Cooking Club: December

Theme: Cocktails and Hors D'oeuvres!

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Host: Summer - Stuffed Mushrooms / Holiday Kiss Cocktails

Betty: Tortilla Roll-ups / Old World Wassail

Jodi: Vegetable and Fruit Holiday Bouquet / Wine

Shauna: Spicy Meatballs / Santa Hat Cocktails

Cheryl: Meat and Cheese Tree 

Judi: Lumpia 

Teresa: Chocolate Dipped Strawberries / Christmas Passion Mist

Denise: Bacon Chestnut Wraps / Festive Chicken-Cranberry Toppers / Tropical Holiday Punch

Chris: S'mores Cocktail / Ham and Cheese Wraps

Lori: Spiced Cranberry Cheese Spread

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Vegetable and Fruit Holiday Bouquet 

So gorgeous! What a fabulous and festive way to do a veggie and fruit tray! Just looking at it you know it was a lot of work, but well worth the effort. This would make a great center piece. Pineapple slices, christmas cookie cutters and dye were used to make the candy canes and christmas trees. 

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Meat and Cheese Tree

Another fun and festive appetizer. This tree was adorned with tasty cubes of salami, cheese and vegetables. For the tree, a styrofoam cone is wrapped with lettuce leaves and the vegetables are attached with toothpicks. Use a cookie cutter and a thick slice of cheese to make a star for the top of the tree.

Recipe

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Hot Wassail with Rum

This tasty and fragrant hot wassail was served with a sidecar of rum. It's the perfect drink for a holiday party, especially when it's cold outside!
Recipe

These Twelve Days of Christmas mugs were lovely for serving the wassail.
(these particular mugs are no longer made)

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 S'Mores Cocktail

Homemade Kahlua is the base for this rich and delicious cocktail. The rim is dipped in marshmallow cream and topped with graham crackers. Very fun and unique!
Recipe

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Chocolate Dipped Strawberries

These are always a crowd pleaser. This one was dressed up with a white chocolate drizzle and a yummy liquor was added to the milk chocolate before dipping.

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Santa Hat Cocktails

The rim of a martini glass is topped with coconut and filled with a yummy red cocktail to resemble a Santa hat. A very cute and fun drink. Perfect for December. 

Recipe

(You can use any red cocktail for this)

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Tasty Tortilla Rolls

Green chilies, pecans and olives pack these rolls with lots of flavor and texture. Dipped in salsa, you couldn't stop at just one!

See below for recipe.

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Lumpia

These Filipino egg rolls were voted best appetizer at the party. A mixture of ground turkey is housed in a crunchy and delicious pastry wrapper. Served with some sweet and sour sauce, these are addicting!

See below for recipe.

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Sausage Stuffed Mushrooms

What's not to like about a creamy sausage mixture stuffed into a mushroom cap and topped with cheese? These were tasty and went fast.
See below for recipe

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Jamaican Jerk Meatballs

These were plain awesome! Tender, moist meatballs in a delicious sauce with the perfect amount of spice. These are always a hit.
See below for recipe

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Christmas Passion Mist

This was a great custom made cocktail. Nice and refreshing and a little too easy to drink.
See below for recipe

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Festive Chicken-Cranberry Toppers

These were lite and a nice change from the usual appetizers. The combination of chicken and cranberries on a salty cracker was very tasty.

Recipe

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Cranberry Cheese Spread

This was divine. A cranberry relish with a spicy hint of pepper is poured over a cranberry cream cheese ball.  It's slightly sweet, slightly spicy and slightly tart. Perfect with your favorite crackers.
Adapted from Martha Stewart

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Bacon Chestnut Wraps

These are crunchy, salty and hard to stop eating. These ones were cooked in a yummy sauce and had slices of red pepper wrapped up with the bacon.

Recipe 1 Recipe 2

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Ham and Cheese Roll-ups

Thick slices of ham and cream cheese are rolled up in soft tortillas for a yummy bite-size appetizer.

Here's a plate of all the delicious goodies. It was hard not to keep circling the buffet table (and the cocktail table!). Oh, who am I kidding? I circled both all night. Love cooking club!

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*Recipes*


Lumpia
(Filipino Egg Rolls)
Recipe courtesy of Judy
Ingredients:
2 potatoes finely chopped
4 cups of carrots finely chopped
1lb ground turkey
3 cloves garlic
1/2 onion
1 egg menlo eggroll wrappers
vegetable oil

mix potatoes, carrots, ground turkey, garlic, and onion in a frying pan and brown turkey (also add salt and pepper...as much as you want). Take 1 1/2tbs of turkey/potato/carrot mix and place into wrapper (there are wrapping instructions on the menlo wrappers). After rolled to most of the way wet the tip of the wrapper with raw egg to seal. Fry in vegetable oil. 


Jamaican Jerk Meatballs
Recipe courtesy of Shauna
1 bottle of Jamaican Jerk Sauce (from Costco)
1 Pkg. frozen meatballs (from Costco)


Combine both ingredients in a crockpot. Cook until heated through.
(Yes, that's it! And it's so tasty. The sauce makes these.)

Sausage Stuffed Mushrooms
Recipe courtesy of Summer

1 small onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 pkg. sage sausage (or spicy or Italian etc.)
4 small pkgs. of mushrooms, stems removed and chopped*
Pinch red pepper flakes
Shredded Mozzarella for topping

Heat olive oil in a skillet. Add onion and garlic and saute until onions soften. Add sausage and red pepper flakes and breakup sausage with a spoon and cook until no longer pink. Add mushrooms stems and cook 2-3 minutes. Add cream cheese and stir until completely melted and incorporated into the sausage mixture. Remove sausage mixture from heat and allow to cool. Line mushroom caps up in a 9x13 baking dish coated with butter. Stuff filling into prepared mushroom caps. Pour 5 Tablespoons melted butter over the mushrooms making sure to coat the sides of the mushrooms. Top each mushroom with shredded mozzarella cheese. Bake for 30-40 at 400 degrees or until cheese is browned and bubbly.

* I used small mushrooms and find that they cook more evenly and have the perfect ratio of mushroom to filling. I chopped up about half of the mushroom stems for the filling and discarded the rest.

* 3 packages of mushrooms fit perfectly in a 9x13 dish. You'll have to use another 8x8 dish for the rest of the mushrooms.

Tasty Tortilla Rolls
Recipe courtesy of Betty

12 oz. Cream Cheese softened
2 Tbs. Green Chilies Chopped
3 Tbs. finely chopped pecans
3 Tbs. chopped ripe olives
5 Tbs. minced green onions
1 clove garlic minced
6-8 in. flour Tortillas

In a medium size bowl combine cream cheese, Chilies, nuts, olives, onions & garlic.
Spread one side of the tortillas with the cream cheese mixture, covering completely.
Roll each Tortilla tightly jelly roll style, wrap individually in plastic wrap, refrigerate several hours or
overnight.

To serve cut each long roll into 1/2 in. rounds and place cut side down on a serving tray. Use toothpicks to spear rolls for dipping into salsa. Makes about 60

Christmas Passion Mist

Passion Fruit Rum

Cherry Rum
Sprite Zero
Cranberry Juice (with Splenda)
Lemon
Lime
Maraschino cherries

Combine 1 shot of each flavor rum, add Sprite and Cranberry juice to taste.
Add fruit pick of maraschino cherry, lemon slice, and lime slice.
ENJOY!!!!!!!!

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Next Month:

Karaoke Night and Musical Dishes

01/16/11