Hollybloggers!

Last night was the first annual Halibloggers Christmas Potluck and Cookie Exchange!  In honor of our first official 5km run/walk together we decided to get together to get organized and do what we seem to do best…eat!

In preparation for the night I ate pretty light during the day…mostly because I was busy and didn’t get around to a proper lunch but somewhat because I knew dinner was going to be HUGE!

Half-caf with splooooosh of egg nog…

Whole wheat English muffin with peanut butter & jam…

Perfectly ripe bartlett pear.  I love a good pear!

Between working and puttering around the house getting things ready, I made one of my contributions to the potluck.  I might have made extra bacon and nibbled that as “lunch”.  :)

Blue Cheese & Bacon Dip 

• 1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese
• 1/4 cup light cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup light sour cream
• 1/4 cup crumbled crispy bacon
• 1 tbsp honey (to taste)
• 2 tbsp minced red onion
• fresh ground pepper
• 2 tbsp fresh minced Italian parsley (and extra for garnish)(I omitted this as the supermarket was out)

Mix everything together.  Taste and adjust seasoning to taste.  Refrigerate for at least one hour.

This recipe was adapted from a potato skin recipe I’ve used a few times, but for tonight I decided to go the healthier route of using Belgian endive leaves instead.  So good!

Other options: skip the bacon & add dried cranberries or apricots, add toasted walnuts or pecans, serve with crackers or crudite.

 

Other appetizers included Angie’s mushroom caps…

Lex’s Extradordinary Epicure Cheese Dip in a sourdough bread bowl…

(I just ordered the extraordinary dip mix pack from her and now I know it was a GREAT choice!!)

And Tasha’s bruschetta…baguette with perfect little heirloom tomatoes and sundried tomato havarti…

And because we really know how to bring the food…there’s more!

Dinner included Lynn’s homemade black bean burgers…

And Farm Girl’s jambalaya (we’ve all been harassing her for the recipe!)…

 

And because it’s what I do, I made the bigass salad! 

Mixed greens, matchstick carrots, matchstick beets, English cucumber, grape tomatoes, red onion & yellow pepper.  With Renee’s Spring Herb dressing.

 

That’s a whole lotta food!  I kept myself busy in the kitchen and tried not to snack tooooo much on the appies. We were having fun doing a Skype video chat with our lovely Miss Jen way over there in Fort McMurray!!  Why have we not been doing this all along?!!  It was like having our little Jenny right here with us for a few minutes.  Now someone just needs to invent a way to hug and smoooosh via the computer!!!

 

We kept hydrated with “fancy water”.  Sparkling mineral water (and later still water) with fresh slices of orange, lemon & lime…

 

This was also our cookie exchange…so I now have five dozen fabulous cookies staring at me from the kitchen counter!

Yikes!  I’m soooo diving into those AFTER doing some activity this weekend!!!  Good thing we have that 5km Santa Shuffle today!

Thanks again to all my lovely ladies for popping over for fun, food and festivities!!!  Merry Christmas!!!