Cooking Christmas Party Foods with Patti!

Well, hello, family, and let the party and the festivities begin. It’s certainly is that time of year when everybody is thinking about entertaining and what to make. What should we have? Who should come? When should we do it? A lot of parties are done before the holidays. Some are during that week between Christmas and New Year’s, which is a nice time. The house is decorated and all the presents are wrapped and opened and everything. So that’s kind of nice to do. And then there’s always the New Year’s Eve. Well, today what I’m going to show you is some ideas that you could do before Christmas, during Christmas, or even for New Year’s. These are all party foods, things that you can make fast, and easy, and enjoy your guests. You can make them ahead of time so you don’t have to be stuck in the kitchen. That’s the worst thing a hostess can do, is be stuck in the kitchen making the food while all the guests are there for the party. So you want to plan ahead as much as you can. And we’ve fine tuned it and we think that there’s a lot here and we hope that you’re going to enjoy. Take notes. Call somebody and say, “Hey, today we’re making party foods with Arlene. You might want to watch it.” Okay? We’ll be back in just a minute right after the hint, and so stay with us. We’ll be right back. Here’s today’s At Home Hint. Family, this is a great week to write your Christmas cards, inventory, your linens for holiday entertaining and begin your baking. Be sure to wrap, seal, and label your goodies for storage in the freezer. If you’ve got a helpful hint, we want to hear from you. Send your hint to At Home Hints Cornerstone Television, Wall, Pennsylvania 15148-1499. Well, Patty, the prep help is here and we’re getting ready for the holidays and we’re going to make some delicious party foods. What are you going to start with, Patty?

I’m starting with two-way meatballs.

Two-way meatballs. Like north and south, or east and west.

Anyway. One is with the tomato sauce and one is like with the gravy, brown gravy sauce.

Okay. Now these are interesting. Tell us how you made the meatballs. These are the meatballs that you-

These were so simple.

What is it?

Ground meat, two pounds of ground meat. And you used the package of stove top stuffy mix.

Okay. Dry?

Dry.

Just dry. Okay.

And then you put one in a quarter cups of water and two large eggs. Mix them up. I mean, lean together. So nice, rolled them in nice, big balls and pop them in the oven.

So you made like 32.

Right, 16.

Okay, 16 and 16. And then you baked them in the oven and brown —

I baked them in the oven.

How long did you bake them for?

About 15 minutes.

Oh, that’s great. That’s really good.

Yeah.

And, boy, they look nice. They’re nice and big.

This is perfect.

Tasty. Okay. And now you’re going to make sauces.

Right.

The first one is going to be a tomato basil?

Right.

So what do we put in that one?

That’s real simple. You use jarred tomato sauce about 14 ounces.

Let’s turn that on. Yeah. Okay.

Okay.

And that also has some cubed cream cheese —

Yeah.

— which makes it the cream. I don’t know if you like creamed tomato sauce on your pasta, but this is awesome. You know, you could even if you wanted to make this and make it a dinner and put it over angel hair.

Oh, that would be wonderful.

It’s awesome. Yeah, that’s very good.

And this little basil, fresh basil.

Fresh basil. And you let that just cream.

Yeah.

And then you’re going to put the meatballs into that sauce and let them warm through on a very low heat.

Right.

Okay. And what’s the other one then?

The other one is simpler yet.

Okay.

You take brown gravy.

A jar of brown gravy.

Jar of brown gravy, just pour that in.

Want to make sure we get all that out of there too. So we’ll let that drain because we’re going to need that. Yeah.

Yeah. We’re getting it all.

Yeah. And there’s just some sour cream.

Sour cream.

That’s going to make like a stroganoff. What’s wrong with that? Nothing.

And I know there’s fresh parsley, but that might be for decoration, right?

Later. Yeah.

And that’s all you do.

Okay. When I see some Parmesan cheese. What’s that for?

That’s for afterwards.

Which one? For this one.

Sprinkle one for this one afterwards. Right.

Okay. So that’s all you do?

So how you do that — yeah. That’s all you do.

So when this gets going and it gets nice and warm.

Right.

That’s all you do. Cool. So you’re going to put one 16 of these in there.

Right.

And 16 in there.

Right.

And there’s two appetizers that quick.

Right.

Can’t beat that. You can make these the day before. There’d be no problem. That’s a quick and easy one.

Oh, yeah.

