Working Girl Cooks!

We had our first annual Holiday Recipe Exchange Party on Sunday, November 23rd and it was a HUGE success! Almost everyone brought a scrumptious dish and a recipe to go along with it. There was so much food we all ate ourselves into a coma! Here I will share the recipes from everyone so you can enjoy them too!

Veronica and Bryan are a couple that TDH and I met living in our first apartment complex in San Francisco. They lived across the hall from us and we invited them to a party we had one time and they have been good friends of ours ever since. They brought mushroom and thyme crostinis for an appetizer.

Alina, an old high school friend of mine who also went to UCSB with me and lived around the corner from my Mom’s house in Danville brought these baked pears with goat cheese and vermouth. They work well as an appetizer, on top of a bed of greens, or even for dessert!

I made this roasted pumpkin salad. I found the recipe here but substituted the feta for goat cheese. I was kind of disappointed with how the salad turned out. It was not as good as I was imagining it would be. I do not think I liked the dressing much.

I also made these bread rolls from The Pioneer Woman. The recipe can be found here. They were delicious and a huge hit at the party. I made 3 batches and they were almost all gone by the end! TDH and I liked them so much I made them again for Thanksgiving!

I also made this cornbread. The picture looks weird, I know...I just didn't like the background so I played around a little bit on photoshop. I used the recipe from Peter Reinhart’s book The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. I wanted it to be vegetarian so I left out the bacon and drippings and used vegetable oil instead. I also topped it with fresh thyme and baked it in a hot iron skillet. This was also a huge hit at the party.

This is also my recipe (I know, I made ALOT of food!). These are turkey breast rolls with goat cheese and prosciutto. I also made the cranberry sauce.

Veronica’s daughter, Celina, made this green bean casserole a favorite for all vegetable and non-vegetable lovers alike and a very traditional Thanksgiving dish in many households.

My friend Tevra, who I met at UCSB through Alina made this sweet potato casserole. It was one of TDH’s favorite dishes (besides my food of course!) and it was gone by the end of the night.

This sausage apple stuffing, made my TDH’s co-worker Leslie was so scrumptious. It is made with all kinds of good stuff including sausage, apples (I know surprising huh?!) and cranberries (bet you couldn't guess that one!).

And then, of course, we had dessert. By the time I got around to serving dessert we were all so stuffed, but we found a way to eat it anyway because they were so yummy!

It was dark by the time dessert was served so I could not take a picture of the beautiful spread so I placed a sample of each on a plate to take a picture. Cerina, TDH’s ex-boss’s girlfriend (now that's a mouthful!) made the pumpkin roll with was absolutely amazing. We were all fighting for the leftovers. Nancy, my mother-in-law made her famous pumpkin cake, and Tonnette, another old apartment neighbor made the saltine cracker toffee crunch.

It definitely was a fun party and everyone was so excited to get all the recipes. I hope you enjoy them as well!