(A little late) Holiday appetizers and dessert recipes for anytime of the year

As always, the holidays rushed in and out faster than we could enjoy them. I was anxious to make all sorts of new foods and appetizers, but didn't seem to have enough time to get them all done. However, there are several that I made for our Christmas party that are definitely worth sharing. Unlike my husband, who can whip up a gourmet meal from milk, eggs, and butter, (not exaggerating, I don't know how he does it! ) I have to follow a recipe and like many, I like scrolling through the pictures on Pinterest to see what looks appetizing and worth trying. If I do have an idea of what I want to cook, allrecipes.com is a great place to find delicious recipes that others have already tried and many even add their own twist and share it in the comments. You have to check it out.

The appetizer recipes that I have to share with you have been tried and approved by friends and family and I'm sure that you will enjoy, too.

Bacon-Jalapeno Cheeseballs

6 slices bacon
1/4 C chopped pecans
8 oz cream cheese
1/2 C shredded cheddar cheese
2 TB chopped fresh parsley
1 garlic clove or a Tb ready minced garlic
1/4 ts ground cumin
pinch cayenne pepper
1 ts lime juice
1/2 tn Worcestershire sauce
2 jalapeños (ribs and seeds removed), finely chopped and divided; however, if you like spicy food, leave in some seeds for a good kick
Buttery crackers (for serving)

Cook the bacon until crispy then transfer to drain excess oil. Allow to cool slightly, then crumble and divide in half.

While the bacon is cooking, preheat oven to 350 F. Spread the pecans on a baking sheet and toast for 5-7 minutes, or until fragrant.

In a medium bowl, stir together the cream cheese, cheddar cheese, parsley, garlic, cumin, cayenne, lime juice, Worcestershire sauce, half of the minced jalapeños, and half of the crumbled bacon until well combined. Season the mixture to taste with salt.

On a large plate, stir the toasted pecans, remaining minced jalapeños and remaining half of the crumbled bacon together until evenly distributed. Shape the cream cheese mixture into a ball (the mixture will be sticky, I found it easiest to shape if I just barely wet my hands first). Roll the ball in the pecan mixture until coated on all sides.

Now, the following was not written in the recipe, but I found was a good way to refrigerate.  I cut two large pieces of Saran Wrap, sprayed each with spray butter and then placed a cheese ball in each piece. I wrapped them, placed them on a plate and refrigerated them until ready to serve; at least an hour.

When you are ready to serve, line the plate with crackers and center with the cheese ball.

Courtesy of http://traceysculinaryadventures.com/2012/10/bacon-jalapeno-cheese-ball.html

Ready for a couple of more great recipes? Click on the pictures below:

Ham Rolls, Wheat & Flour Tortilla PinWheels

Sea Salt Chocolate Caramel covered pretzels  

Feel free to leave a comment to share your experience making and tasting this delicious recipe. If you added your own twist, please let me know, I love trying variations of the same recipe!
Have a great day!

I love sharing pictures of what I've done, so if you'd like to share my pictures, please give me the credit for my pictures by adding a link to my page. I do not take credit for any recipes posted unless I specify that I created the recipe. I will give credit and post links to the sites where I found the recipes I tried and hope you will do the same.

About Me

Hello All! Welcome to what I hope will be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. I hope to not only share with you all that I have picked up and tried from around the net, but hope that you will share with me projects you've done or maybe even some you would like for me to try.

My creative interests include baking, cake decorating, crocheting, sewing, and photography, almost anything creative and definitely anything challenging.

I've been sewing for as long as can remember. I began making clothes for my Barbies when I was 5 using my grandmothers old Singer pedal sewing machine. Growing up, I seemed to always be interested in anything creative, whether it was styling my younger sister's hair, dressing her up for pictures, redoing my mother's front yard or simply drawing.

I got married at 18 and a year later had a son.We decided that we wanted to be a good old-fashioned family and I would stay home. This was great for me because not only would I be able to spend quality time with my son, but I could learn every aspect of homemaking.  The first thing I went back to was sewing. I learned to make little jumpers for my son and I recall even making a dress for myself.  Five years later, I had a daughter which gave me the opportunity to make beautiful dresses.

I've been married for 22 years now and I don't think there is anything creative that I have not tried and am not willing to try, but there are several that stand out and I know I will continue to do. I don't sew much anymore, but I will bring out my sewing machine if anything needs mending. I bake and decorate cakes; I especially love this because I can make some extra cash on the side. Every Christmas and Thanksgiving holidays, I bake pies, with my specialty being apple, but I always take requests from my family.  Then, there's crocheting. I learned to crochet 15 years ago and have made at least a blanket a year. This year, I am expecting my first grandchild and am enjoying experimenting with different baby blankets. What a great excuse! :-)  Last, but not least, is photography. I love taking pictures of nature and old buildings, but nothing tops taking pictures of my family.

Like many others, I look for inspiration online and especially Pinterest. I even started a board specifically with the pins that I have done.  There are an endless amount of ideas and creations out there, things that otherwise we wouldn't know we could do at home which is why I decided to write my own blog.  I want to share my versions of pins or ideas out there and share any that I have created myself and will make sure to give credit where credit is due and hope that anyone that takes ideas from my blog will do the same. There is nothing worse than seeing someone take credit for other people's work.

This pretty much outlined my hobbies, but there is much more to me and probably just way too much to mention. Ha, ha. After the last economic downfall, we fell on hard times and being a stay-at-home mom, I felt absolutely useless. It really got me thinking about my future and that if something ever happened to my husband, I would not have and education nor any outside of the home work experience, so I did what needed to be done. I went back to school. While homeschooling my daughter in elementary school and my son in high school, I made the time to go back to school and ace all of my classes. Needless to say, it is the best decision I could have made. My kids are grown up and don't need me as much as they used to, so that college degree was a great idea as a solution for empty nest syndrome. lol  By the way, I got my degree in Computer Science-Information Security, but I don't just work on intrusions, viruses, malware, I do website design,run several websites, social sites, and Photo editing and restoration. Yes, I definitely keep busy and thus the reason that I will try my best to keep up with this blog.

So here we go! This is my first blog and am ready to post a great recipe after this goes up. I hope you will not only read and share my blog, but if you have the time, try out some of the recipes or projects and let me know how they went. I would love some input!

From my Creative Heart to yours,

Enjoy!

Michele

CLICK HERE to find me on Pinterest!