delightful december!

The last cooking collage! I'm so glad to retire this series, because it was a real pain in the butt to assemble these collages every month. And I'm sure that Larry will be glad to be able to eat his food without it being photographed first! That being said, it is interesting (to me) to have documented what we cooked and ate throughout the year.

There wasn't a whole lot of cooking going on in December - I can't even remember what we ate during the first two weeks of the month, as I was so busy getting ready for two art markets. But once the holiday markets were over, it was time to indulge in ridiculous amounts of chocolate: Berger cookies (a Baltimore treat that a friend brought for my birthday), hot chocolate on a stick, Gardeners chocolates (my favorite - Larry's parents give me some every year!), and the last new recipe of the year: Mascarpone Brownies.

We hosted Christmas Eve dinner at our house - a non-traditional and multi-holiday meal of comfort foods: Mac & Cheese, Spicy Apricot Wings, and Latkes for Hanukkah (made by my brother's girlfriend), followed by a ridiculous amount of Christmas cookies. My favorite Christmas cookie recipe of 2011: Lofthouse-Style Soft Frosted Sugar Cookies (a copycat recipe of the grocery store "pink cookies").

The other food frequently consumed in December? Alcohol. After making a wine run to Red, White, and Bleu, touring three wineries on my birthday (and bringing home 8 bottles), being gifted a case of wine for Christmas, along with several other bottles being given to us by family and friends, we discovered we were in possession of 36 bottles of wine. I'm not complaining.

What we were eating and cooking this month: cookies, chocolate, wine, and comfort foods. (What else do you need?) The diet starts January 1st or whenever the cookies are gone!