New Year's Eve Snacks!

Unlike most people I know, I don't like to go out on New Year's Eve. I prefer to make festive at home by watching bad television from Times Square, sipping on something bubbly, and munching on a few tasty bites through the night. This year's new year's eve menu went something like this (and something resembling some recipes follows):

- won-jitas (aka Mexican wontons) with guacamole
- baguette toasts with mushroom spread
- not your average spinach dip
- pate de campagne with festive salad
- a less than average cheese plate (because I had 2 kinds of cheddar and a feta)
- veggie "samosas"
- dessert plate of cream puffs, piroulines, and bite-sized brownies
- Domaine St Vincent sparkling wine from ... New Mexico!

Won-jitas
Brown some extra lean ground beef in a skillet and drain. Return to the heat and season with salt, pepper, chili powder, cayenne pepper, cumin, a small can of chopped green chilis drained (or I suppose substituting a packet of taco seasoning for all that I just mentioned would do the trick) and a hearty handful of shredded cheese (monterey jack or sharp cheddar or anything you think of normally going with Mexican food), and warm the mixture until the cheese is melted. Working quickly, put a little of the ground beef mixture in the center of a square wonton wrapper, then seal well. Set each sealed wonton onto a sprayed baking sheet. When the sheet is full, lightly spray with cooking oil and bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes or until the outsides are golden and crispy. Serve with guac or salsa. If you want to make your wontons look more festive because it's new year's eve, you can put the filling in the center, roll the skin into a tube, then seal on either side by twisting in opposite directions, like a hard-candy wrapper or "firecrackers".

Mushroom spread
2 eight-ounce packages of sliced mushrooms (or use a blend of mushrooms), put into food processor to chop finely
1/4 cup shallots
1 1/2 Tbsp fresh thyme, chopped
a twirl of extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 C sour cream

Heat oil in pan, toss in shallots, chopped mushrooms and thyme. Cook on med heat until all the moisture cooks out. Remove from heat, season with salt and pepper to taste, stir in sour cream. Slice a baguette very thinly on the bias and toast the slices until very crisp, then spread the room-temperature mushroom mixture on the toasts.


Not your average spinach dip
For those of you who prefer a mostly white spinach dip that is sweet and full of mayonaise with hardly any spinach, skip this.
10 oz box of frozen spinach, thawed and all water squeezed out
a good pinch of minced garlic
extra virgin olive oil
1/4 C fresh chopped flat-leaf parsely
1/4 C fresh chopped mint leaves
3 oz soft cream cheese
~1/3 C grated parmesan cheese

Heat the oil, add garlic until golden, toss in the thawed, squeezed spinach just to warm through and meld the flavors. All the stuff in your pan goes into the food processor with the cream cheese, parsley and mint. Once it's well blended, put mixture in a bowl and then mix in the parmesan. More the consistency of a "spread" than a "dip," you will note the color of the finished product is more green than most any other spinach dip and just more fresh-tasting. Depending on your preference and what you're serving it with, you probably don't need to add salt or maybe very little. Parmesan usually has a nice saltiness to it, and if you are using salted crackers or chips to go with, well then, leave out the additional salt... or not.


Festive salad
Belgian endive, separated into leaves and spread attractively on a platter
Toss together the following:
- watercress leaves, stems removed
- orange segments cut into pieces, skins removed and squeezed, reserving juice
- pomegranite seeds
- just a little bit of feta cheese crumbles
- toasted pine nuts
- not too many chopped olives - use kalamata or moroccan oil cured olives for a briney flavor but don't over do it
- scallions, whites and greens, finely chopped into rounds
- a few chopped mint leaves
- mix the reserved oj with a light drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper to taste
Toss all that together with the dressing and fill the endive leaves with the watercress mixture. The red pomegranite against the bright green watercress looks very festive!


Veggie "Samosas"
Dice into small cubes a potato, a carrot, an onion
Saute with extra virgin olive oil
Add part of a bag of bagged coleslaw mix
Add part of a jar of prepared curry sauce, just enough for the veggies to be sauced but not runny (I use a jarred curry from Trader Joe's)

Cook until the cabbage from the slaw mix is wilted, toss in half-a-handful of chopped flat leaf parsley, then set aside.

Unroll a package of refrigerator crescent roll dough (such as Pilsbury brand). Set 4 triangles onto an ungreased cookie sheet, stretching the dough slightly as you set them down. Fill each of the four triangles with the curry mixture, then top with the remaining 4 triangles, again stretching to the same size as the first set. Pinch them closed and bake according to the directions on the crescent roll package (I think at 375 degrees about 12 minutes or until puffy and golden).

You'll have loads of extra filling, so do another package of crescent rolls or make some rice and eat the filling over rice the next day.