"Stump the Cook" Stuffed Squash

Lynne Rosetto Kasper's "Splendid Table" is a fantastic public radio show for "people who love to eat." I love the semi-regular feature called "Stump the Cook." Lynne is the "cook" and listeners try to stump her by calling in with a list of random ingredients they have in their fridge or pantry. They recite the ingredients on air and Lynne then has a few minutes to devise a dish using those ingredients. 

I hate for food to go to waste and I don't usually cook from recipes so I play the home version of this game very often.  Every once in a while, I hit on a dish that's a keeper.  This date-stuffed squash dish made me a winner a few weeks back--so much so that I've served it a few times since and even adapted the stuffing for mushrooms that were part of our Christmas feast.

Brightly striped delicata squash start showing up at our farmer's market in mid to late summer and they stick around until into the winter.  We generally stock up on them this time of year because they store well and retain sweetness. Better still, the tough skin softens nicely to an enjoyably edible texture when roasted.

Prepping them for the oven is a cinch--just cut them in half lengthwise and scoop out the guts and seeds.  Brush them lightly with olive oil and place them into a 450 degree oven face down on a nonstick baking sheet.

 Meanwhile, some of the stuffing comes together on the stovetop.

One red onion, roughly chopped goes into the skillet over medium heat along with three to four good sized garlic cloves cut in half.  Sweat those until they soften and toss in two jarred roasted peppers also rough chopped (fresh peppers will work too, but I don't usually have those in my fridge and the flavor is not as strong).  Season with salt and pepper and cook for 2 minutes more so the peppers are warmed through.

Once the veggies are cooking, add 3 veggie burgers to the oven (I used Amy's Organic Cheddar Burgers) on a separate baking sheet cooking each about 4 minutes per side.

Separately, chop up kalamata olives (I used two per squash half) and pitted medjool dates (three to four per half).

In my oven, two medium delicata usually take about 15 minutes to roast through.  I take them out when the skin softens and yields to the touch.  Remember that they will need to keep their shape sufficiently to hold the stuffing so don't over-roast.

When the squash are roasted and the onions, garlic, and peppers cooked, combine the veggies from the skillet, the dates, and the veggie burgers in the work bowl of a food processor.  Pulse a couple of times until the stuffing blends together but retains a coarse texture as shown above (I pureed it the second time I made it.  The flavor was the same, but it came out a uniformly brown mush that doesn't look so appetizing and had a less interesting mouthfeel).

Set the oven to broil, spoon equal amounts of the coarsely processed stuffing into the halved squash, and top each with 1/2 ounce of cheddar cheese and chopped olives.

Place the squash under the broiler for a minute or two--just long enough to melt the cheese. Remove from the oven and serve after they've cooled for a minute or two.

Christmas Cooking Marathon

It's officially Christmas as of eight minutes ago. In just over fourteen hours, 20 of us will sit down for a feast that my dad started planning as the dishes were being cleared from the table after last year's Christmas dinner. 

The menu was set a month ago after intense deliberations aimed at getting my dad to scale back his Griswoldian aspirations for the meal in light of his recent knee surgery. The shopping started last weekend and finished up this morning. The cooking began yesterday and will continue right up until all the guests are seated at the table.

From start to finish, we will probably eat this meal in less than two hours.  It's at times hard labor, but always a labor of love.  Here are a few highlights from the prep that's taken place so far.

 The good folks at Applecheek Farm supplied us with this certified organic, pasture-raised, 4 lb pork butt to flavor the ragu that will coat the home-made pappardelle pasta that we will serve as our main course.  Here I am cutting it up into 1 inch cubes to be marinated for 10 hours in red wine with garlic cloves and rosemary.

 As you can see, we scored a piece with a generous layer of fat and some meaty bones; all the better to flavor the sauce with.

 Meanwhile, my mom fried up some eggplant for her melanzana parmigiana.

 Dad gets into the action, dumping an industrial-sized can of San Marzano tomatoes into the pork-stuffed pot along with some fresh parsley.  Then it was into the oven for several hours of slow braising.

 Back on the stovetop, red onions and green celery get into the holiday swing with some spicy Italian sausage from our friends who raise happy pigs at Tangletown Farm.  We will stuff mushrooms for our first course with this heavenly pork.

The problem with cooking things ahead when you have an Award Winning Eater and his dad in the kitchen: we have a hard time not eating everything as we cook it. This sausage was no exception.  Needless to say, our sample-as-you-go style has resulted in several fewer sausage-stuffed mushrooms being available for tomorrow's meal.

