Great Appetizer Idea for New Year's Eve - Fire Roasted Tomato Salsa

For the holidays this year, I wanted to share some of my favorite appetizers and snacks that make great party food, and nothing says "party" like a good batch of homemade salsa. This is a video I filmed last summer, but this recipe is every bit as good in the winter, just try to get vine ripened Roma tomatoes if possible. Here's what you'll need:

Fire Roasted Tomato Salsa Recipe Ingredients:

2 lbs Roma tomatoes, washed, cored, and cut in half
7-8 cloves garlic, peeled
2 chipotle peppers, seeded and roughly chopped
1 shallot, chopped
2 tsp sugar
1 Tbsp salt
2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro (use more if you love cilantro)

Broil the tomatoes and garlic as shown, blend all ingredients in a food processor, enjoy with corn tortilla chips. This salsa is best when it has chilled for a few hours.

Hot Mulled Apple Cider for Christmas

Merry Christmas! I hope everyone is enjoying a peaceful and happy day with your families. John and I spent a wonderful two days with both of our families and ate lots of good food along the way. I wanted to share a delicious family recipe that we have had every year at almost every Christmas Eve or Day, including this one. It's also almost always present on New Year's Eve. Here's our recipe for a delicious Hot Mulled Apple Cider:

2 quarts apple cider (this year I bought a gallon of fresh cider, but you can use any kind you like)
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
4 cinnamon sticks
1/8 tsp plus a pinch of ground ginger
1 Tablespoon whole cloves
1 orange, clementine or tangerine, washed but not peeled

Pour the cider into a large sauce pan, or a slow cooker. I almost always go with the slow cooker because you can leave the cider to warm all day, and the ingredients really start to meld the longer they cook. Add the brown sugar, cinnamon sticks and ginger. Cut the washed orange into 4 or 5 slices and insert whole cloves into the segments of the orange slices. Add the cloved orange slices to the cider, cover and cook on low for several hours. Serve piping hot with an extra cinnamon stick.

Enjoy and have a very Merry Christmas!

National Cookie Day

When I woke up this morning, I did not realize what a special day it is. Luckily, my good friend Brittany let me know immediately that today is National Cookie Day, and she wondered what I was going to do about it. I actually thought she was making up some bogus holiday just to get food but I Googled it and sure enough, it's an actual holiday, albeit a weak one. Regardless, I celebrated National Cookie Day by baking some of my favorite cookies for Brittany and her co-workers, who are also good friends of mine. I made two of Brittany's favorites, chocolate chip and sugar cookies, then threw in one of John's favorites: The Zebra Cookie. I'm including the recipe for that one below. Happy National Cookie Day!

Chocolate "Zebra" Cookies

Ingredients:
4 oz unsweetened Hershey's baking chocolate
2 cups super fine Bakers sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup light olive oil
4 eggs
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

In a metal bowl, melt the chocolate over boiling water and let cool slightly. Add the sugar, olive oil and vanilla, mix well. Add eggs, flour, baking powder and salt until everything is incorporated. Chill mixture for about an hour. After the dough is pretty solid, roll it into 1 inch balls and drop the dough balls into the powdered sugar, place 12 powdered balls on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Bake for about 12 minutes at 350 degrees and then cool on a wire rack. Enjoy your zebra cookies and share some with a friend.