Holiday Cocktail Party

Hey, y'all

I'm just finishing up my buffet table, because guess what? Today is all about my holiday party

and I'm gonna be starting with a fabulous cream de mint brownie

and then some Italian chicken sticks, and then I'm gonna be doing one of my favorites

a stuffed mushroom, And today I'm stuffing it with spinach and cheese

It's gonna be delicious. And then a tried and true recipe, and that's cherries jubilee

And then last but not least, a lemon apple cider. So why don't we get in the kitchen and start cooking

Because the holidays are here. I love the holidays, don't you

Well, I'm having some friends in tonight, and I'm gonna be putting together a little buffet

and I'm starting with a decadent creamed mint brownie. Now I'm gonna start with two sticks of butter

that have been sitting at room temperature. I'm gonna add two cups of sugar

and we're just gonna cream that away. Just beat it till it's nice and creamy and fluffy

Okay, this is nice and creamy now. All right, so we're going to add four eggs to our butter and our sugar

Okay, now this is really going to get nice and creamy and smooth for us

now that we've added our eggs to the butter and sugar. All right, now we're gonna mix our dry ingredients together

Our dry ingredients are one and a fourth cup of all-purpose flour

three-fourths of a cup of cocoa, a half a teaspoon of bacon powder

Just wanna kind of blend that together. Okay, back over here. I think I'm gonna go ahead and add me a teaspoon of vanilla

There we go. So I'm free-handed now. Okay, here we go. We're just going to gradually blend our dry ingredients into our wet

and then in a second we're going to have a wonderful brownie batter

There we go. All right, now that's the last of our dry ingredients

and we don't want to overbeat this. We just want to make sure that all our dry ingredients are moistened

because otherwise, if you overbeat it, you could wind up with a tough brownie

The only thing I want around this recipe tough is meat. All right

I just wanted to sling some of that batter off. Now, I've got a 13 by 9 by 2 pan that I've buttered

and we're just gonna pour this. Oops, I was about to miss the most wonderful part of this brownie

And that's one 10-ounce bag of cream to mint chocolates, y'all. Just gonna fold that candy into that batter

Mmm, I can already smell the many flavors. Oh, they're coming up here

They're getting in my face. Mmm. All right, so in our baking dish this goes

and we're going to put it in a preheated 350-degree oven, and we're going to bake it for about 25 minutes

Okay. And now we're just going to spread that out. Mmm. Okay

So in the oven this goes, It gonna be perfectly delicious And this is what it gonna look like when it done And while it looks perfectly yummy I think it needs a glaze on it don you I got two cups of confectionate

sugar, a third of a cup of cocoa, a stick of melted butter. You with me

Now I'm just going to incorporate the butter into the powdered sugar

I'm going to thin it with a tablespoon of milk And I'm going to give it a quick stir

And I'm going to add one teaspoon of vanilla extract Okay, now let's put this on here

You know, my sentiments on this little brownie Is if it ain't broke, don't try to fix it

You know, this is a good brownie. You know, the candies that I folded into the batter a while ago

I've got some of those grated up here, and I'm just going to sprinkle that on top of that chocolate

and that mint flavor is just going to really jump out of there at you

Mmm. Well, listen, we're running out of time here, But when I come back, I'm going to be sharing a recipe for Italian chicken sticks and cheese stuffed mushrooms

So y'all don't go anywhere because I'm going to stand here and wait patiently until y'all come back

And then we'll taste it. You can trust me. Honest. Hey, y'all, welcome back

I kept my promise, even though I had my fingers crossed when I made it

just in case, but I have not tasted this brownie, y'all. But look how wonderful it looks

And I've got some fresh sweetened whipped cream to go on top of it

Jump back, Jack. Great time of day. That's good. Mmm, the mint

It's like chewing on a mint. Oh, it's so good. Well, let's move on down

because we've got our sweet dish ready, but now we're going to move on to our savory dish

Italian chicken sticks. Now, I'm taking a boneless, skinless breast, and I'm just going to cut these into strips

Just like that. Okay. And I have some already done up right here

I'm just gonna add those to that. Let me bring these up here so I can reach them

Now I'm gonna pour over my chicken strips, one stick of melted butter

And this will just help soak up our Italian seasonings. You know they're gonna be good

I'm just gonna move those all around in that butter and let every one of them have a bite off it

Okay, now let's move on to our breading for our chicken fingers

Now, I've got a cup of seasoned breadcrumbs in my bowl, and to that, I'm gonna add a half a cup of grated Parmesan cheese

I'm going to add a teaspoon and a half of thyme, a teaspoon and a half of dried basil

half a teaspoon of salt, and just a pinch of red pepper

Don't want to make these too, too hot. And then a half a teaspoon of garlic powder

All right, and then the last ingredient that's going to go in is a teaspoon of dried oregano

So you can see I put all those wonderful seasonings in that we use when we're in the kitchen cooking Italian

Okay, so we're going to take our chicken strips. I'm going to roll them one more time in that butter, and then I'm going to dredge them in our breadcrumbs

And these are so tasty. Like I said, everybody, you know, usually eats chicken

unless you're working with a vegetarian and then, what the hay, they're on their own

They can go outside and have some grass. But us meat eaters are gonna be in here

eating these wonderful little strips. Now, I've just got to give my hands a quick wash, y'all

Well, that was so quick, y'all, that I'm gonna have a chance to make a second dish

And you want to make sure you get all that bread crumb out from underneath your fingernail Because you don want to cross into your other food So a good hand is definitely in order

after you've worked with chicken. Okay, y'all come on over here, because now I'm going to make a recipe that, you know

just about everybody loves, and that's a stuffed mushroom. Now, in this bowl, I have one 10-ounce package of frozen spinach

that's been chopped and defrosted. The only thing is you want to make sure you squeeze all the water out of them

because, like mushrooms, this, too, contains a lot of water. So I'm just going to squeeze it out