The sugar high I got from binging on cookies at my Aunt Carol's Christmas Eve party is starting to wear off so I better head to bed.  There's a long day of rolling out pasta dough ahead...

Holiday Cookie Swaptacular

In the hierarchy of my favorite foods, cookies are second only to pizza. Naturally, when Rory asked for a volunteer to host this year's second annual Holiday Cookie Swap, the Award Winning Eater stepped up to the plate (with considerable assistance in the holiday decorating department from Joslyn). 

Memories of October's Award Winning Eater-sponsored, gluttony-inducing Dessert Pot Luck Party were still fresh in the minds of many cookie swappers.  Nonetheless we managed once again to push the per capita dessert density at our home way off the charts. As the photo above shows, there were no fewer than 13 types of cookies--at least a dozen of each type--with only ten adults and three small children to consume them.

I wish I had a solid close-up of each cookie type, but they were all so good and I hesitate to post a picture that fails to give even a hint of the deliciousness each cookie possessed. I'm still working with a camera that isn't really great for food photography (advertising revenues haven't exactly been pouring in despite the blog's official sponsorship of the wildly successful aforementioned Dessert Pot Luck Party and my shameless promotion of WeightWatchers in the last few posts).  Hopefully these shots will give you some idea of the cookie-lovers' dream that this gathering was.

 Dawn made a strong showing with this tray of treats. In the back, mint chocolate crinkle cookies. In the middle we have the consistent crowd pleasers: a rolo melted on a pretzel topped with a pecan.  The recipe (which we've also made before) couldn't be simpler.

Line a cookie sheet with pretzels, top each with a rolo, and place the tray in a warm oven preheated to 225 degrees.  

• When the rolos are soft to the touch, but still holding their shapes (i.e., not melting over the sides yet) take the tray from the oven and press a nut )e.g., pecan) or shelled candy (e.g. peanut m&m) of your choice onto the rolo, pressing down just hard enough so the heat-softened rolo smushes into the gaps in the pretzel.  

• Let cool to room temperature and enjoy

Because Rory, as organizer, laid down the rule that no chocolate chip cookies were allowed at this "holiday cookie" swap, Dawn disguised her rendition, packed with two types of chocolate chips, pistachios, and dried fruit under a hood of chocolate and vanilla glaze.

For the second year in a row, Karen's stuffed cookies were real crowd pleasers. Molasses and lemon were never so good together as they were in this cookie combo.

Karen also gets points for being the only one at the swap to circulate her recipe beforehand.  Thus, I can share it with you:

Soft Molasses Cookies with lemon filling

Ingredients

     4 cups all-purpose flour

     2 1/4 teaspoons baking soda

     1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

     2 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

     1 teaspoon table salt

     1 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

     8 tablespoons butter softened

     ½ cup shortening

     1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

     1/2 cup unsulphured molasses

     2 large eggs, lightly beaten

fIlling

     4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

     4 tablespoon lemon juice

     2 2/3 cups confectioners' sugar

Instructions

     1. Whisk flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, salt, and cloves together in medium bowl. In separate bowl, cream granulated sugar and butter together until combined. Beat in molasses and eggs. Add dry mixture to butter mixture in three batches, stirring after each addition. Cover bowl with plastic and refrigerate until dough is firm, about 1 hour.

     2. Adjust oven racks to upper-middle and lower-middle positions and heat oven to 375 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

     3. Place 1/2 cup granulated sugar in small bowl. Shape dough into 3/4-inch balls. Roll balls in granulated sugar, then transfer to prepared baking sheets, spacing balls 2 inches apart. Bake until tops are just beginning to crack, 8 to 10 minutes, rotating rack position and direction of baking sheets halfway through baking time. Cool cookies on baking sheets for 3 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely. Use remaining dough to make second batch of cookies.

     4. Whisk softened butter, lemon juice, and pinch of salt together in medium bowl. Whisk in confectioners’ sugar until smooth. Turn half of cooled cookies over (bottom side up) and spread each with 1 teaspoon lemon filling. Sandwich with another cookie. 

Clancy and Elizabeth brought these beautiful biscotti, sporting seasonal colors with green pistachios and red dried cranberries and cherries.

No holiday cookies swap is complete without gingerbread people.  Rachel rendered both gingerbread genders with skill as you can see above. More impressive, however, was the moist texture these cookies held on to days after the swap.

