A great recipe for Christmas stollen!

A fellow writer came up with this one! Here's the link for the recipe and photo:

http://holliethomas.hubpages.com/hub/Christmas-Stollen-Recipe-Festive-Food-Ideas

Thanksgiving Ideas: Thanksgiving Appetizers

This post includes holiday ideas for Thanksgiving recipes – more specifically, Thanksgiving appetizers. From what I can gather, serving Thanksgiving appetizers prior to the turkey feast is somewhat new in the South. My mother never followed this practice. I think she spent so much of her energy focusing on the entrees, side dishes, and desserts that she never even thought about making Thanksgiving appetizers. Also, she probably didn’t want us to ruin our appetites for the main attraction.

Several years ago, I attended Thanksgiving dinner at my daughter’s home, and she served several Thanksgiving appetizers. At first, I was a little confused, but it turned out that I enjoyed the strategy. It gave her guests something to do while we were waiting for her to put the finishing touches on her Thanksgiving dinner. I also noted that it helped people to relax and visit with each other before sitting down to dinner.

Thanksgiving appetizers can actually be very easy to make, and if you use some creativity, they can be fun to make and attractive in appearance. I like to use cream cheese as a base for many appetizers. It takes on other flavors well, and it’s easy to mold into different shapes. If you like the Thanksgiving appetizers you see pictured, click the link above to get the recipes!

Party Ideas: Arranging the Foods

This is another installment about holiday ideas and party ideas. I’ve already offered some party ideas in previous posts, and this one is about arranging your party foods. If you’re hosting a dinner party, this information doesn’t apply. This is for parties held in your home, where you serve hors d’oeuvres and finger foods. The strategy you use for arranging and placing your party foods might be more important than you think!

Party foods

Most hostesses like to serve party foods that are easy to eat, without the need for forks or spoons. When you’re planning your party menu, consider how the foods will be eaten and served. Can they be eaten easily? At cocktail parties, most guests will be eating while standing, and guests might be dressed in their better apparel, so you might want to avoid messy sauces and such. No one wants a stain on her cocktail dress.

Serve party foods that are small. Most guests want to try a little of everything, so if you keep the individual servings small, this will be easy. You also want your party foods to be attractive and varied. Include savory foods, creamy foods, spicy foods, and a few sweets.

Have one area to serve as your main food table. The table should be easily accessible from all sides. Place the foods at different heights by using cake stands, tiered serving dishes, and footed dishes. You can use crystal stemware and wine glasses to hold small portions, too.

As you’re arranging the food, take notice of the colors of the party foods. For example, you don’t want to place all the white foods together. Mix up your palette to make your table more attractive. If some foods need toothpicks for serving, place the toothpicks near those foods, and use attractive holders for the toothpicks.

Party foods and party strategy

When you’re having a party, you want your guests to be moving around to different areas and joining in different conversations. You can help this along by placing some party foods in different rooms or areas. Let’s say you have a nice seating area in your library. How do you get guests to venture there? Have a small tray of delicious treats in the room!

Placing some “surprise” party foods around your home will encourage people to move about, helping your event “flow.”

Planning a Party - The Guest List

If you want to have a successful party and be a great hostess, careful consideration should be done when planning a party. You guest list is extremely important! When you first start planning a party, decide on how many people you want to host. Always invite more than you actually plan on having attend. I’ve read that a good rule of thumb is 50%. In other words, about half the number of people you invite to your party will actually attend. I’m not so sure I agree with this figure, however. Attendance rates to my parties are usually significantly higher. In fact, one year we had a Christmas party to which we invited 100 people, and 112 people attended! Not sure how that happened, but it was a great party! Maybe folks were just in the Christmas spirit and in the mood to attend some holiday parties.

If you’re planning a party that’s going to include a large number of guests, be careful not to leave anyone out that you meant to invite. This is easy to do when you have so much to take care of. When I’m planning a big party, I keep a running guest list in my party composition book. When I think of someone I’d like to include, I jot down the names.

When you’re coming up with names for your event, think about the atmosphere that the guests will create. Unless you’re hosting a party for a specific group of people, I strongly suggest mixing it up. In other words, if you’re a teacher, don’t just invite other educators to the party. If you do, the conversations will likely be about nothing but school, grades, curriculum, and students. If that’s what you want, fine. But if you prefer something more interesting, a mixed guest list will be better.

We’ve thrown some great parties, and I attribute much of this success to my guest lists. I always include people from all walks of life and from different socio-economic groups. I also include different ages, even if it’s an adults-only party. At a single party, I’ve had teachers, electricians, doctors, lawyers, coaches, college professors, small business owners, college students, blue collar workers, and farmers. You’d be surprised at how these groups intermingle! It gives guests a chance to get to know people they don’t usually come in contact with. Don’t forget to invite people who have invited you to their parties and events!

Once you have a guest list, you’ll need to decide how you’re going to invite people. Will you mail invitations, or will you make phone calls? Unless I’m hosting a more formal party, I make phone calls to guests. This gives them an opportunity to ask questions about what to wear, about whether kids can come, and/or about what to bring. Know the answers before making the calls. Don’t tell one guest they can bring her kids and tell another potential guest that kids aren’t invited. Some guests will offer to bring a dish to the party. When guests ask me what they can bring, I usually respond by saying something like, “We’ll have plenty of party food, so you don’t need to bring anything unless there’s a special appetizer you’d like to make.” This gives the guest an “out” if they don’t have time or just don’t want to prepare something for the party. In the South, most folks like taking a side dish or party food because they like showing off their cooking skills! Phone calls will also often give you a good idea of who’s planning on attending and who isn’t. some people will tell you up front that they have other plans for that date, while others might tell you they’ll definitely be coming.