Great. All right. I’m going to — while she’s finishing up on that one, I’m going to make a chicken tree — I’m sorry, Christmas tree chicken salad. Okay. And I have eight boneless, skinless chicken breasts halves that have been cooked. And then we put them in a food processor to really grind them up very, very thin. Also, I have seven hard, boiled eggs that we’ve also put into that same food processor because we want this to be really fine. And we’re going to mix these up really well. We have some celery, about three fourths of a cup of celery, chopped. You don’t want to put that in a food processor because of that being stringy, that really makes it very like stringy in there. You don’t want that. So you just really makes this. I love chicken salad. That’s one of those things. Put on a cracker, put on a croissant. You can put it in a tomato. You can put it on a piece of toast and it’s just versatile. And we’re going to put some sweet relish in there. Just a third of a cup.

Now, I’m going to do some salt. This is kosher salt and some pepper to taste. You like a lot, put it in. You want to put some hot stuff? People like the hot stuff. Go for it. But I’m just going to mix this up. Make sure you want to blend it well. How are we doing over there Patty?

It’s all good.

Looks like that gravy is really cranking.

Yeah. It’s going.

No, I think I’d drop those —

Meatballs in that.

Yeah, I would do them right now. I think that’s good. Because you’re going to want to turn that low once it gets cranking so that they can —

I dropped them.

You dropped them. All right. Huh? Might need to thin that down a little bit.

You don’t want to stand next to me with the white.

I know for sure.

This looks good.

But that will really work well when it starts to cook and thins it down some of the juices.

Oh, yeah, well.

It will be great.

And it’s say —

This time of the year, you know, you want to make things that people enjoy and you want to do something a little different. You don’t want to always to be the same. And I saw these recipes and I thought, that’s a little something different. That would be good. And who doesn’t like meatballs? If you should happen to have any leftover, you could also, like I said, cook some pasta. It would be great.

All right. You can do this one without spilling it. There we go.

And they don’t have to, you know, once you get it cranking, then you turn it way low. So they just simmer. Just barely simmer.

Yeah.

Yeah. Make sure they get covered. That’s good.

Oh, yeah. These are going to be really good.

Yeah. I think they’re —

This would be good over pasta.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, my goodness.

How about a quick supper with that, huh?

Oh, heck yeah.

Very good.

And it takes no time to throw it together.

Right. In 15 minutes you bake them and then you’re going to cook them a little bit more once they get in the sauces.

Oh, yeah.

That’s great.

Yeah.

Okay. Patty, why don’t you move on to this next one that you’re going to do for us while I finish up my Christmas tree here?

Yeah. We’re doing the feta cheese foldovers.

Yeah. Now that’s on a puff pastry.

Right.

You start out with a puff pastry.

Which I got to pull that out of the fridge.

Okay. Because you have to keep that warm, I mean, cold. Because if it gets warm, you won’t be able to maneuver. It’ll just like —

Yeah, it just gets a little too sticky.

Too sticky is right. Now I’m just —

I’m going to put my stuff together and we’ll get rid of a bowl here.

There I give you some room, huh?

Get some room going.

Yeah.

All you do is mix the feta cheese, which is about 8 ounces of feta cheese.

Okay. And we love feta. That’s crumbled cheese.

Crumbled up cheese. And then green onion, which is cup real finely chopped.

Okay.

About three tablespoons or so of that.

Okay.

And put an egg in it.

Now we want to —

Fold it together.

Yeah. And we definitely want to be sure that the oven is on 375. That’s a nice hot oven.

We mix this filling up, which is — takes nothing to do.

You know, while she’s doing that, let me show you what I’m going to do with my salad here. My chicken salad. I think I’ve got it mixed well enough. You want to get a nice big platter because what you’re going to do is shape this into a tree. And that’s going to look great. Jumping out of my — there we go. I think they need to — It’s such a big waffle. I feel like, jeez. I keep mixing and mixing it and feels like it still needs some more.

Yeah. You’re making a big tree there.

I am. This is like a big old elm tree here. Forget the little Christmas tree. We’re going for the elm tree. Okay. Now you want to keep in mind that you want to keep it shaped like a tree. Okay. So keep adding to it. And you have the puff pastry, right?

Yes, I do. Okay.

I’m unfolding it and then you cut this into squares.

Ah, okay.

This needs turned down. I’m watching it.

Yeah, really low. Really, really low.

Yeah. That was starting to steam a little bit more than —

Yeah. And you want to make — when you’re doing this tree, you want to make that edge defined really, really straight because you’re going to go back and clean that up later. But on both sides you want that — you want to see that prominent edge of the tree.

Okay. We’re supposed to do 12-three inch squares.

Okay.

So if we do three and then do four this way.

Right. Now, this is why it’s important that you do your —

Math.

Absolutely. So you can always be sure that you know how to —

Count.

