Smoked Salt & Pepper

We threw a New Year's Eve party this year and it was lots of fun with some good friends.  I love trying out new recipes when I've got plenty of people to give me opinions, so I tried a few that I'd been saving up.  I worked New Year's Eve, so I did want to make sure I could either semi-home-make some or prepare them ahead of time.  None of these recipes are season specific, so they would be great for any party. My menu fore New Year's.  Click on link for recipes Cheese from Antonelli's Cheese Shop (brie, gruyere, gouda, and blue cheese) with homemade wheat crackers : why let crackers be an after-thought? Meatballs in tangy sauce : Reid's grandma introduced me to this easy and delish meatball appetizer Furikake Chex Mix : sweet, salty, umami, addicting! Pop over to my friend's blog for the recipe Meyer's Elgin Pork Sausage on pretzel sticks with mustard: no link, you can figure this one out! Sweet Potato Pancakes : bite-sized sweet potato latke...

You cannot be a proper Tex-Mex lover without eating at least 1 quart of queso per year.  I'm pretty sure I started the year off in the right direction by making this copy-cat Kerbey Queso for NYE.   Kerbey Lane Queso is my favorite in Austin.  So creamy, so cheesy, and so good.  White queso with pico and a scoop of guacemole in it that you kind-of have to dig around in, which makes it soooo good.  Have I said how good it is? That being said, I've tried so many queso recipes.  I've made beschemels, I've used expensive, good cheeses.  No queso seems to hold that creamy consistency very well.  So when one of my friends, Rachel, was back home in Austin from her now home-town in Seattle she asked one of the servers what's in it.  She just had to know.  The server leaned in close to her and whispered, "it's white processed cheese."  OMG, my mind was blown.  No wonder it's so flippin' good.  I think the HEB brand white queso is...

This is so good and soooo simple!  I watched Reid's grandma, Mimi, make it for Christmas and it is so good.  I probably ate way too many meatballs because of this sweet, sour, salty sauce.  And, it has 3 ingredients!  Little old Southern ladies know where it's at!  Thanks, Mimi! Ingredients: frozen, store-bought meatballs 1/2 jar of any tart jam (IE: cherry, strawberry, blackberry), I used blackberry 1/2 c. ketchup Directions: Defrost/cook meatballs according to directions.  Combine jam, ketchup and sauce in a small Crock pot.  Stir and serve!

I have a Martha Stewart magazine subscription and it always inspires me to try new things.  Like baking my own wheat crackers! The recipe sounded easy enough, so I thought I'd try to make them for our NYE party.  And the description really won me over, something along the lines of, "don't let your crackers be an after-thought."  I definitely changed the original recipe quite a bit, as the original recipe did not have enough wet ingredients for me to keep the dough together.  I ended up using about twice the amount of cream that the recipe called for.  It did end up really tasty, though! And, you can make extra to store in the freezer for up to 3 months! A great accompaniment to delicious cheeses from Antonelli's Cheese Shop , our neighborhood cheese shop.  Their cheese mongers are the best and helped Reid pick out a good Gouda, Brie, Gruyere and blue cheese. Ingredients: 1 c. whole wheat flour 2 tbs. sesame seeds, plus more for sprinkling 2 tbs. s...

Sweet potato pancakes, or latkes, would also be great for a Hanukkah party.  We served them at our New Year's Eve party and they were definitely a hit.  They were especially good right after I fried them, but were decent room temperature, too.  The original recipe from  Food52  also had the option of topping with caviar, but I thought that was a bit decadent. Ingredients: 4 c. coarsely grated sweet potatoes (about 2 medium sized sweet potatoes) 1/2 c. grated onion (1/2 medium sized onion) 3-4 tbs. fresh lemon juice freshly ground pepper, to taste 4 eggs, beaten 1/3 c. flour canola oil for frying Greek yogurt or apple sauce, for serving fresh chives, minced, for sprinkling Directions: Use a food processor or box grater to grate sweet potatoes and onion. In a large bowl, combine sweet potato, onion, lemon juice, eggs, flour, and pepper.  Can be made ahead of time and stored up to 2 days covered in refrigerator. Heat a large, straight-sid...

What's in your Christmas cookie tin?  In previous years, I usually just do gingerbread mean, but this year I was really in the holiday spirit and baked gingerbread cookies, Christmas Kisses thumbprint cookies, magic bars, peppermint bark, and no-bake chocolate bon-bons.  I gifted these to the techs, receptions, and vets at my work and my family.  Each of these recipes are relatively easy and simple, and I even used a mix to cut down on work for the thumbprint cookies.  The peppermint bark especially, was very tasty to test-try.  The peppermint bark rivals the famous William-Sonoma ones. The gingerbread men are my favorite recipe for producing perfectly crispy on the outside, but chewy on the inside gingerbread men.   The no-bake 5 ingredient bon-bons are great because they use almond butter instead of peanut butter which means my peanut-allergic-self can make them without fear that my fingers will swell up! Gingerbread man recipe from Food Network Kitch...

As a veterinarian, I was really concerned about the tainted jerky treats that were coming from China a few years ago (although some deaths still being reported today).  There were a lot of dogs that got really sick, some going into kidney failure and dying, from chicken jerky products coming from China.  Since this has happened, PetCo and PetSmart have been trying to only stock American sourced treats, so it makes me sleep a little easier.  Of course most of the general public aren't reading the back of the treat backs to see where the sources come from, like me, so if you want to be extra careful, make your own treats! I've seen loads of homemade dog treat recipes and yes, they are cute! But who has time to really make your dog biscuits from scratch? I can hardly convince most dog owners to brush their dog's teeth because most of them don't even have time to brush their own teeth!  You can also buy really cute, gourmet treats from boutique dog stores (like Woof Ga...