Happy New Year's Eve

It's a beautiful sunny day here, but it is COLD! Just now hit freezing, but expectations are for the mid 40s. That's 20 something degrees colder than yesterday. Thank goodness I have nowhere to go today. Not a single appointment. So I am going to do some cooking and baking.

First on the agenda is a German New Year's Pretzel. I never heard of these before, but learned of them from a friend on a food board. Her husband's family owned a bakery and they made them every year. (She says they are a tradition in Pittsburgh. I wonder if it's a tradition elsewhere and will try to do some internet research today.) It's a large pretzel made of sweetened dough, topped with powdered sugar icing and sprinkled with chopped almonds. Everyone is supposed to eat a slice at midnight for good luck in the New Year. I made the dough yesterday in the breadmaker, so will go bake it shortly. Pics and recipe will follow later.

Second, I need to bake Ina's Savoury Palmiers. I got to choose the BRC recipe for this month's Barefoot Bloggers as the most traffic went to the blog from my site last manth. We were supposed to have baked these already, but between power outages and health issues, it hasn't happened yet here. As we're doing appetizers and champagne for New Year's Eve dinner, they will fit right in to our menu.

Third. The Christmas Cookie Bake-Along on one of our foodie boards started back in September and I chose the first recipe. It is a savoury cookie called Peppery Cheese, Nut & Cornmeal Cookies, from The Jimtown Store Cookbook, Recipes from Sonoma County's Favourite Country Market. My dough has been in the freezer all this time and I think they will also be part of our menu.

While I'm baking, I'll think of some other things for dinner. There are some ingredients in the pantry that are begging to be used: baby artichokes, Marcona almonds, mozzarella stuffed peppers I brought home from Italy. You get the idea. I also want to try out the Mango Pepper Jelly I made this fall.