Week Five: Holidays!

Today’s prompt is so appropriate for me: “Holiday Bake Day! – What are you planning on baking over the winter holidays? Do you make cake, or cookies? Or something savory?”

ALL OF THE ABOVE!

No, seriously. I LOVE the holiday season! And I love holiday baking and entertaining. Steven and I are hosting a holiday party in a few weeks — the first party in our new house — and you better believe I’ve already started planning the menu. Since we’ll have 20+ guests, we won’t serve dinner, but we’ll whip up a boatload of snacks and drinks to keep everyone happy. That’s what we did last year — check out the spread at our 2015 holiday party.

Last year’s menu was such a success that I probably won’t change it too much this year. Here’s a rough outline, along with my notes:

• Savories:
  • Homemade vegan cheeses
    • One of Maple Spice’s almond-based cheeses; these are SO easy and yummy!
    • Avocados and Ales’ aquafaba cheddar
    • Something else, probably one of Miyoko’s recipes
  • Crackers, some store-bought and some homemade because I like to make things more complicated than necessary
  • Hot caramelized onion-bacon dip — a perennial favorite; I think our guests would boycott the party if we didn’t serve it.
  • Sliced baguettes (store-bought)
  • Veggie crudités
  • A couple other dips — mushroom pâté? olive tapenade? a classic hummus?
• Sweets:
  • Regular fudge
  • Maple fudge (insert heart-eyes emoji here)
  • Gingerbread cookies? Or regular gingerbread, and sugar cookies instead?
  • Candied nuts
  • Something else — pie? cake? cupcakes? Probably a cake.
• Sippables:
  • Mulled wine
  • Assorted beer, wine, and hard liquor
  • Various mixers (cranberry juice, apple cider)
  • At least one cocktail — I made cranberry martinis (with homemade cranberry simple syrup) and this creamy coconut cocktail (with homemade coconut-infused vodka and coconut cream) last year

What am I missing? What would you choose for my TBD items? And do you want to come to my party? :P