This tray of leftovers was assembled just for the photo. In actuality, I walked away with many more cookies than what you see. Fortunately, I was able to donate most my haul to a Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium holiday open house that depends on board members like me to do the baking for children of all ages who stop in.

In addition to the cookies I already described, you can see Joslyn's chocolate-dipped pistachio shortbread on the viewer's far right (pistachio was the "in" nut for 2011 baking apparently).  Rory's artistic cinnamon swirl is just to the left of the shortbread.  My weight-watcher's approved no-bake cocoa, peanut, oatmeal cookies (3 points each) are hiding between the biscotti and Karen's molasses cookies. On the left, just below the ginger people, you can see one of Jess's salty-swet peanut and pretzel blondie bars. And next to hers on the far left Josh's chocolate-covered macaroons (so tasty were they that Joslyn stole all of them back from the portion I set aside to donate to the museum open house---cookie swap can get cutthroat).

At first we all tried to control ourselves.  Joslyn and I were even splitting cookies in the early rounds.  But 45-minutes into it, the binge was on. After this year's swap, there were a few of us who would have fit snugly into a Santa suit. Ho, ho, sugar-high!

Whoops, I did it again...

Weight Watchers, week 4.  I've been getting some compliments on looking fitter, which is nice. But it's hard not to detect suspicion in some of those compliments. I know some are surely wondering whether the Award Winning Eater may be losing his edge.

Yes, It's true that I've lost weight every week. In a big chunk at first and in smaller, steadier intervals ever since. I even managed to lose weight Thanksgiving Week. During that time, however, I have had the privilege to enjoy some of the finest food I've eaten in a long while, overindulging strategically--even exceeding my allowed WW "Points" twice.

First of all, Turkey really isn't my thing (readers of this blog know that I only recently returned to chicken). Pork, however, is very much my thing. Also very much my thing: Jess's brownies with chocolate chips, nuts, and dried fruit. I consumed both in abundance at my friend Rory's farewell smoke-off.

Picture the scene: I was confronted with a tub containing fifteen pounds of slow-smoked pork butt, dry rubbed and vinegar-mopped, not to mention a delicious pot of tortilla soup, and a tray of brownies stacked five high. Weight Watchers be damned, it was clear what I had to do. Rory supplied all the fixings for tacos of which I had two, and after which I just started eating the pork with my bare hands. Consensus guestimate on my pork consumption was 1.5 lbs.  Official count on my brownie consumption was 7.

A few short days later, we baked up our favorite Weight-Watchers unfriendly Thanksgiving side dish. Gouda cheese, eggs, brown sugar, melted butter, white flour, and lots of pureed carrots achieve greatness together in this savory baked carrot pudding (think dense soufflé). The browned crust on the edges is my favorite part. 

 Based on the ingredient list, and notwithstanding the health bonus of eating so much carrot, this dish costs lots of WW points for a relatively small portion.  Thus, I limited myself to two helpings on Thanksgiving day (with a few leftover portions scattered over the weekend). It's a variation on a super recipe for Boudin de Chicaros (savory pea pudding) over on the web site Mexconnect.

 Despite the bounty that our family table offered (candied squash and apple bake, citrus raspberry salad with pecans and shaved pecorino romano, homemade rolls, mashed VT Elba potatoes from High Ledge Farm cooked slowly in milk and butter instead of water, parsnip and carrot mash, green beans almondine, a generous cheese board and all-you-can-eat shrimp cocktail during cocktail hour, and an equally full dessert table)  I had actually managed to keep things under control through the main meal.

I was still well within my points budget when I arrived at my cousin Andrew's house for our annual Thanksgiving cousins' viewing of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation a couple of hours after the main meal. There waiting was my Uncle Paul's maple pecan pie (I ate three slices), and a smorgasbord of movie-theater concesssions my cousin Andrew bought as party favors.  The place was swimming with swedish fish, mike & ikes, gummy bears, and endless bowls of buttered stovetop Jiffy Pop. I think there was some tequila in there too (4 points per 1.5 oz.). Again, there's only one thing for an award-inning eater to do in those circumstances.

Two points-busting foodfests. Two weeks of weight loss. So the critics surmise that I am starving myself the rest of the time. WRONG!

