Holiday Brunch & Baking

I think I started a tradition that I want to keep every year by hosting a brunch before Christmas.  It gives me a chance to have people over to see our house all decorated, use all of my holiday dishes and see some of my favorite faces. 

I planned a real simple menu with a few "small bite" items.  Cheese spread & crackers, sausage stuffed mushrooms, benedict baskets and warm crescent rolls filled with nutella.  That morning, I had all my recipes spread out and said to Chris that I wished I had that recipe holder that we had seen a few weekends ago as part of a raffle at the bake sale.  Chris gets up from his chair and grabs a gift from under the tree and lo and behold, a new stand to hold our recipes.  I like that it has a cover that will keep all the looseleaf recipes in place. 

I bought a garlic & herb cheese spread and to "Christmas" it up a bit, I added pomegranate seeds.

I found this recipe online after searching for something to make with nutella.  Can't get much easier than buying pillsbury crescent rolls, dropping some nutella at the base of them, rolling them up and baking them. 

I wanted to incorporate meat into the brunch somehow but wanted to do something different than just a sausage breakfast casserole or quiche, so decided to make these sausage stuffed mushrooms by Johnsonville, a recipe I had torn out of a magazine ages ago.  Sorry Johnsonville, but I used Bob Evans traditional sage ground sausage here.  I also added green onion, lemon zest and more lemon juice than it called for.

These Benedict Baskets are from the April 2010 Cuisine at Home magazine, so I've been hanging on to this recipe for awhile now.  I knew I wanted to host a brunch someday I guess!  I pretty much followed the recipe and did a trial run the night before.  The one change I made was that I cooked them about 5 mins longer to cook the egg a bit more and avoid having such a runny egg as they currently make my sister gag.  Your welcome Anna.  The "basket" part is an english muffin, a pretty creative idea I must say. 

It ain't a party without Liam, of course.  Nutella on his face and all.  I usually bring a stepstool in our kitchen for him to stand on when we are cooking.  Yesterday he kept himself busy for a period of time playing at the sink with the water and measuring cups.  I bought him the "All Aboard" choo-choo shirt he is wearing that Anna says he wants to wear everyday even if it has to come out of the dirty laundry.

After years of watching us take pictures, Liam has gotten the hang of it as during the middle of these shots he kept spreading his arms out around us. 

Next up was to bake some treats.  That was a bit...unorganized.  Tara never even baked her cookies and my second cookies were a total flop and turned out like pancakes.  Still a lot of fun though.

Candy cane oreo truffles.  No baking necessary which is nice, but the dipping in the chocolate is a bit of a pain.  I wasn't going for perfection this time around though.  I can't get enough peppermint and chocolate combination currently, so I just wanted to get these babies done so I could eat one.

These cookies were Anna's contribution and the recipe made 3 dozen.

Anna's Warm Nuts.  This is the 2nd year she has made them and we joke that they throw off our whole schedule as they take up the whole oven for 45 mins and have to be turned every 15 so a bit time consuming.  These were the reason that Tara's cookies got bumped.  Well that and the fact that we were also missing a few ingredients for them.  Lol. 

During the end of the baking, Chris had some QT with Liam and kept him entertained so we could finish up in the kitchen. 

This morning I baked a breakfast casserole using all the extra sausage filling, spinach filling and eggs.  Next I'm off to the store for some more ingredients as I am determined to master the cookies of mine that were such a flop yesterday. 

Happy holidays everyone from the Foreseasons!