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Last night we rounded out our holiday event week with a caroling party. Each year, Jeff's top singing group, along with their parents, come over to eat, sing, and make merry. Though the caroling was a bust this year because most of the people in our neighborhood were at a local church function, everything else was fabulous -especially the food. The students brought appetizers ranging from homemade salsa to fried eggplant, main dishes like chicken enchiladas, sides of fruited cole slaw and freshly baked rolls, and desserts ranging from M & M cookies to a two-tier, gift-shaped chocolate cake.

Earlier in the week, I took requests for my contributions to the party and ended up making some old favorites. Interesting that when given a choice of foods, most people stick with the tried and true. For starters, the kids asked for potato skins, which pretty much disappeared as soon as the plate hit the bar. (Here's the method I used:  http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/potato_skins/ .) Next, several of the boys yearned for something with bacon, while others requested shrimp, so I combined them to create a standard appetizer of shrimp and sliced water chestnuts wrapped in bacon and then broiled to crispy doneness. As an added bonus, I threw in some roasted eggplant dip (made from the last few eggplants we retrieved from the garden before the temperature hit freezing last week) with an assortment of buttery crackers to please several of the vegetarian kids. (This was simple, too. I cut the eggplant - along with one onion - into chunks, tossed them with a little olive oil and a good dose of Italian seasonings, and baked them at 450 for about 20 minutes. Once the veggies cooled, I put them in the food processor and drizzled in a little more olive oil, some salt and pepper, and the juice of one fresh lemon.)

For main courses and side dishes, their requests included orange chicken (which is sooo easy to make with frozen chicken chunks - just be sure to use the good breast meat variety instead of the formed saucers - and some Panda Express orange sauce), anything with potatoes and cheese (I couldn't resist the opportunity to make Paula Deen's yummy hash brown casserole, though I use cream of mushroom soup instead of the cream of celery and omit the potato chip topping. Here's the recipe from foodnetwork.com : http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/creamy-hash-brown-casserole-recipe/index.html .), ravioli (which I prepped and baked in canned spaghetti sauce doctored with some fresh herbs from the garden and covered with a layer of mozzarella cheese), and a broccoli casserole (again, Paula Deen's rich goodness http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/broccoli-casserole-recipe/index.html though I like cream of broccoli soup instead of the cream of mushroom in mine).

The alto section of the choir was in charge of desserts, so I didn't have to worry much about those, but I did have a request for boiled cookies like my mom made when I was a kid.  This is classic game night fare in many households, but if you don't have a recipe of your own, this one is pretty standard:  http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/No-Bake-Cookies-III/Detail.aspx. The student who asked for these said her grandmother used to make them for her; however she passed away last year and hadn't made any for quite awhile before that. So those easy little bites of peanut butter and chocolate rounded out my holiday cookie plate, while the kids showed up with cheesecake and a myriad of other goodies.

This party marks the end of our big holiday push, even though Christmas is still a couple of weeks away. Last Saturday, we kicked-off the celebrations with a holiday cocktail party, which was followed by several concerts throughout the week. It seems only fitting that we ended with another party. Though we've had fun over the last seven days, I think the whole family is looking forward to getting through finals week and having some much needed rest over winter break.