Exhibit A: Oysters. 6 medium= 1 point (For reference I get at least 37 points a day to work with not counting others I earn through exercise). I was already deep into Oysters before I started WW.  James Beard Award-winning food writer, Oyster aficionado, and fellow resident of central Vermont Rowan Jacobsen likens eating a good Oyster to "kissing the sea on the lips." Let's just say things have gotten hot and heavy between me and the sea since I learned how many Oysters, mussels, shrimp, and scallops I can eat under the WW system. Last night at Kismet, I ate twelve expertly prepared Oysters on the half shell before devouring a bowl of divine mussels steamed with garlic and pernod.

Of course you cannot lose weight if you give in to gluttonous impulses at every opportunity; around this time of year those opportunities abound.  As I write, I am nibbling furiously on a 0-point apple (remember most fruits and veggies are invisible to the WW points system) all to keep my mind off the fresh-baked, chocolate-dipped shortbread and chocolate peanut-butter no-bake cookies that we made for tomorrow's second annual holiday cookie swap (see photos from last year's here). Most people on Weight Watchers would probably not agree to host a holiday cookie swap, but I'm not sweating it.  I've eaten wisely so far this week and exercised often. Still, there's going to be a lot of cookies here...

I am only 3 pounds shy of my 15 pound weight loss goal. Will I still lose weight if I blow my points for the third week in a row? Stay tuned...

What I have learned so far about Weight Watchers...

Lesson 1: You can still eat rich foods, you just have to eat less of them, less often. 


It's a good thing that you don't have to cut out anything entirely when you are on Weight Watchers (WW), because I was sitting on 3 and a half cups of the most delicious duck stock you ever tasted and about 1/2 cup of duckfat too.  Both came to me by way of the ethically-raised Tangletown Farm (Middlesex, VT) duck my friend Ben brought by a couple years ago.  I finally pulled it out of the freezer to make us some confit with duckfat-braised parsnips, brussel sprouts, potatoes, and garlic cloves when he visited several Sundays ago. That left me with plenty of rendered fat. Afterward, I simmered the carcass into stock with the heads of leeks, a few chunked up un-peeled carrots, and onions.

Armed with that duckfat and rich stock as well as a bag of chicken livers from my friends at Scout's Honor, I set out to challenge the WW system with the kind of meal I seem often to have occasion for and probably could not live without: a proper feast.  

The occasion was the retirement dinner for my former boss Denise.  Those of you who have read my post "Bill's 89th Birthday Fiesta" know that Denise and her husband Tom are deeply skilled in the culinary arts.  Some of the best feasting I have done anywhere has been at their table.  For this dinner, I wanted to go big. I knew there would be wine flowing and grappa too.  So, could I create dishes worthy of the occasion, enjoy the wine and spirits, and stay under my WW points?  

Here's the menu:

Champlain Farms Triple Creme cheese with home-made pear jelly from one of Joslyn's co-workers.  Only two per person trying to stay under WW points.  The people at Champlain Farms aren't kidding around when they say its triple the creme!  So hard to eat just two...I knew I needed to save points for the decadent duck and liver fare to come. 

First was the red-wine, duckfat sauteed leek and cippollini onion, garlic and sage risotto cooked with the duck stock from the picture above.  If you read my first post on WW, you can probably guess that the points are starting to add up with the ingredients in this dish.  Yet its intensity and diversity of flavors lent itself well to being slowly and satisfyingly savored (more about that in lesson two) in a smaller portion.

This sage-fried chicken-liver olive-oil crust tart came next and offered little slices of heaven (WW emphasis on the "little"--my slice was roughly a 1/10 of the tart).  I dredged the livers in a bit of flour mixed with dried sage and fried them lightly in a mix of safflower and olive oil, removing them while they were still rare in the middle. Then I baked them off in the tart shell at 350 for 35-40 minutes with eggs and cheese.  The tart crust recipe--a real keeper--is made with olive oil instead of butter and comes from the Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook by Jack Bishop. The overall concept for the liver, egg, and cheese tart came from viewing a photo of a similar version that the "Offal Chef" posted here.  Eggs, romano cheese, white flour for the crust, 1/3 cup olive oil also for the crust, and fried chicken liver also coated in flour--the WW points keep adding up relentlessly... 

...That's why dessert was mostly fruit.  Honkin' slices of sweet pineapple topped with orange and kiwi slices that we garnished with shredded mint and spearmint before serving.  Ok, there was some vanilla frozen yogurt with pureed mango in there too.  But for the most part a low points dessert.

