Somehow, without even realizing it, we made it to the holiday season. And that means holiday parties. Ones that you host, one’s that you attend, maybe even a couple that you gate crash! We don’t judge! Either way, you’re going to end up making and eating your fair share of party food in all shapes and sizes this season, so you might as well mix it up a little.

For parties, we are especially fond of dishes that require limited assembly and no actual cooking. We found these Pears with Blue Cheese and Prosciutto on Real Simple and it was a done deal. We had no real choice but to make and devour them.

Let me tell you why you should make these right now. First off, they were every bit as delicious as they look like they would be. The folks at Real Simple know how to write a recipe, even if it only has 5 ingredients. Which brings me to my next point. It has 5 ingredients, folks. Five. There is a slight art to wrapping the pears in the right amount of prosciutto and spooning out the blue cheese crumbles, but basically you could just mash these 5 ingredients together and end up with something that is the same amount of delicious.

One word to the wise. Cut your pears into fairly small slices – maybe 1/2 inch at the thickest part of your slice – otherwise these pear bites will be much too large for any human to bite! Take these to your next fancy party and amaze everyone with your artful prosciutto wrapping and blue cheese crumbling skills. Let us know which no-bake recipes are a hit at your holiday parties this year!

Ah, the holidays are here! Corelyn and I decked out our apartment with decor and a gorgeous tree the day after Thanksgiving – it’s so festive! Baking Christmas cookies is one of my absolute holiday traditions,  so it only seemed fitting that I pay a visit to one of Los Angeles’ renowned bakeries this month to get into the spirit of the season.

Milk Jar Cookies is located mid city on Wilshire Blvd. I was greeted outside with a giant Geronimo Balloon and Confetti System tassel, which immediately told me this place is awesome. Bonus points for being right next door to Whimsic Alley, the Harry Potter gift shop!

They have so many flavors to choose from!

I appreciated the attention to sweet details at Milk Jar, including these adorable holiday straws.

They serve Handsome Coffee, one of LA’s best roasters!

I ordered half a dozen cookies and was so impressed by Milk Jar’s branding – every cookie was individually packaged and labeled with the flavor, and they included an adorable note warning that you’ll probably never look at cookies the same way again. They were right.

I carefully chose the seasonal peppermint candy cane (pictured first in this entry), the chocolate pecan caramel, cinnamon sugar, seasonal oatmeal cranberry white chocolate, white chocolate macadamia, and the mint chocolate. They were all amazing – so perfectly doughy and soft, but my favorite was the mint chocolate!

Wouldn’t these be a fancy treat for Santa? What’s your favorite Christmas cookie?

A few weeks ago, Corelyn and I had the pleasure of working with VeeV Spirits to come up with a recipe to go along with one of their signature cocktails – the Honey Comb.

We had a blast cooking, trying the cocktail out, and bringing you another recipe that’s easy to whip up – and would travel great to a holiday party! An appetizer that’s easily finger food, no utensils required, means you can have a cocktail in one hand and a piece of flatbread in the other.

Fall Veggie Tart
Serves 6
Oven temperature: 375

Ingredients
1 cup butternut squash
1/2 cup thinly sliced red onion
4-8 oz goat cheese
1 tbsp rosemary
1 lemon, zested
s/p

Dough
1 cup flour
1/2 tbsp baking powder
3/8 tsp salt
3 tbsp butter
3/8 cup milk

Directions

1. Preheat the oven. Make dough: combine all ingredients into a bowl, and then roll into a ball. Refrigerate while you prepare the other ingredients.
2. Tiny dice (also known as brunoise) the butternut squash.
3. Thinly spice the onion.
3. Chop rosemary and zest your lemon.
4. Lay out your dough, and create a rim around the edge to catch ingredients.
5. Crumble cheese on top, followed by squash, onion, lemon zest, and rosemary.
6. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes, until golden brown.

It’s as easy as that – make dough, chop veggies, lay out dough, layer with veggies, bake! And, it’s colorful and will impress anyone you feed it to – a win, win. Make sure to check out VeeV’s Facebook Page to get the recipe for the Honey Comb cocktail that inspired this flatbread!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! This year in London, I hosted my very first Thanksgiving and it was a SUCCESS! Everyone loved Thanksgiving, and I’m hoping to make it an annual tradition here across the pond. I had my very own oven schedule, although it was quite short compared to the rest of the Garlic, My Soul crew! I was too busy to live blog, so here is my #laterblog

9 am: I began Thursday morning with the three pies. I know, dessert before dinner! Who does that? Bear with me… After pre-making the dough for the crusts Wednesday night, I prepped and baked two pumpkin pies and a pecan pie. Then they had the whole day to set (see, there is a method to my madness!)

10 am: As my flat furniture is way to small to host a sit down dinner for 11 people, so I rented a 6 ft round table and chairs, which were delivered right on time!

11 am: Next up were the sweet potatoes, individually wrapped in foil and oil. While they took up one shelf, the Tofurkey cooked on the second rack. Meanwhile, on the stovetop, four pots of water were boiling for the white potatoes.

1 pm: Cornbread was quickly whipped up and baked. Finally, the mac and cheese was made and baked, and dishes were done, all before…

3:30 pm: The turkey went in the oven! Jacinta made a lovely turkey crown that everyone said was quite delicious. Thank you Jacinta!

6 pm: The wine was flowing, the guests started to arrive.

7 pm: Everything was warmed and set out

8 pm: Dinner was served! Everyone said what they were thankful for, and ate until they were stuffed. There was barely room for pie, but somehow we managed!

Here was my London Thanksgiving menu:
Turkey
Tofurkey
Creamy Mashed Potatoes
Candied Yams
Mac and Cheese
Cornbread
Brussels Sprouts and Kale
Sausage Stuffing
Mushroom Stuffing
Ratatouille
Salad (with my famous dressing of course!)
Pumpkin Pie
Pecan Pie
Egg Nog
Lots and lots of wine!

My guests were particularly impressed/weirded out by the candied yams. Everyone was really confused by the marshmallows on top, but I promised it was delicious and they loved it! Egg Nog was also difficult to explain, and it was a love it or hate it sort of thing here in London. Of course I made too much food, but days later, I’m still eating the leftovers, even after sending home lots of doggie bags. I’m thrilled to have been able to share Thanksgiving with my London friends, and to Skype with the GMS LA Thanksgiving! Is it too soon to start planning for next year?!

What was your favorite dish this year at Thanksgiving?

Hello everyone! We hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving day and a lovely day-after-Thanksgiving turkey sandwich (or two.) We at GMS had a wonderful time on Thanksgiving, which went by SO FAST this year! Luckily, we thought ahead and asked all of our lovely friends to commit to one hash tag so we could recap the day for you here before we’ve had a chance to go through our actual photos and put them up for you. Thanks to everyone who posted about the lovely day – see a variety of photos before from dinner, dessert, the photo booth (including fan blown confetti), and our yearly Thanksgiving walk.

We hope you had as lovely a Thanksgiving as we did! Now, onto Christmas tree-decorating!