Week Four: Entertaining
Party! Canapés, finger foods, something to share.

Guess what? We already have our annual winter holiday party scheduled. People’s calendars fill up fast come December, so we decided to send out the evites nice and early this year. I’ve also started thinking about the menu. Typically we like to set out a massive spread of savories, sweeties, and lots of drinks, and I doubt we’ll stray from that formula this year. But I am toying with the idea of a more themed menu — like, maybe I’ll feature recipes from different countries. We’ll see. In the meantime, here’s a slightly blurry shot of last year’s spread — with bonus Moria butt under the table. This was our first holiday party in the new house!

Here’s a tentative list of what we’ll prepare for our lucky guests, heavily inspired by last year’s menu.

• Savories:
  • Homemade vegan cheeses
    • One of Maple Spice’s almond-based cheeses — you can’t go wrong with these!
    • A nut-free cheese ball from Vegan Richa; this one is particularly yummy
    • A third cheese, probably one of Miyoko’s
  • Crackers!
  • Hot caramelized onion-bacon dip — we are pretty much contractually obligated to serve a double batch of this dip at every party.
  • Sliced baguettes for dippin’
  • Veggie crudités, also for dippin’
  • One more dip, perhaps a mushroom pâté
  • One or two more little nibbles. Last year I made lasagna bites and Steven made sausage rolls, so we’ll do something along those lines again.
• Sweeties:
  • Maple fudge
  • A couple batches of cookies. Duh. I think I’d like to bring back Isa’s Mexican hot chocolate snickerdoodles; I haven’t made these in ages and they’re so good.
  • Candied nuts, ‘cuz they’re good for easy snackin’.
  • Some kind of cake, or maybe gingerbread?
• Sippables:
  • Mulled wine
  • Assorted beer, wine, and hard liquor
  • Various mixers (cranberry juice, apple cider)
  • At least one cocktail — maybe something featuring aquafaba, because I’m digging it in flips and fizzes lately.

If you have any recommendations, share away! And if this post seems familiar, you’re right — I posted a similar one last year during MoFo. :) You’re all invited to this year’s party!

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