New Year’s Eve Finger Foods

Finger Foods

If I have a choice of some large meal or little things to nibble on, I will choose Finger Foods every time.

Especially when there is a variety.

A bite of this, a bite of that!

Here are a few Finger Foods to snack on while you read. I hope you enjoy. I will be adding to this post as time goes by…..

Bacon Wrapped Dried Figs and Dates

and an old recipe of my mother’s, Hot Olive Cheese Puffs

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Mary Keith’s Hot Olive Cheese Puffs

I don’t mind sharing this recipe because they are delicious!!

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Hot Olive Cheese Puffs

Oddly enough I found this recipe written on the back of a recipe that I had requested from my mother about 30 year’s ago. She wrote it thinking that someday I might want to make it. Well, that day came 30 year’s later.

They are delicious! I think it was based on a Cheese Straw recipe because when I made it, it reminded me of making Cheese Straws which incidentally, I have been making lately.

Inside the Hot Olive Cheese Puffs

(They would look nice if they were stuffed olives, wouldn’t they? Pimientos do come to mind.) 🙂

Ingredients:

(This is my mother’s recipe. We did veer away from it a bit, but not much.)

1/2 lb. Sharp Cheddar Cheese, Grated

1 Medium Jar of Green Olives (stuffed)

1 Cup Plain Flour, Sifted

1 t. Paprika

Dash of Salt

1/4 lb. Margarine

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Our Ingredients:

We used a variety of olives that were already pitted:

Kalamata Olives

We also added Ceyenne Pepper in addition to the Paprika.

Allow cheese and margarine to soften, grate your cheese into a mixing bowl.

Mixing Bowl

Add the Salt, Sift the Flour

Next Comes the Hungarian Paprika…

…but any Paprika will do.

Mix all of the ingredients together well.

The consistency is a very soft dough.

You want to make sure the olives you are using are dry so that the dough will wrap around them easily.

You can add as much or as little of the cheesy dough that you like.

We Sprinkled with a Little bit of Red Pepper

Place the olive cheese balls onto an ungreased baking sheet on a 400F oven.

Bake for about 15 minutes.

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Dates and Dried Figs

This is yet another favorite of ours except this year we didn’t have time to marinate the dates and figs in Brandy so we just quickly wrapped them in bacon and placed them onto a baking sheet.

400F oven for about 15 minutes or so until the bacon crisps up.

They look a bit black on the bottoms when they are done but that is just the sugar caramelizing.

The figs always plump up nicely.

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Below is our New Year’s Eve Picnic where we ate our Hot Olive Cheese Puffs and our Bacon Wrapped Dates and Dried Figs.

I just wanted to share the photos with you.

Julie

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Our New Year’s Eve Picnic

The Centerpiece for our Backyard Sunset Picnic

Our Lovely Table

As the Sun is Setting

Gordon and I were getting tired of all the typical appetizers that we generally make on New Year’s Eve, so I suggested that why don’t we just get some sort of exotic take out? Before Christmas we wanted to have our children and their partner’s over to our house for some exotic take out foods but we never had any time. We poured weeks of work and planning into our big Christmas Day so we ended up not even having time to see anyone prior to Christmas. So, we never got our pre-Christmas foods that we wanted. But, we were able to have them last night and there are plenty of leftovers for the coming week which always makes Gordon happy.

Our Beautiful Exotic Table Setting and Meal

My Falafal’s

I also love any excuse to decorate and bring out our collections.

Bacon Wrapped Dried Figs and Dates

and an old recipe of my mother’s, Hot Olive Cheese Puffs

These are the only foods that we made for this dinner.

The rest we bought from Al Medina, an Arabic market and restaurant.

Sooooooooo Good!!

Falafel Platters with Hummas and Flatbread, Gyro Meat and Rice with Pickled Vegetables, Arabic Style Chicken and Rice, More Exotic Breads, Tons of Dipping Sauces, not to mention the desserts…..