Christmas Party

Last night we had lots of wonderful friends over for a Christmas party. It's something we've started doing since we moved to Colorado, and I look forward to it all year long! This is the third time we've done it, and every time it has been so wonderful. I feel so blessed to have made some wonderful friends here, and I think it's so nice to take a night (without kids:) and just hang out, enjoy some good food and wine, and celebrate Christmas together. We had two sommeliers from a local wine store come and do wine tastings the first hour. Later on, Rob and two others played guitars and sang, which was just amazing.

This year I decided to stick with some favorites and not re-invent the wheel. I feel like last year I had put together such a good menu for appetizers. So much of it could be done the night before, and nothing required me being in the oven all evening. I set out the last food as the first guests were arriving, and then was able to just be a part of the party and enjoy myself the rest of the time. Très magnificant!

I did a table of appetizers(see above), and then a table of desserts. (I don't want to include pictures of people since not everyone likes to have their pictures online. :) We had the desserts catered from my favorite local French Bakery. yum! Today we are eating like kings, and it's wonderful!

Almond Poppyseed Muffins

From time to time I check out High Altitude Baking books from the library. Admittedly, I don't always have enough time to read them, or try anything, before they are due. Finally, I tried something from one of them, called Baking at High Altitude: The Muffin Lady's Old Fashioned Recipes. They were good. A little dry, but again that can be an altitude thing, or I could have left them in too long, or it could be because of the whole wheat pastry flour I used. It was a good enough recipe to keep though. They didn't fall, and they cooked all the way through. I'm learning that if I get my hands on a recipe like that up here, I need to hang on to it. (For those of you out of the area, I believe we are at 5960 ft here)

Almond Poppyseed Muffins

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

1/4 cup melted butter or margarine
3/4 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 teaspoons almond extract
2 1/4 cups flour ( I used whole wheat pastry)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup poppy seeds
1/3 cup sliced almonds

1. Thoroughly mix the melted margarine/butter, sugar, eggs, milk, vanilla, and almond extract.

2. Add the dry ingredients and poppyseeds, if using, to the egg mixture. Thoroughly mix the batter until all ingredients are fully incorporated.

3. Grease 5-6 large muffin pan sections or 10-12 regular size muffin pan sections or 2 dozen mino muffin sections.

4. Fill each muffin section 7/8 full with the batter. Sprinkle almond slices on top of each muffin.

5. Bake 15-35 minutes (I know, big variance - I did 12 regular size muffins, and it took 15 minutes, just to give you some idea) until firm on top or until the inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Add 1 extra egg when doubling or add 2 extra eggs when tripling this recipe.
To change it up, substitute 1/3 cup mini chocolate chips for the poppy seeds!