— to cut them and count. That’s right. Okay. Move that out of the way. Then I’m going to take these are going to be my little — — trunks of the tree. Just putting those in.

That is just too cute.

Tell me that’s not cute. I love it. Then you can take this kind of a spatula and really just smooth it just like that. And we’re going to do some more smoothing of that a little bit later just because we want it to look pretty. But you get the idea. Then what you’re going to do, haha, it’s decoration time. Look at this. Is this cute or what? We’re putting on our Christmas ornaments all over the tree, just like that. Well, we’re going to keep working and when we come back, you’re going to see some more of our party foods for the Christmas holidays. Stay tuned. Well, if you just joined us, we’re making party foods for the holidays and I hope that you’re getting some good ideas because I think we’re giving them some good ideas, right?

Oh, heck, yeah.

Okay. Now, we have to have a dessert. All the stuff we made so far is in the oven baking. You’ll see it at the end of the show. And all of these recipes are in detail, so you won’t have any problem. But Patty makes this — it’s called chocolate chip cheesecakes. And they’re little individual cheesecakes, and that’s what she’s going to put together for us. Go ahead.

You start off with cream cheese, a third cup of sugar, and an egg. And that’s just like the topping part. And you just beat it up real well.

Just one egg?

Just one egg.

Okay.

And then just beat it till it’s nice and creamy.

You know, while she’s doing that, I’m going to make spinach stuffed mushrooms. And this is just a box of, again, our stuffing mix because that’s very versatile. We’ve got a lot of flavorings in there. And I just added some boiling water to it to moisten the crumbs because this is going to be the filling for — in our mushrooms. So when all of that is pretty much absorbed, — go, Patty. Go, Patty.

I’m going.

When that’s pretty much absorbed like it is here, then we’re going to start to add some things. I have a box of spinach that we have thawed, drained well, and actually squeezed it dry. That goes in.

And some cheese. We have some — this is mozzarella, a cup of mozzarella cheese. Hello.

Hello.

And we have some Parmesan cheese. It’s going in. And, Patty, you have a little pan or something over there you’re going to hand to me, please.

Yes. Right here.

And what we’ve done here is just taken a couple of tablespoons of butter and we melted it. Thank you. And its stems, some of the stems from the mushrooms. We have that in here, and a little bit of garlic. You just want to cook that a little bit. You don’t want to like cook it to death. And then we’re going to add that. That’s going to add so much flavor. You will not believe how good it is. And the garlic smell is like — it’s not a lot, it’s just a little bit. But boy, is it good. What are we doing there now, Patty?

Okay, I got that done. So now we’re going to add the flour, which is like 2 and 1/4 cups of flour, 1 and 1/2 cups for the sugar.

So this is for the cake part, right?

This is for the cake part.

Okay.

And then you put in baking soda. It’s like 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of that. A third plus two tablespoons of cocoa.

Okay.

And then we add our oil, which is three-quarter cup of oil. A little vanilla.

When you’re making these kind of things, you want to think if it’s a party and it’s finger foods, people aren’t sitting down. They want to be able to reach, and grab, and walk around, and come back. And that’s why this dessert is so great because you — it’s a little piece of a cheesecake. You don’t have to sit down and have a big piece.

Right.

And yet it’s delicious. It’s just great.

And my friend, Debbie, gave me this recipe.

Oh, did she?

When we lived in our apartment almost —

Oh, my goodness.

— like 20 some years ago and I’ve been making it for that long.

Ever since.

Yeah. And it’s a favorite of my children, and I really love it.

Well, who doesn’t like cheesecake, really?

Yeah.

Okay. You can see how my stuffing is coming together and it’s looking good. So now it’s time to stuff our mushrooms. Do a little cleanup here. And basically, you want to get a nice large-size mushroom. You see how big these are? That’s what you want because you don’t want a little bite one. You want to have it so that when you pile that stuffing on top of that, it’s got a little cup to stay in. And this will make about 35 to 40 mushrooms. Makes a lot. But, boy, I’ll tell you, when they start eating them, they’re going to love them. Really going to like it. It has good flavor and you could add anything else to this if you wanted. If you like, again, you like the hot sauce or stuff, you could do that. You could do olives, you can — you know what, this is just the beginning. Use your imagination. You’re going to like this.

Yeah, that looks wonderful.

Smells good too, doesn’t it?

Yes, it does.

Yeah. Now, I like to give each one of them a little bit and then go back and mound it up if I have anything left over, because you want to make sure you fill them all. So there’s a lot of stuffing here. You’re stuffing cups and I’m stuffing mushrooms.