Still, there were a couple of glasses of wine consumed over the meal's course (4 points each) and prosecco before that (6 points) and grappa afterwards (I forget how many points).  Add all those together and I was well over the 39 points I get per day and all out of the 49 weekly "bonus" points I had held in reserve all week in anticipation of a Saturday feast.  I had even cashed in the day's "Activity Points" I earned on a roughly 5-mile walk up and down hills.  Yet, I was still slightly under my budget...

...until they put the free pizza slices on the bar at the concert later that night.

Stay tuned for Lesson 2 on eating slowly, savoring food, and the fantastically low point value of raw oysters.

Happy Birthday to Auntie Rowie, my Award Winning Godmother!

The Award Winning Eater has an award winning godmother and it's her birthday.  Her hard-earned hardware--an Emmy Award for television news production--is impressive.  Luckily for her godson, she brings her Emmy-winning attention to detail and aesthetic sensibility to the fabulous food that comes out of her oven.  She's been baking for me since my first birthday, creating treats that I enjoy over and over again as I recall some of our family's happiest occasions. 

The birthday girl in a "candid" with her handiwork--a plate of oatmeal chocolate chunk cookies and trays of chocolate and impossibly moist vanilla almond cupcakes sporting holiday-appropriate summer fruits on July 4th, 2009.

She is a grand master of the Toll House recipe chocolate chip cookie.  Her drive for excellence in all things usually compels her to explain that "this batch is not my best effort," as you reach for the perfect cookie atop the perfect stack of other perfect cookies heaped on the tasteful plate she's selected.  The two dozen cookies she brought us recently did not survive the evening in this good eater's house (I shudder to think how many weight watchers points that little cookie bender would have cost me).

She lovingly bakes loaves of banana-nut bread for me every Thanksgiving.  I don't remember when she started this tradition between us, but I can't imagine a Turkey-day breakfast without eating at least half a loaf.  I value each morsel all the more because I know how many other things she could have been doing with the time it took to make the breads on the eve before she hosts yet another picture-perfect family Thanksgiving meal with my uncle and cousin.

As someone who lives to eat and eats to live, I am so grateful that my godmother has shown me such affection through confection.  It is one of the many great qualities that make me so happy to celebrate another year in the life of my Auntie Row.  Happy Birthday.

Award Winning Weight Watcher?

The rumors are true: the award winning eater has joined Weight Watchers online version (Trademarked, hereinafter referred to as "WW").  For the next three months, I will be trying to follow what WW refers to as its Points Plus plan.

(Because I know that Award Winning Eater is such an influential brand in the blogosphere, I want to make clear from the get-go that I am not receiving any compensation from WW (yet) for blogging about my experience.  More importantly, I don't even know if WW works (day 4) or by what standard I will ultimately judge its success.)

A lot of people have been surprised when I tell them I joined WW, responding jokingly that I don't look "that fat." Point taken.  Thus, my goals for the plan are modest--shed ten to fifteen pounds and keep it off.

Those are the ten to fifteen pounds that threaten the waistline of suits that I really like and can't really afford to replace.  Those are the ten to fifteen pounds at the top of the slippery slope.  Most importantly, those are the ten to fifteen pounds that make my aging knees ache from extra pressure after a long run or a day of mogul skiing.

Those ten to fifteen pounds come from trying hard to embody one of the credos of this blog: gluttony is the best sin, and it is best committed with food (examples include, but definitely are not limited to, past posts as "Tis the Season to Eat Cookies," "Pizza! Pizza!," "White Ingredients Party," and of course "Dessert Pot Luck Parts 1 + 2")

I stand by the indisputable truth of this credo.  The problem is that I was raised to believe that sins must be atoned for (would they be as fun to commit if they didn't?).  And those aforementioned knee pains are telling me to repent.

Enough preaching, let's talk about how I will try to maintaining Award Winning Eater standards with guidance from WW PointsPlus. The system is pretty easy. As you might imagine from the name, the idea of WW revolves around counting point values assigned to the food you eat, liquids you drink, and the exercise you do.  You get so many points a day to use on whatever food you want and you can earn extra points by exercising.  Veggies, even cooked, are zero points so that's key.  But the fat you cook them in, breading, or sauces rack up the points.

