Cooking Tips for Happy Holidays

Cooking Tips for Happy Holidays
Guest Blog by Meera Beser

I have a list of items I keep on hand for unexpected guests or unexpected parties during the holiday season. Being prepared like this keeps my emergency trips to the store down to a minimum. Even though I love to cook there are a few specials I have on hand that are crowd pleasers and ridiculously easy to make. Many of my holiday cooking recipes are mix and match so not each offering is the same it simply depends on your mood for food.

For dips and appetizers I always have extra mayonnaise, cream cheese, marinated artichokes, canned mild chili peppers, dried vegetable soup mix, frozen spinach, canned water chestnuts and shredded Parmesan cheese. With these ingredients you have the making for several different cold or hot dips. These go well with crudités, French bread, toasted breads and crackers.

All of these dips are easy to make and serve. Most of them start the same way with 1 cup mayo and 1 cup sour cream or yogurt or 1 cup cream cheese so you have 2 cups of good stuff. You can pretty much wing it as to which ingredients you choose for the creamy base. You make it

in your food processor or blender and then pour it into a one quart serving/mixing/storage bowl, this way you don’t have a lot of dirty dishes. If you want to serve the dip warm just make sure you use an oven and microwave safe bowl.

Ok to the creamy base you will want to add whichever ingredients you prefer. Around here we do a lot of artichoke, parmesan cheese and chilies (jalapeño for the brave or mild green for the rest of us). To the creamy base of mayo & cream cheese I add 8-12 ounces of marinated artichokes, (I must admit that I buy several of the large jars at Costco and keep them on hand for this popular dish) ½ cup grated or shredded parmesan or Romano or mixed cheese and 1 small can of chilies, take these items and put in your blender or processor and whip them into shape then pour into the serving storage bowl and chill for about 1 hour. That is all it takes. If you are going to serve it warm, just before serving heat the dip for 1 or 2 minutes in the microwave (careful don’t over heat).

For a heavenly spinach dip add green onions, water chestnuts, dried soup mix and thawed frozen spinach to the creamy base, in this case usually mayo and sour cream. For fancy changes try canned roasted red peppers and artichokes or canned mushrooms. Also easy and always good is to take canned oysters and clams and dried onion soup mix and mix these into your creamy base. Use cream cheese, some capers and a can of salmon for a fabulous seafood spread.

Pretty party presentation can be easy as pie when done with great serving pieces which can be found at any great cooking shop or website. I often hollow out a round sour dough baguette, saving the top and the pieces and pour the dip inside, place the lid slightly askew then surround the bread bowl with the pieces from the middle and crackers or hard toast I can guarantee you will have no leftovers, they even devour the bread bowl.

Don’t be scared, be creative, use your prettiest cookware and serving pieces and no one will complain.

Happy Holidays to you all.