NatalieKMudd: Hosting Christmas....special recipes

Every year I host Christmas for my side of the family. Weeks in advance I am planning the menu, set up, decorations, centerpieces and dessert table. I make lists for everything, shopping, food, desserts, and gifts. I'm a huge planner and have to do everything early including prepping early. Doing things this way helps me not to be stressed and just enjoy hosting events. I even draw out a layout set up for food table, appetizer table and dessert table. A couple days before I am chopping and preparing everything that can possibly be made ahead of time. I do all these things because it really helps to stay super organized for all my events I host. This year I made a turkey, garlic mash potatoes, sweet caramel pecan glazed potatoes, cream of spinach, homemade noodles, stuffing, white balsamic salad, corn and biscuits. For appetizers I made three dips, a sausage cheese Rotel dip, guacamole, sweet relish pepper dip. For the dessert table there were Cake pops, Brownie pops, Sugar cookies, Shortbread cookies, Oreo and Vanilla Truffles, Marshmallow Peppermint Pops, Rice Crispy Treat Tree pops, Cake batter cookies, Chocolate covered pretzel sticks and Peanut Butter snowflake cookies. Some specialty drinks I made were a Holiday Sangria, Holiday Sherbet Punch, Iced Vanilla Lattes. We just celebrated last night and had a wonderful time. Below I will share some of my recipes of the night. Enjoy!

Cream Of Spinach

5 Tablespoons

1/4 c. flour

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. pepper

1 dash of ground nutmeg

1 c. half and half cream

4 oz. cream cheese

1 small onion - chopped

3 cloves of garlic minced

2 - 10 oz. pkg. of frozen chopped spinach (thawed)

1/4 c. water

1/4 c. Parmesan cheese

In a 2-quart sauce pan over medium-low heat melt 3 tablespoons of butter, stir in flour, salt, pepper, and nutmeg; slowly whisk in cream, stir in cream cheese.

Increase heat to medium, whisk mixture constantly until thick and smooth; remove from heat and set aside.

In a skillet over medium-high heat, cook onions and garlic in remaining 2 tablespoons of butter until tender; stir in spinach and water into pan.

Reduce heat to medium-low; cover;simmer;stirring occasionally, for 8 minutes.

Stir spinach mixture into creamy; return to medium heat; heat, stirring often, until warmed throughout.

Remove from heat and fold in Parmesan cheese.

Sweet Caramel Pecan Glazed Potatoes

3 cups sweet mashed potatoes

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs beaten slightly

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 c. milk

1/2 c. butter

Topping:

1/2 c, brown sugar

1/3 c. flour

1/3 c. melted butter

1 cup of chopped pecans

Bake 5 sweet potatoes in the oven at 350 for a couple of hours or until done. When done take peels off and mash up the sweet potatoes in the bowl. Combine the first 6 ingredients together in a buttered 2-quart casserole dish. Mix remaining topping ingredients together and sprinkle over the top. Bake for 35 minutes.

Homemade Noodles

This is my mother in law Sherry's family recipe. She makes these for the family for special occasions and they are wonderful. These are a great addition to a turkey dinner. I started making them a couple of years ago and now my family enjoys them too.

Ingredients:

dozen of large eggs

water

1/2 bag of flour

1-2 tsp. salt

Ia a large bowl crack all eggs and put them in. Beat them with a 1/2 of egg shell of cold water. Add 1-2 tsp of salt. Beat well. Add in flour. Use just about a half of bag. Consistency must be able to roll out. Knead with hands. Flour surface. Roll out dough thin. Allow to dry for 5 hours or longer. Then cut with a pizza cutter into small strips.

When cooking them use your turkey juice from your turkey and cook in a pot with the noodles for 30-40 minutes or until done. You can also add some chicken stock to the turkey juice if you don't have enough.

Here is my lovely turkey!

Before...

After...

Here is my mother in laws delicious Vanilla Iced Latte's

Ingredients:

Starbucks Espresso Ground 1 heaping cup

1 1/2 c. vanilla syrup

2. cups sugar

1 gallon 2 % milk

Brew coffee in a 10 cup coffee maker using a heaping cup of ground Starbucks espresso. In a large bowl pour hot coffee and dissolve 2 cups of sugar and vanilla. Add milk. Using a funnel pour back into the milk jug until ready to use. Serve with whipped cream and sprinkles.

Holiday Punch

2 liters of sprite

2 liters of strawberry crush

1 large container of Sherbet

Pour into punch bowl and serve...