Well Merry Belated Christmas and Happy Belated New Years to everyone!  Let’s get caught up…Christmas was absolutely great, much better than I expected.  I was sick on New Years…lame.  And now that my family has gone back home, I figure it’s time to start blogging again (okay, they left a week ago, and yes I could have blogged while they were here because no they didn’t actually stay with me, but hey what can I say, it was a busy holidays!).

Here’s one idea I wanted to share with everyone for the next time you want to have friends over for “dinner.” My cousin, bless her heart, provided room and board, and entertainment, etc for our family while they were in town from Canada.  So, when it came time to dinners for ALL of us, she got pretty creative a couple times.  We all got together the Sunday before Christmas and she decided to have an appetizer fest.  We all brought a yummy appetizer.  And I decided that’s the perfect thing to do for entertaining!  It was simple for each of us (less stress is always great over the holidays), we were all filled, there was great variety (something for everyone!), and most important, my cousin didn’t have to slave over the meal or spend a ton of money because we all brought something…share the load people!!  This was also great because there were a few of us coming and going that night, so it was perfect to just keep this spread out so everyone could take as they please when we arrived, in between our board games, etc.

Here’s what we had at our Appetizer Fest:

• Avocado Eggrolls (a copycat that my cousin made from one of our favorites at The Cheesecake Factory.  I’ll get it from her & post it soon cause they’re amazing!!)
• Pumpkin Pie Dip
• Orange Julius
• 7 Layer Bean Dip (I don’t have the exact recipe that my cousin used, but this one looks really good and it was rated extremely high on allrecipes.com.)
• Salsa & Cream Cheese
• Pumpernickel Dip
• I brought Italian Chicken Sticks with 2 dipping sauces: marinara sauce & homemade honey mustard sauce

Some other ideas for an Appetizer Fest:

• Artichoke Dip
• Black Bean & Corn Salsa
• Crab Dip
• Mini Bagel Pizzas
• Buffalo Chicken Dip (I haven’t made this yet, but it was rated one of Recipezaar’s top 100 recipes of 2008 (#28) so I figured that’s pretty dang impressive.  I plan on trying it, so I’ll let you know how that goes…but definitely let me know if you try it before I do!)
• P.F. Chang’s Chicken Lettuce Wraps (Also haven’t made these but they were also one of Recipezaar’s top in 2008 (#2!) and I love the originals so I’m definitely going to try these soon).
• Awesome Bacon-Tomato Dip (Okay, so I haven’t made this one either, but it’s also rated really high on Recipezaar.  I usually don’t post recipes I haven’t tried, but I’m just trying to give you ideas here!)

The only thing I’d recommend if you’re going to throw an Appetizer Fest is to maybe find out from people beforehand and plan what you make around that.  Like if everyone is doing savory stuff maybe make brownies and cut them up small and cookies so there’s something sweet too.  Or if everyone is doing dips do chicken strips so there’s something hearty enough to make it feel like a meal.

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