Look at the water that this rendered. A lot of water, isn't it

and if you didn't squeeze it out, all this water would be over in your filling

and it would just be runny and not work right for you

Okay. So there we go. Now to our spinach, I'm going to add two ounces of cream cheese

and I'm just going to take my hands and work that together

just like that, and then I'm going to add four ounces of feta cheese

You know, mushrooms are really one of our versatile vegetables. You can kind of do anything with it

You can make a meaty filling for them, or you can make just a vegetable filling

which, you know, I like doing this for a group because most everybody eats this sort of thing

Now I'm going to add about a half of a cup of sliced green onions

I'm using tops and all. This is a perfect dish for vegetarians

Now all I'm going to do is put the filling into our mushroom cap

Just like that. You know, the grand thing about this is a little goes a long way

Now I'm going to sprinkle them with a little Parmesan cheese, and I'm going to put these in a preheated 350-degree oven

for about 15 to 20 minutes. All right, y'all, I'm going to get these stuffed mushrooms

and my chicken sticks into the oven, and guess what I'm going to make when we get back

Kind of a blast from the past. I'm going to be making a wonderful Cherries Jubilee

Hey, y'all. Welcome back. If you've just joined me, I'm having a party here tonight

And I'm in here in my kitchen cooking up some delicious but easy appetizers

I'm going to have a little buffet out for everybody so they can just eat until their heart's content

And I got our Italian chicken sticks out of the oven. They're ready

I've got a marinara sauce here for dipping. Now, you can just go crazy with the sauces

In fact, you could have two different sauces, one at each end that are totally different from the other

But right now, I'm just going to try this with marinara. Mmm

Mmm. Mmm. So good. Chicken and the marinara just go together. And look how our little mushrooms turned out

Look how pretty they are. You can see they shrunk up a little during cooking

the flavor mm these are gonna get scoffed down so quickly all right the

recipe I want to share with y'all next is a wonderful recipe that's withstood

the test of time it's delicious it's quick it's easy and it's cherries do

believe all right so I've got a half a stick of butter melted in my pan I'm

I'm gonna add one tablespoon of cornstarch to a fourth of a cup of sugar

And then I'm gonna toss it over into our melted butter, and the cornstarch keeps it from clumping up

Now I'm using one can of pitted cherries, and I have separated the cherries from the juice

Now I'm gonna slowly add the juice into the cornstarch and sugar

butter. Ooh, look at that. You see that cherry juice just running in there and

that butter. Okay, so just that simple. Now to this I'm gonna add 1 4th of a cup of

brandy. Now I'm gonna cut that off just for precaution. You don't want to set your

hair on fire. And now we're gonna ignite. Ooh yeah I can feel it Even though I can see that flame I know that it burning on top of that So it about burned off

And now I'm going to add my cherries. Mmm. And let them soak up all that butter and brandy

All right. Now all I need is the ice cream. And you'll want to make sure that you use a good premium ice cream

This is a giant serving right here. I'll actually be making these in smaller containers for everybody

because you don't want to fill them up with just sweets, unless their name's Michael Groover

And then cut loose, baby. All right. So let's come in here and get our cherries

Just pour it over that ice cream. Those bubbling hot cherries

Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. I feel a moment. Feel a moment coming on, y'all

what a heck of a time not to have a spoon. That could make a girl crazy

All right, let's dig in. Look at that. Mmm. Mmm

Mmm. Y'all, I got one more dish to make before I have to say bye

But I can't hardly get my mind off this Cherry's Jubilee. But I promise when we come back

I'm going to make one more item for the party. And naturally, it's a beverage

It's a spiced lemon apple cider. Doesn't that sound delicious? Although I'd rather drink this Jubilee

I'll see y'all back in a minute. Mmm. Okay, welcome back, y'all

I'm fixing to mix this up a wonderfully holiday warm beverage, lemony apple cider

So I'm going to pour a half a gallon of apple cider into my pot

This is going to make the house smell real good and real festive

All right, now half a cup of lemon juice. straight from the jar

I mean, this is just... So easy, it's stupid almost. All right, now half a cup of the orange juice

three cinnamon sticks, and one tablespoon of clove. Okay, so I'm just gonna heat that slowly

giving it time to marinate all the different spices and flavors that we've got going on

I've got a pot that's ready here, and you can see it's a darker color from my pot

because those flavors have mixed up. All right, so you want to just serve this in a mug

I'm going to drop an extra cinnamon stick in mine because I love it really, really cinnamon-y

Cinnamon-y-man-y-man-y. That wasn't easy to say. And then I've got some orange circles

and then I'm going to take me one of the smaller pieces of orange

and just drop it down into my cider so as I sip

that orange flavor will release in there. Mmm. It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas

Do I look all right, y'all? I've spent time in the kitchen on my food, time fixing up my table

I didn't donate a lot of time to Paula, though, but I hope I'll pass for this party

I want to show y'all now how I've set up my buffet table. I've got my wonderful spinach stuffed mushrooms, my Italian chicken sticks

my creamed mint brownies, that fabulous Cherry's Jubilee, and this wonderful lemon apple cider that is all so good

So as soon as my guests walk in, they're met by this fabulous smell

and this beautiful, tasty food. And I hope that you'll enjoy some of these recipes for your own holiday parties

after you've watched Paula's Home Cooking. So for now, y'all, I want to send you love and best dishes from my holiday buffet to yours

See y'all soon