Holiday food

It is probably no surprise that one of my favorite aspects of the holidays - and any holiday - is the food. What better way to celebrate anything than with yummy food?

I made our traditional favorite goodies: chocolate fudge, peanut butter Buckeyes, Chex party mix and sugar cookies. The Buckeyes are time consuming and a bit of a pain to make, but they are so delicious and so much a part of my heritage that I can't imagine not making them; besides, it's the one time a year that I use my double boiler and the only reason I justify keeping it. The Buckeyes are gorgeous, as always:

 
The fudge makes a large amount and I can't figure out a good way of halving the recipe, so we gave away some of the extra fudge to friends and neighbors, along with a few Buckeyes. The components in the Chex mix vary from year to year; the 2012 version contains Rice Chex, almonds, cashews, pecans, Cheese Its and sesame sticks. And although I do like chocolate, it's the salty Chex mix that sings my name like a siren every hour of the day.

James suggested a new treat this year and when I saw that it combined chocolate and salt, I was in. It is a simple dark chocolate bark with potato chips, pretzels and peanuts - it sounds so wrong but it tastes so right. What's not to like about dark chocolate with potato chips?

We don't have traditional Christmas Eve or Christmas dinner menus at our house and this year we are trying some different items. Tonight's Christmas Eve meal will consist of all snack foods: summer sausage, cheese and crackers; chips and dip; sausage twirls, which is biscuit dough spread with sausage, rolled up, sliced and baked: hot Buffalo chicken dip; and party pizza bread. The last two items are new recipes to us and are both from one of my favorite food bloggers, Foodie with Family - girl knows her food. I have made a version of the Buffalo chicken dip previously but her recipe sounds so much better.

For dinner tomorrow, I am making Beef Wellington for the first time. Why? Why not! As I said, we don't have a set menu that we replicate each year and we wanted to try something new, and how can beef tenderloin encased in puff pastry not be delicious? I am not using just one recipe, but an amalgamation of a recipe sent to me by cooking mentor, Jennifer, along with various Food Network versions. It will certainly be a bit of a challenge and new cooking territory for me.

The one holiday that does always have the same menu is New Year's Day, one of my absolute favorite days of the year. Dinner is always pork roast of some kind, served with Hoppin' John and cornbread. Now that is a delicious way to start the new year!