christmas day menu planning round 1

So it's been a week since my last post. Truth is I have been busy. Heck everyone's busy, ammiright. Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Festivus for the restofus etc. There's tons to do and plan for for the many holidays of the month. I haven't even started on NYE. Way too overwhelming. One day at at time. I have the tree up and it's decorated! Despite my 1.5 year old pulling it down ONTO his little body.... yup! I can laugh about it now. (Not a scratch or brush of anything :) totally unphased and went to try again post broken ornament cleanup.)

Conclusively, I'm glad that it's not due to the fact that I have been uninspired. Quite contrary, I did some practice 12/25 meal prep with photos last week of some recipes and crafts that I had wanted to test initially planning to showcase, but then I realized this all being very knew to me as a novice "blogger" (have I earned that title?) who is just starting out, I just don't have all the wrinkles ironed out yet. We'll get there. In the meantime these are some of the things I tried out. More successes than not .. so yay me! In the order of best to least best. Recipes linked in title.

Pumpkin Hummos.. yum! Although this one could go either way. I grew up on this stuff - plain old homemade hummos that is - so the thought of making it untraditionally and gasp! adding pumpkin could result in an undesirable impression on the 'rents. Luckily the pumpkin flavor is subtle so long as you follow recipe and is almost something of a je ne sais quoi. You notice something different but can't quite put your finger on it. That will be my aha! moment where I reveal the secret ingredient. Then again I am/was planning to use food labels, so there goes that.. oy.


Taste: Yum although tweak lemon/salt/garlic to your liking.
Level: Super easy so long as you have a food processor. Blender would work too.

Parmesan-Herb Roasted Potatoes .. another yum. I never thought to put parm on roasted potatoes. I usually keep it simple with oil, S&P, and some garlic powder. If I'm feeling a little extra fancy I'll bust out the garlic and garlic press but ain't nobody got time for that at 6:30pm on a weeknight. But for Christmas, we're pulling out all the stops. So here we have simple cut potatoes, oil, S&P, garlic, fresh herbs and top it off with shredded parm! Yup so easy and so good.

Taste: Yum. Cook accordingly. (I was cooking something else at 400F prior to putting the potatoes in so they cooked faster a little uneven though.)

Level: Super easy. Be mindful of not burning parm. One thing to consider is lightly dusting parm and then go full force when potatoes are half-way cooked to avoid immediate burning of cheese.

Christmas Salad This one I have not tried yet but I'm really excited about. Finely chopped red cabbage and kale may just be the winning combo for the reluctant kale eaters. Add in pomegranate seeds and dried cranberries.. wowza so simple yet could be so good. I'll probably throw in some shredded feta or goat cheese and perhaps pine nuts. I'm excited for the crunch factor here. Nothing worse then soggy wilted over dressed lettuce leaves.



From my previous post, I tested out these two crafts:

 


Both were super easy and quick! Although, if time allows, I'm planning to spray paint the candy canes gold. I think it will it make for a more elegant look and will pair perfect with the debut of my long-waited gold flatware :)
I have one set of napkins in a heather gray like color that I think will look nice despite not being the color of a tree. Oh well. I have yet to decide what the topper will be but that should finish the look.

Lastly, I tested these out: Red Velvet Cheesecake Cookies
I was so excited for these. Cheesecake filled cookie? Oh yeah. But alas this did not please me as I hoped for. They were by no means a fail but I will not be making these for the big day. They actually came out as pictured although I did not follow thru and complete with the white chocolate icing. I figured this was a testing round and I was more concerned with the cookie then with the icing. I was expecting the cheesecake filling to be the biggest fail and but alas even that stayed put. My gripe is the box cake mix - across the board it seems. I've tried to like the ole mix from a box but it just fails. The quality homemade gooey cookie taste is not there. As I suppose it rightfully just can't be. I love the idea of using a mix for the base of a cookie but the flavor/texture falls flat. Snob I may be but it's just not my cup of tea. Were they awful? No. Tolerable? Absolutely. My son devoured them. But were they what I envisioned them to be? Sadly not close. Will they be tossed? No way. My unofficial taste-testers aka the office crowd will eat these up before lunch. But they are pretty, huh.

Off to round two.