Christmas Delicious-ness.

As with most families at holidays, food is a big deal at our house.

Unlike many families at holidays, we do not have big meals defined with stuffed birds and mashed potatoes and visiting family.  On Christmas Eve we have church (what with my dad being a pastor and all) and by the time we get home its around 8 pm.  So we do appetizers.  Lots and lots of appetizers.

I'm pretty much obsessed with the book Grazing by Julie Van Rosendaal (her blog is linked to the left) and so all our appetizers this year were from her book.

• Greek Kabobs with Tzatziki  - these we made into meatballs and fried in a little olive oil on the stove mostly because there was no room in the oven.  And we used ground beef rather than lamb.  Because ground lamb is expensive.
• Potato Skins - made with chili powder, curry powder, a little olive oil, fresh green onion, bacon, and freshly grated romano cheese
• Spinach and Artichoke Dip - heavy on the garlic and with a whole lot of roasted red peppers added into the mix, it's delightful.  
• Pizza Bites - Pillsbury Garlic Bread sticks wrapped around pizza toppings and put in the oven for 10-15 minutes.  Dipped in pizza sauce.
• Bruschetta and Crostini (for the recipe, click the bruschetta link to the left).  
• Chex Mix - My little sister's speciality.  She rocks it out by sort of using the basic recipe but adding way more of the spices and using white cheddar cheese its.  We've already gone through 2 huge bowls.

Yeah.  It was delicious.  

My dad firmly believes that Christmas is also about pastry eating.  He came home with 10 gigantic cream puffs, these dark chocolate things (which are like heaven in food form) and a layered chocolate cake.  Only the cake isn't pictured.  All = yummy.

My mother is a big fan of The Pioneer Woman (blog link on left) and requested that we make Dulce de Leche Coffee.  It was yummy too.  We even made our own whipped cream.  Unfortunately, we didn't take any pictures.  

And now, I will be spending a lot of time on my new Wii Fit Plus, working off everything I've eaten this break....