That’s right.

Yeah. This is a wonderful time of the year to get family together and friends and just, you know, even before the holidays. Sometimes I like the holiday parties before Christmas more than I like the ones after because your packages maybe are under the tree and the house still looks really nice because Christmas hasn’t happened just yet.

Right.

And it’s just everything looks nice.

You don’t have all that mess. Everything is crisp.

After Christmas, like the kids are playing with the toys, and you’re wearing some of the clothes, and there’s no packages under the tree, and it’s just a little different, so.

Yeah. It’s always fun to eat though.

Oh, yeah.

Always fun to have a party.

You get together and you have some — I don’t care if somebody gives you a cup of tea. It tastes better because someone else made it for you. So we’re just packing this in.

I still like cookies everywhere I go.

Oh, yeah. I haven’t met one I didn’t like yet.

Me too.

Cookies are and Christmas —

Unfortunately, me too.

Well, you know, yeah. But Christmas are like — Christmas is cookie time for me. People make pies, Christmas pies, Christmas breads, and there’s all a place for that but there’s nothing like a cookie for me.

Oh, no.

That’s why we spend a whole program, which will be coming up next week, on our cookies.

It’s on cookies.

So you don’t want to miss it because it’s going to be a good one too. I’m also going to add to our buffet — I don’t have time to make it, but I’ll certainly be able to send you the recipe, it’s a big antipasto tray, which you’ll see at the end of the program because I see we’re going to be running out of time here. So you want to make something in case people — there’s some things that people can’t eat that you’ve made.

Right.

You want to have like a vegetable tray or something that they can definitely have — be a part of it because you’ll feel bad if like there’s nothing on your buffet that people could eat.

Exactly. And you can’t get wrong with vegetables.

No. And you put a nice dip to it, people will enjoy it. Well, stick with us. We’re going to be back in just a minute. But first, here’s how you can get all the recipes from today’s show and even more. Be sure to — you write and get the recipes. I’m telling you, this table is full of so many good items for a party. Easy to do things, nothing difficult, nothing hard, but very eye appealing. Remember, we eat with our eyes before we eat literally. So I think this is a great — isn’t this a great —

It’s incredible.

Yeah, I think so. Let’s take a little trip around the table. First, we have our spinach stuffed mushrooms down there. Aren’t they beautiful?

They do.

They are — when they come out of the oven piping hot, they are perfect. Next to them is the feta foldovers right over there. Beautiful, delicious —

That’s just great.

— delight, and airy, good flavor in that. Then we have our chocolate chip cheesecakes. That’s what Patty — those turned out beautiful.

They did come out nice.

And those are nice. Could you just pick them up, eat them one at a time, or two at a time. One on each hand, whichever. It doesn’t matter. And then back here, this is my Christmas tree chicken salad tree. Christmas salad chicken tree. Okay. I love it. And it — this is really very simple. So easy. A few little olives, some half of the grape tomatoes. Isn’t that cute?

Mm-hmm.

Really nice. Really, really nice. Next to that is our two-way meatballs. One with a standard tomato sauce, but we made it a tomato cream basil sauce, and the other with just a good kind of a gravy, almost like a stroganoff. And you want to put some nice toothpicks there. These are wonderful, too easy to do, simple, simple, simple ideas. And then this is what you didn’t get to see. This is our antipasto tray. Now, there’s everything and anything on that, your cheese, your olives, broccoli, tomatoes, another kind — Fontinella cheese, Fontina cheese. We have salami cup. These over here, pepperoncini, artichoke hearts, carrots, mushrooms, green olives, cauliflower, pepperoni. I’m telling you — and in the middle is a dip. Now, on the bottom of that tray is a bed of lettuce. And then you would serve these — use these tongs. And so you can go in. If you decide you want some salad, you take your plate, go in and get the lettuce and then put the — whatever you want on top of it. And we have three different dressings there. We have a blue cheese, a ranch, and then a balsamic vinaigrette.

Perfect.

Put some nice little sticks. I love these. The garlic bread sticks. I don’t know what else you’d want except maybe a punch, which we have over in our punch bowl. And it’s a nice — we’re going to include that recipe too. This is truly a wonderful idea for you for your holiday entertaining. I think — are you going to make some of these?

Oh, of course, I am.

I know —

Of course, I am.

— because we both like to entertain. And I hope you’ve enjoyed it, and I hope you’ll include some of these recipes. All right. Well, be sure to join us next time, family, because, you know, it just wouldn’t be the same. Here they come now. Everybody is ready to eat. We’ll see you the next time right here on At Home. Bye-bye. Okay, grab —

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