NYE appetizer: Crab Cocktail Spread

One of may go to appetizers is this recipe my sister Regina passed on to me. I lost the original, but was able to find it on Cooks.com, I believe it's the original (correct me if I'm wrong, Reg:)

Crab Cocktail Spread

12 oz. cream cheese, softened

1 tbsp. lemon juice

1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

1/2 tbsp. chopped onion

Garlic salt to taste

6 oz. bottled cocktail sauce

1 (7 1/2 oz.) can lump crab meat

2 tbsp. dried parsley flakes

Assorted crackers

Combine the first 5 ingredients. Spread mixture in a deep 10-inch glass pie plate. Pour cocktail sauce over mixture. Layer the crab on the sauce. Sprinkle parsley over all.

Cover with plastic wrap sealing edges of pie plate and refrigerate overnight. Serve chilled with assorted crackers. Yield 12 to 15 servings.

Tonight for a smaller gathering, I'm going to put them in the fillo dough shells I have!

Apple Venison Meatloaf

1 egg beaten
1/2 cup ketchup
1 Tbsp prepared horseradish
2 cups shredded peeled apples
2 cups unseasoned stuffing cubes
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
1 Tbsp ground mustard
2 pounds ground veison

In a large bowl. combine the 1st seven ingredients. Crumble venison over the mixture and mix well. Pat into ungreaased 9" X 5" loaf pan. Bake uncovered at 350 for 60-70 minutes or until no pink color remains and a meat thermometer reads 160. Serves 8.

Eileen, I was thinking of you when my old neighbor Marie showed me this from a magazine:)

Questions from a non-beef lover.

In your Individual Beef Wellington recipe from Sunday, November 2, 2008 it calls for Beef tenderloin. I was at the supermarket yesterday and the only Beef tenderloin they had in the case was $75 and that's way more meat than I could ever use. What do I look for? Additionally do you put the whole 4-6 oz piece in the puff pastry or do you cut it up? Searing is quickly in a hot skillet on each side? Thanks for the help, I'm going to make the beef, salmon with dill and the chicken with carmalized onion and blue cheese for Christmas Day! (Added bonus of carmalized onion, bacon, and smoke gouda pizza on Wed:)

Snow Day Recipes

The snow started falling early this Saturday, and I am thrilled to be stuck inside with the family, enjoying a lovely fire, playing games, doing crafts... and ready to start my baking.

We started our day with George's pancake breakfast. I will be making a nice big pot of Mom's clam chowder later. In between, we will be baking Christmas cookies and making Irish cream. What a great way to spend the weekend! I am really looking forward to these Chocolate Mint-filled cookies from recipegirl.com:

http://www.recipegirl.com/2008/07/31/chocolate-mint-filled-cookies/#ixzz0a92OhZDE

CHOCOLATE-MINT-FILLED COOKIES
www.RecipeGirl.com

6 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
2 cups flour
2/3 cup butter, softened
¼ cup light corn syrup
2 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
1 large egg
sugar for rolling
48 Andes Mints

1. In saucepan, heat chips on low heat until melted and smooth.

2. In a large bowl with mixer, beat melted chocolate, flour, butter, corn syrup, baking soda, salt, egg and ½ cup sugar until blended. Increase speed to medium and beat until well-mixed, scraping bowl with rubber spatula. Wrap dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate until easy to handle (2 hours).

3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place some sugar in a small bowl. Shape dough into balls. Roll balls in sugar and bake on cookie sheet 12-15 minutes.

4. Immediately remove ½ of cookies from cookie sheet onto work surface. Top each cookie with 2 mints and place the other half of the cookies on top. If your freezer is big enough, place in freezer until set, or leave at room temperature until set.

Servings: 24
Yield: 2 dozen

Cooking Tips
*These taste divine while still warm, and they are a great frozen treat as well.
**Andes brand mints can be found in the candy section of most stores.

Hope anyone else stuck inside this weekend takes the time to enjoy the forced break from the holiday chaos.

Christmas Bread

It must be a hold over to growing up but I love making bread for teachers for christmas. Usually I do pumpkin. I did make a chocolate muffin this fall and am thinking of turning that it to a loaf.

I happen today to have a lot of leftover chopped up apples so was thinking of make an apple bread. I found this and thought I'd try Apple-cranberry bread

I also have a lot of bananas and thought I'd do Bridget's chocolate chip banana bread. My question - The apple recipe talks about making the batter and freezing until ready to bake. That would be great! Would it also work for the banana bread? Can I freeze in the aluminum loaf pans I got?

Bridget, would you post your recipe for Veggie Chili?

Pumpkin Cheesecake Cupcakes!

I really want to try these soon:) http://www.rachaelraymag.com/recipes/rachael-ray-magazine-recipes/sweet-spot-dessert-recipes/Cheesecake-Filled-Pumpkin-Cupcakes
I may have to wait until after the holiday baking is done. We'll see!

Pumpkin Cheesecake on a pop?

For Thanksgiving I made pumpkin cheesecake. I have leftover in the freezer. I was thinking of trying these - http://www.bakerella.com/cheesecake-pops/ Questions 1. Do you think using frozen thawed out cheesecake would be ok? 2. I was thinking white chocolate would be a better choice with the pumpkin - what do you think? 2. Would you cover in sprinkles or is there another option you might try?

Christmas Taffy

Last weekend my mother-in-law made christmas taffy with 6 grandchildren ages 5 to 10. The kids had a wonderful time. Mine were very excited about getting to rub butter on their hand, something they had never done before. Here is the recipe they used. They made lemon/line and cherry, the red and green colors were great. She divided the candy in half and then put a half of package of koolaide in in each one. Worked great so they could have Christmas colors. I no longer have a picture of the taffy, or the taffy. As Maeve just reminded me it doesn't have to be Christmas Taffy.

Christmas cookies

I'm putting together my list of cookies I'll be baking for Christmas so I can shop for the necessary ingredients and bake them slowly over the next few weeks. So far I'm hoping to make: gingersnaps, chai spice girls, pecan bars, bourbon balls, date and nut balls, peanut butter temptations, creme de menthe brownies and fudge. I was wondering do you have any creative ideas for packaging them to give as gifts.

What are your best leftover ideas for ham?