New Year's Eve 2018 Party Menu

Seeing that it is January 1, 2019, I thought it appropriate that my first post be about the New Year's Eve party I hosted last night. I had a bunch of my closest friends over and we spent the night laughing, grooving, eating, drinking, and making merry -- the perfect start to 2019.

Every great party needs yummy food and I made an effort to make sure my guests were happy! I created a small vegetable platter, fried up some Trader Joe's chicken gyoza, baked cheese-y garlic monkey bread, and pigs in blankets. My best friend supplemented these nibbles with potato bites and pimento pepper deviled eggs. (Both were delicious)


Last year, I made pigs in blankets and they were a hit! I know I could buy the frozen pre-made Hebrew National ones, but I like making the pigs in blanket from scratch. Call me crazy, but I find the whole process relaxing.



I also experimented with a recipe I saw on TASTY a few weeks ago for bacon-cheese monkey bread. I've never baked monkey bread before, but I've always wanted to. I've also never seen savory monkey bread, so I was intrigued. Since one of my guests was a vegetarian, I only used cheese, but it was still quite yummy (and easy to make). Using canned biscuit dough, all I had to do was cut each biscuit into quarters, stretch out each quarter and fill with cheese, close up seam, dip dough balls in garlic butter, and then toss into monkey bread mold. Then, I let it bake in the oven at 350F for about 45 min. After letting the monkey bread cool for a few minutes, I flipped the mold over. This was both very exciting and really fun! I was keeping my fingers crossed that the monkey bread held its shape...and it did! Although the cheese didn't really come through -- it was overpowered by the biscuit dough -- the dish was still really yummy and well received by my guests. I mean, it was basically garlic bread. Who doesn't like garlic bread?!



For dessert, my best friend's husband baked beautiful pavlovas, another friend make two kinds of cake balls, and I provided a chocolate chip panettone. Everything was devoured. I saw many happy faces.


All in all, I'd call this party a success. Everyone seemed to have a great time and they certainly didn't go hungry! Looking forward to my party next year and coming up with new yummy treats to nosh on! 

On that note, hope everybody else also had a fun New Year's Eve. Happy New Years, to all. Hope you guys have a wonderful 2019. 

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