Bacon wrapped water chestnuts- This was a huge hit and will be served again this year.
Red pepper and goat cheese dip- This was the biggest disappointment for me. The rosemary overpowered all of the other flavors.
Sugar Cookies- Let's just say that when it comes to using cookie cutters, I lack the dexterity that God gave your average toddler. At least they tasted good. This year I will be doing drop cookies.
Gougeres-I thought that these were delicious. However, they really didn't get eaten. I think that I made them too big and people thought that they were biscuits. Pro-tip: this dough is exactly like cream puff/eclair dough, except cheesier, which means that it's hollow inside. I think this would be awesome as the first course of a sit down dinner party- maybe filled with mashed potatoes and topped with a little slice of roast beef.
Slow roasted tomatoes- These were really good, but are more of a condiment. (I served them on toothpicks.) I was told that they were really tasty tucked inside a gougere.
I also quickly stuck a brie in the oven and topped it with some pear marmalade and walnuts.
There were also gourmet cupcakes, brought by my friend Ashley.

This year, the only carry-over will be the bacon wrapped water chestnuts. These are the other options I am toying with:

Pickled veggie tray- baby corn, okra, olives, etc....
Chocolate chip pecan oatmeal cookies- a drop cookie recipe from my mom. It's one of my holiday favorites.
Rotel dip- cream cheese, sausage, rotel...what's not to love? I have a serious problem with dips. Every time I try to make anything remotely high brow, I don't really like it. I'm caving and going back to my Mississippi roots on this one.
Blue cheese and cranberry stuffed endive- I've been waiting for an excuse to make this recipe. It looks so good to me.
Baked Brie- I actually have some puff pastry this year!
Fruit Pizza- I will use raspberries, strawberries, and kiwi's so it will look festive. This is one of the few asthetically pleasing foods I am capable of making.
Goat cheese stuffed pequillo peppers- Lauri made these for Kristi's bachelorette party and I was obsessed with them. Again, I've been looking for an excuse to make these.

So what do we think? Too much? Not enough? Too much cheese? (Like there's such a thing as too much cheese! I crack myself up sometimes!!) Not holiday specific?

In other news, tomorrow is my office party. I will be wearing a very cute, short, strappy cocktail dress (borrowed from Steph). For this reason, the powers that be have decided that the weather will suck tomorrow. It will certainly be cold and drizzly, and it might sleet or even snow. Thrilling.

Okay, I am now going to close my computer and clean my house, which is what I should have been doing instead of blogging this evening. Oops!

2 comments:

  1. mmmmm. . . rotel dip. Seriously, I love that stuff. You could put those picked veggies by the bar and people could drop them in their drinks.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'd almost forgotten about the peppadews. They really were tasty, weren't they? I should definitely try to get my hands on some goat cheese while I'm here.

    ReplyDelete