I made these Jalapeno Crescent Poppers over the weekend. We had a few friends over and I wanted to try a few new appetizers. These were awesome! So easy - so few ingredients and so yummy! I used a tube of the crescent roll sheet. It made less than the original recipe said it would, but I probably could have cut them a bit smaller to make more. I also made a baked brie. I looked at several different recipes on-line and sort of improvised. I bought a larger wheel of Brie (maybe 12 oz...I can't remember). I also used the crescent roll sheet for the brie - I had wanted to use a puff pastry, but it was considerably more expensive than the crescent roll. I rolled out the crescent roll and spread some apricot jam on it (maybe a 1/4 cup). I set the Brie on top and then wrapped it in the crescent roll. I brushed the top with an egg yolk mixed with a little bit of water and baked it for about 30 minutes. Next time, I'll probably follow some of the tips I read online about trimming the ends of the dough. There were some pieces that were a bit undercooked, but mostly it was perfectly cooked.
I also made this Baked Ziti. I followed the recipe with the exception of using the whole box of pasta (16 oz.) and I used basil out of a tube instead of fresh. It was delicious! One of my friends decided to become a vegetarian on January 1st, so this was a great vegetarian friendly dish. We served 6 people this for dinner and I've had at least four more servings for lunches. This made a lot of food and it is very filling. I don't miss the meat at all.
As usual, I made a lot of cookies for Christmas. This year, I added a few new recipes to the cookie tray and retired a few old ones. Included on the cookie tray were:
- homemade turtles (a pretzel, topped with a rolo - baked for about 4 minutes and then topped with a pecan)
- Triple Chip Cookies (you can find the recipe here - these replaced the "Neiman Marcus" chocolate chip cookies that I have made for years)
- Magic Cookie Bars (I'm linking a recipe, but I've never used one...my mom has made these forever and I just use whatever I have on hand for the layers - normally chocolate chips, butterscotch chips and coconut - no nuts)
- Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies (these are always popular, but they are not my favorite)
- Snickerdoodle Brownies - this was a new recipe this year - they were pretty good, but I did make a few changes; after reading the reviews, I decided to mix half of the cinnamon/sugar mixture in with the batter instead of sprinkling on the bottom of the pan and sprinkled the rest on top)
- Homemade Peanut Butter Cups - these were so good! I made them for Thanksgiving and Christmas and they were a hit at both!
I think that's it for the Christmas Cookies. It's always a lot of work, but oh so delicious!
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