Break your resolutions

When I lived in L.A., I had a party a couple of Januaries in a row with a running theme: break your resolutions. The first year I did it on January 2 or something ridiculous like that, because it was funny to do it that close to New Year's day. Now that I'm in NYC and we're paring down our travel schedule come January, I figured I'd resurrect it. This time I'm doing it on January 10, to give everyone ample time to actually try to keep their resolutions before succumbing to the temptation of my ginger butterscotch cookies.

As the time for the party gets closer, I'll be posting some trial runs of recipes that I plan to have at the party as well as asking for suggestions. I think it's a good way to motivate myself to take more photos of what I'm cooking and to share it with the small subset of the world that will read about it.

For now, I'll just post a draft of the current menu. All items are finger foods, to facilitate snacking and mingling. Feel free to post any suggestions for yummy finger foods in the comments. Keep in mind that I'm making almost everything myself, and though I can prep a few things the day before, most of it has to be made the day of the party, so anything overly complicated won't work well.

I've gotten several of these recipes from my favorite food blog, Smitten Kitchen, several from some recipe books I have, several from Eric Ripert's blog and several from just thinking, "huh, I'd like to cook with this ingredient. Let's see if I can find a recipe that incorporates it". As I post each item, I will link to any original recipes and post my adaptations here as per usual.

Menu after the jump.

Break Your Resolutions '09 Party Menu

Handfuls

Roasted pumpkin seeds
Spice-roasted almonds

Dips

Crudites with two dips: lemon pesto or blue cheese
Pita chips with two spreads: hummus or roasted-pepper walnut

Savories

Arancini
Stuffed mushrooms
Gougeres
Crostini with figs, caramelized walnuts, Stilton, and honeycomb
Crostini with truffled tapenade
Crostini with burrata or crescenza-stracchino cheese
One or two additional small bites - suggestions welcome!

Sweets

Ginger butterscotch cookies
White chocolate oatmeal cookies
Some other kind of cookie - suggestions welcome! (I want to have three types)
Update: Chocolate cookies with bacon and pecans
Pumpkin cupcakes with maple cream cheese frosting
Chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting and crumbled peanut brittle
Vegan and gluten-free sweets from Lula's Apothecary (these are the only thing that won't be homemade)

Drinks

Melissa's white sangria
Lemon-ginger smash
Wine, beer, etc.

Comments

[Kathleen]

A suggestion via IM - bacon cookies with chocolate chips and pecans. I will probably do a twist on these and make them a chocolate cookie, but may include chocolate chips anyway. What better way to break the diet resolution than with bacon AND chocolate?

[Shawn]

I don't like pecans. But otherwise... nice and smooth.
Drinks: Some godawful cliche' punch with like 20 liquors.