We held our first holiday party in late December, and putting together a menu for 10 – 15 attendees with varying taste preferences was definitely a new challenge for me. I decided to combine mostly a set of the usual suspects with a few options that seem like they could be a) made ahead of time, or b) were relatively simple to construct within a day because I was traveling for work until the night before the gathering. The biggest challenge was to figure out the right quantity of food to prepare, especially because we didn't know if people would be showing up for dinner, a snack, dessert, etc. given that we might have other holiday parties to compete with.
We ultimately settled on the following menu, which ended up being perfect for this set of guests for this wintery season, albeit during a temporary winter heat wave of 60 degrees!
- Cook's Illustrated Ultimate Hummus (double batch, prepared in the morning)
- Chilled Low-fat Artichoke Dip (double batch, prepared in the morning, and served with in a bread bowl)
- Classic Mac and Cheese (prepared immediately before party)
- Cuban Black Beans and Rice (prepared immediately before party)
- Chocolate Mousse (prepared in the morning)
- Pumpkin Pie with Fool-proof Pie Crust (pie dough prepared in morning, pie baked in early afternoon)
- Ground Beef Shish Kabobs (Andy made from Saranya Mandava's cookbook)
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