New Year's Nibbles

We had an awesome New Year's Eve: lots of delicious food, champagne and playing board games and Wii (Just Dance 2 = super fun!).
At Tim's request and to Meghan's delight, I made old-school cheese balls, one just cheddar, one blue cheese and cheddar, both rolled in walnuts, both pretty tasty. I used a recipe from my ancient Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. Better Homes and Gardens is not responsible for the suggestive knife placement, however.I also made 2 types of cute puff pastry swirly things: one with prosciutto, Dijon and Romano, a riff off of Joy the Baker's recipe, and one with feta and spinach. Both tasted great (although the Romano may have been a tad salty, but it's what I had in the house), can be served hot or at room temperature, and the leftovers also reheated well in the oven the next day. Plus, as I said, they were pretty cute.Liz made these awesome mini-roast beef sandwiches with melty Havarti, peach preserves, and chopped walnuts- so good! Plus, they sounded fairly easy to put together, which is always a bonus.Chuck successfully remade a couple of the deviled egg recipes we tried a few months ago... the Sriracha eggs still kick ass, and the herbed deviled eggs are a step up from the usual eggs (although the recipe makes waaaay too much filling). We also had some cute mini-quiches, corn and bead salad, excellent pumpkin bread and other tasty delights...

Grilled Rosemary and Dijon Chicken Thighs

Lots of leftover chicken after our beach weekend. Needed an easy way to cook and use it up quickly... queue Meghan and Liz, who volunteered their rooftop for some grillin'. I marinated the chicken thighs in rosemary, Dijon, honey and garlic, based on this recipe, figuring that was a good flavor combination for re-use of leftovers in chicken salad, etc. I forgot to take a picture of the grilled chicken itself because it was a wee bit dark on the rooftop (better to see the cool moon last night).However, I did get a photo of the chicken salad made with the leftover chicken... made with Greek yogurt, mayo, celery, green onions, apples, dried cranberries and a touch of parsley. Mmm.

Bottom of the Jar Dijon Vinaigrette

I saw this "no waste" Dijon and red wine vinaigrette recipe in a couple different places on the internets recently- it's advertised as a way to efficiently use up those little bits of mustard left clinging to the side of the jar.I reached the end of a jar of stone ground Dijon when making some Dijon and rosemary grilled chicken thighs, so I threw some olive oil, red wine vinegar and salt and pepper into the jar, shook it up.... a tasty vinaigrette, perfect for a crispy salad!

Ham and Cheddar Stuffed Challah: FAIL

I got the idea for this from the source: the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day blog. They did a stuffed challah with strawberries and cream cheese. I took it the savory route, and spread a thin layer of Dijon mustard, then laid down some thinly sliced cheddar and ham and ground some black pepper in there, too.

Something apparently went very wrong, though, because although the outside looked beautiful... the inside was not fully cooked. And by "not fully cooked," I mean totally raw in parts. No amount of heating was cooking those raw parts, either.

Next time I think I will try this method of rolling it out, which doesn't have any dough in the middle of the filling- just on the top and bottom. I had made the spinach and feta stuffed bread several months ago for a book club, and that method was not a failure.

Well, at least the outside layers tasted good!