Here’s a problem you might run into with your guest list: feuding friends. This has happened to me before. I’d have two friends that didn’t like each other or were quarreling at the time of the party. If you like both friends, how do you handle this? This is what I do: Let’s say Mike and Joe don’t like each other, but I like both of them and want to invite both to my party. In this case, I’ll probably mention to Joe that Mike is coming, and I’ll understand if he doesn’t want to attend, but that we’d love to see him. I’ll tell Mike the same thing. This puts the ball in their proverbial courts. They can decide whether or not they want to attend, without being “blindsided.”

Planning a Party - General Overview

If you’re planning a party, you can make things a lot easier on yourself by taking care of details in advance. If you do, you can actually enjoy your party instead of running around all stressed out. As you think of holiday ideas and party ideas, jot them down. Keep a composition book just for this purpose. Place the composition book by your favorite TV viewing chair, along with a pen. Sometimes I think of great party food and party ideas while I’m “lost” in a movie or television show, and if I don’t write it down immediately, I’ll likely forget about it.

First of all, you need to consider your party theme. Of course, if it’s a holiday party, you won’t have too much to think about in the way of a theme. Otherwise, you’ll have some decisions to make. In considering your theme, you’ll also need to decide if this will be an adults-only party, a kids’ party, or a party for families, with adults and kids invited. You’ll also need to have at least a rough idea of how many people you plan on inviting.

Once you’ve chosen from among hundreds of party themes, decide where your party will be held. The number of party guests will have a big impact on where you’ll hold your event. Will it be indoors or outdoors? Will it be held at your home, or will you rent a party venue? Both have their own advantages and disadvantages.

Next, you’ll need to decide on decorations. Will they be elaborate or simple? Will you do the decorating yourself, or will you hire it done?

Will you have entertainment at the party? If so, what type? Things you might consider are live bands, DJs, and games. Games don’t have to be just for kids. Adults enjoy games and activities, too. Of course, you might not need any entertainment at all. Well planned parties with dynamic guest lists usually create their own entertainment!

Plan your party menu as far in advance as possible. This is usually where most of the stress and effort come from for the hostess. Party food doesn’t have to be expensive or elaborate, but it needs to be tasty and attractive, and you’ll need to make sure you have more than enough.

Bacon Double-Blue Cheese Hamburgers

My family and friends really enjoy homemade hamburgers. We’re always experimenting with different homemade hamburgers recipes and trying out exciting taste combinations. Sometimes they actually get a little wild. The following burger recipe, however, doesn’t really fall into that category. These hamburgers aren’t all that unusual, but they’re definitely tasty! I call them bacon double-blue cheese burgers. Why blue cheese? If you haven’t tried blue cheese with beef burgers, you’re missing out! The two flavors go wonderfully together.

Why “double”? It’s not because each serving contains two hamburger patties, and you don’t double the amount of bacon you’d normally add to a bacon burger. The “double” refers to the blue cheese. With this burger recipe, you get two hits of blue cheese – one on the inside of the burger and one on the outside of the burger. Are you ready for this?

Bacon Double-Blue Cheese Hamburgers recipe

Ingredients you’ll need:

2 pounds lean ground beef

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

½ cup crumbled blue cheese

16 strips bacon

½ cup bottled blue cheese dressing

1 tablespoon mayonnaise

1 teaspoon sugar

½ teaspoon minced garlic

8 French rolls or hamburger buns

Directions: Combine ground beef with salt and pepper. Add blue cheese and form into eight hamburger patties. Refrigerate until firm. While the burgers are firming in the fridge, fry the bacon until almost crisp.

Get the grill ready.

Cook the hamburger patties over medium to medium-high heat until almost done. At that point, move the burgers to a cool area of the grill and place the bacon on top to warm – two slices of bacon per patty. Close the grill lid.

Make the hamburger sauce by combining blue cheese dressing, sugar, and minced garlic.

Remove burgers from the grill carefully and place on buns or rolls. Top with blue cheese sauce.

All-American Apple Pie

This traditional apple pie will be a big hit at your Memorial Day, July 4, or Labor Day meal. After all, what’s more “American” than apple pie? To stay with the red-white-and-blue theme, top pie slices with cherry ice cream and fresh blueberries,  with blueberry ice cream and fresh strawberries or raspberries, or with vanilla ice cream, raspberry syrup, and fresh blackberries.

All-American Apple Pie recipe

Ingredients:

5 cups sliced apples

2 teaspoons lemon juice

½ cup light brown sugar, firmly packed

1/3 cup sugar

¼ cup plain flour

½ teaspoon cinnamon

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

½ teaspoon ground ginger

½ teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon melted butter

2 frozen or fresh pie crusts

Directions: Place apple slices in a large bowl and drizzle with lemon juice. Toss to coat apples.

In another bowl, combine sugars, flour, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and salt. Add to apples and mix, making sure each apple slice is covered with flour and sugar mixture. Turn apple filling into pie crust and drizzle with melted butter.

Top with second crust and seal edges. Cut three slits in top pie crust.

Bake pie for about 50 minutes at 375 degrees. Serve with cherry ice cream and top with blueberries.