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The annual holiday party is coming up...and remember last year's incident with the mysterious brown dip? Let's make sure you're not THAT person this year.
Holiday Party & Potluck Appetizers
Walking into a party carrying these snacks? You'll have the same swagger as a mall Santa who knows he's rocking that velvet suit.
Artichoke hearts are an essential store-cupboard ingredient for me. This recipe is one of my favorites—delicious, quick, and simple to make, it's inspired by my mother. I always serve this at Christmastime, with toasted rosemary focaccia. It is rich, comforting, and everyone always wants the recipe.
This easy slow cooker cassoulet calls for beans, garlic, store-bought duck confit, and sausage, just like the traditional cassoulet recipe from France.
This butternut squash gratin is a lot like like a scalloped potato casserole except it's made with winter squash instead of spuds along with onions, garlic, butter, heavy cream, cheese, and bread crumbs. A simple--and simply elegant--side for Thanksgiving as well as a random weeknight.
Think of the most delicious hermit bar you ever ate, the moistest, chewiest, nicely spiced bar, with a crisp shiny top and dense center. Okay? This bar beats that one, we guarantee it. If you count molasses cookies, spice cake, or gingerbread—any of the old-fashioned, dark and spicy baked goods with their long international history—among your favorites, you’ll love these bars.
Think of these twice-baked potatoes as an easy mashed potato casserole loaded with bacon, Cheddar, sour cream, and chives. Talk about awesome game day grub or meals kids—heck, any of us—can't resist.
This wild rice with roasted chestnuts and cranberries is a healthy Thanksgiving side dish that also happens to be gluten-free. Made with dried fruits and chestnuts, it's ideal for holiday entertaining as it can be made in advance.
Who doesn’t love garlic bread? And this tear-and-share style is always a winner. I’ve written the recipe for 12 because it’s an easier quantity of dough to work with. What I like to do is make up both pans of bread, then whack one in the freezer, ready to bake another day—you won’t regret it.
These mac and cheese canapes, essentially baked mac and cheese bites, are made from macaroni and sharp Cheddar cheese and baked in mini-muffin tins. Perfect finger food for kids and adults. Cocktail party, anyone?
These IKEA Swedish meatballs, made with ground beef and pork, and served in a Dijon cream sauce, are the real deal, except you don't have to leave the house or walk through the store to enjoy them. Here's how to cook them.
Why, hello! Leite's Culinaria is the James Beard Award-winning site that helps home cooks and bakers put dinner on the table and laughs in the kitchen. Hungry for more? Join more than 30,000 food lovers and subscribe.
Hi Reader, When I was younger—and oh-so-very single—I treated Thanksgiving the way some people treat a new relationship: with enthusiasm, optimism, and absolutely no sense of boundaries. I experimented. Wildly. Indiscriminately. One year, I made turkey-mashed-potato-and-stuffing burritos because…why not? Another time, I ditched the 18-dish spread and instead crafted a Thanksgiving pot pie that crammed the entire holiday—turkey, stuffing, gravy, the whole dysfunctional family—under one crust....
Hi Reader, True story: one year, I cooked Thanksgiving like I was auditioning for Survivor: Roxbury Edition. I started at dawn, juggling pies, stuffing, potatoes, sides, and a turkey the size of a mini-fridge. By the time dessert rolled around, I was slumped in my chair, fork dangling midair, too tired to taste the very pies I'd threatened to leave The One over if he even so much as touched them. After our guests left, I crawled, and I do mean crawl, to bed, leaving the kitchen looking not...
Hi Reader, When I was little, my father used to drag me to the Portuguese markets in Fall River on Saturday mornings. I say “drag,” because no self-respecting kid in the 1970s wanted to spend his weekend staring at cabbages the size of basketballs or inhaling the earthy funk of turnips stacked like cannonballs. I wanted Pop-Tarts and Twinkies. Vegetables were what you had to wade through to get to dessert. Fall Veggie Greatness (a Crash Course) Crank the oven. High heat (425°F) is your best...