My last name starts and ends with a vowel; there is pretty much no way in hell that I would give up pasta. So before I got too invested in WW, I wanted to see if I could create a pasta dish that actually had flavor, that could fill me up, and that did not break the bank on points.  Tuesday night was my second WW night (Halloween was my first, and yes I did eat candy but only two pieces) and we were having friends over too so I could have some objective second opinions on my orecchiette in brodo con fungi, ravizzone, e porri (mushrooms, kale, and leeks).  As you read the recipe, keep in mind that veggies = 0 points.

1 lb. orecchiette pasta (literally translated as "little ears," but I think they look more like little caps)
6 cups leeks, halved lengthwise, sliced every 1/2 inch, green ends trimmed
5 cups brussel sprouts, tough stem ends trimmed, sliced thinly every 1/8 inch
3 cups cremini mushrooms, coarsely chopped
3 cloves garlic
juice of one lemon
4 cups kale, tough stems removed, coarsely chopped
2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
4 cups vegetable broth
romano cheese

Boil well-salted water for pasta

In a separate sauce pan, bring the broth to a simmer then lower heat and add the kale.

While that is happening, bring a large, deep skillet with a cover--preferably cast iron--to a hair past medium heat and add oil.

Steam saute well-seasoned leeks and brussel sprouts in the skillet uncovering to stir occasionally.

When the veggies in the skillet start to brown and reduce in volume (3-4 minutes) add the mushrooms and continue cooking as before.

Add the pasta to the boiling water after the mushrooms go in the skillet.

A couple minutes before the pasta is done, lower the heat a bit and press the garlic into the skillet, stirring frequently to combine and prevent the garlic from burning.

Add the lemon juice to the skillet.

Because WW focuses a lot on portion control, I measured out each of our bowls with 1/2 cup of cooked pasta at a time (1 cup = 5 points), added veggies from the skillet and broth with kale from the sauce pan, and topped with a 1/2 oz. of romano cheese (=2 points). Two servings left me feeling very satisfied (and two meals worth of leftovers to boot thanks to smaller portion consumption on my part).

The best part is that I had enough points left over to eat 1/2 cup of Cobb Hill Vanilla Frozen Yogurt for dessert. 1/2 cup doesn't sound like much, but you'd be surprised. WW notwithstanding, this is the first but certainly not the last time that I will save some of my points for frozen treats from Cobb Hill.

Update Sunday 1:48 a.m.
Day 6 on WW.  We had a dinner party last night with prosecco, wine, duckfat, fried chicken livers in a tart with eggs and cheese, risotto, and more Cobb Hill fro-yo among other delights.  I also ate 4 late-night slices at PP2 and drank a touch of tequila.  In short, I very likely racked up a WW points deficit that even the Greek government would be proud of. It was worth it.  Stay tuned for more details...

Dessert Pot Luck Part 2

Editor's Note: As the title indicates, this is the second post in a series of two. Scroll down and read Part 1 first for context.  

Photo Editor's Note: You can get a closer look at these desserts by clicking on the pictures and then zooming in.

Chris and Steph pioneered pie territory with this tasty chocolate cream creation.

Joyce and Victor were on the vanguard of the brownie brigade with these beauties, packed with chocolate chips and dried cherries.

Joslyn went gluten free with a custardy pear torta recipe from the pages of Cucina Italiana magazine. 

Cayenne pepper gave Mike and Claire's brownies a special kick.

Just when I thought I couldn't eat (much less enjoy) another brownie, Kelly and Louis's straightforward rendition of the classic convinced me otherwise.

Taking me at my word when the invite specified that there was no shame in brining something store bought, Krista arrays premium chocolate's from Nutty Steph's in Middlesex, VT.  My favorite of the three was dark chocolate with sea salt and bacon bits.

Flaky and fruity rugelach from a local bakery arrived with Karen, just in time for me to really push the boundaries of how much sugar I could safely enjoy.

In case you are wondering, I still had room for several pieces of the dark-chocolate covered bacon that James brought by.

And then Sean and Jenny arrived with their signature dessert.  It's so easy and so good, you will wonder why you didn't think of it before. Onto a square pretzel you place a Rolo candy and then place into a low heat oven (around 225 degrees) until the Rolos starts to melt.  Remove from the oven and press a peanut M&M onto the top of the melting Rolo, then allow to cool.  It's the perfect combination of salt, sweet, chewy, and crunchy.

The quantity and quality of desserts and their makers present at the first ever party sponsored by the marketing team at awardwinningeater.blogspot.com, suggests a promising future for the blog and its publisher.  And another great thing about sponsoring a dessert pot luck: leftovers.