Tonight is New Year’s Eve but my extended family and I celebrated Christmas yesterday – and a merry time it was!
Christmas Traditions – making buttery sugar cookies with new & old cookies cutters. (The angel and poinsettia cookie cutters were my mother’s.)
Christmas, even though celebrated after December 25th, still felt like Christmas to me and my extended family two days ago. There were happy, excited children, brightly wrapped presents, rum-spiked eggnog and lots of food and Christmas cookies – plus love, laughter and Bing Crosby singing Christmas Carols. ; o )
I kept the menu for our ‘Christmas Meal’ simple and did much of the cooking the day before. I baked three French Canadian Meat Pies, ‘spiral cut’and roasted the ham and prepared Make-Ahead Loaded Mashed Potatoes. I served only one vegetable – Wilted Spinach with Olive Oil and Pine Nuts, which takes only minutes to prepare.
To nosh on while we opened presents I made a platter featuring good old deviled eggs, various types of olives, and sliced tomatoes & fresh mozzarella drizzled with balsamic vinegar. I also served a few old favorites like one we like to call Vito’s Dip, and Ham and Cheddar Balls with Honey Mustard Dipping Sauce. (I think my twin brother ate half the Ham and Cheddar Cheese Balls because he loves them and I hadn’t make them in years.)
Below my directions for making Ham and Cheddar Balls you’ll find links to Grammy Brouillette’s French Canadian Meat Pies, Make Ahead Loaded Mashed Potatoes and a link to Fabulous Foods.com‘s directions for how to cut and bake a spiral ham.
Ham and Cheddar Balls with Honey Mustard Dipping Sauce
Oven at 350F Bake for 20 minutes
INGREDIENTS
- 3 cups biscuit mix – such as Bisquick ++ If Bisquick isn’t available, check online for directions to make your own. It’s easy!
- 1 1/2 cups diced ham
- 4 cups shredded Cheddar cheese (16 oz.)
- 1/2 grated Parmesan cheese
- 1 Tbs. chopped fresh parsley
- 1 tsp. brown mustard ++ I use GREY POUPON’S ‘Country Mustard’
- 2/3 cup milk
Honey Mustard Dipping Sauce
- 3/4 cup mayonnaise
- 3 Tbs. brown mustard
- 1 – 2 Tbs. honey
METHOD
Lightly grease a cookie sheet .. OR .. line cookie sheet with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, using a large serving spoon, mix all ingredients until well blended.
Form dough into 1″ balls. Place balls 2″ apart on cookie sheet.
Bake for 20 minutes. Balls will be lightly browned
While balls are baking, prepare sauce. In a small serving bowl mix 3/4 cup mayonnaise, 3 Tbs. brown mustard and 1 2 Tbs. honey until blended.
++ ‘Ham and Cheese Balls may be baked the day before, placed in a big ziplock bag, refrigerated and reheated on a cookie sheet for a 6 – 7 minutes at 350F.
Recipe adapted from Bisquick brand’s Holiday Ham Balls.
Directions for preparing Grammy Brouillette’s French Canadian Meat Pies
Recipe for ‘Make Ahead Loaded Mashed Potatoes’
Fabulous Foods tells you everything you need to know to spiral and cook a ham. My ham sure didn’t look quite as ‘pretty’ as this one, but it was delicious!
http://www.fabulousfoods.com/articles/957827/how-to-spiral-carve-ham
myyellowfarmhouse.com 
I can see why those ham and cheddar balls would disappear quickly, they sound yummy.
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As I mentioned, I hadn’t made the Ham and Cheddar Balls in a while but wanted to be sure to serve them this Christmas… which should end up being my last here. I saw in my notes that I had started making them with half the cheddar cheese – so I went back to the original recipe, which is soo much better. How was your Christmas? Was it your second in your gorgeous place in Florida?
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We had a lovely Christmas, Cecile. Yes, this was our second here in Florida…enjoying it more as each day passes.
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That’s sooo wonderful Karen !!
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The meal and Christmas sound and wonderful!
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Hi There – Happy New Year!! We did have a wonderful time… most likely the last Christmas we’ll celebrate here at my beloved Yellow Farmhouse because I plan to sell it soon. Life is too short and I want to get back to traveling A LOT!! I’m exciting about posting from wherever I happen to be! ; o )
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I’m excited for you! I’m looking forward to seeing where the road takes you! Happy New Year!
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Thanks sooo much !! ; o )
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Everything still looks quite festive at your house. All our snow is gone after a spell of lovely SUN!!! I’ll be honest and say if we don’t get any more in 2017, I’d be quite happy. Tasty looking cheddar and ham balls. I want to make a tourtiere again soon. My first attempt, when I couldn’t make a pie crust to save my life, was a great disaster that ended up in the garbage. I know I could do a lot better now. 🙂
Happy New Year.
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Happy New Year ‘A’! Yup – things are looking rather festive around here… But I’m pretty much exhausted. I had a dinner party for 21 people December 17th – and cooked for far more. Due to a snow storm night night, about 10 people couldn’t make it.
The next weekend was Christmas.. then I spent all last week getting ready for yet-another Christmas. It’s fun and I do love it.. but I don’t bounce back as easy as I used to. ; o )
About the tourtiere – I now just buy the crusts you find in the refrigerator section. My sons could care less and it takes me less time.
When we lived in Quebec, pretty darn good meat pies were sold in the freezer section. I’d never serve a store-bought meat pie for Christmas, but we did enjoy the store-bought pies quite a bit when we lived in Quebec.
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I think most of us are scaling back if possible. That’s a LOT of cooking though.
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