Christmas recipes

As I mentioned in a previous post, I made a few desserts and a batch of salsa for Christmas. I wasn't the happiest with how the salsa turned out but it wasn't too bad for my first attempt.

Ingredients

2 cans of tomatoes (I like my salsa really smooth so I used one can crushed and one finely diced.

1 onion, chopped

1-2 jalapeños, diced

1 tbsp chopped garlic

Cilantro (I used a handful or so)

Dash of salt

I would also recommend adding some green chiles and lime juice; I think at was the missing component.

I mixed it up in a bowl and the used my immersion blender to really blend it together.

The next item I made was peppermint bark. Usually I just do candy quick with  the peppermints but this year I added semi sweet chocolate too.

Ingredients:

6 pieces of almond bark (aka white chocolate aka candy quick)

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1/2 small bag of starlight mints (candy canes work too)

Line an 8" x 8" pan with wax paper. Crush mints until they are a fine powder and set aside. Melt the chocolate chips over low heat. When fully melted spread into pan. Melt the almond bark and add in most of the mints and stir. Pour over the chocolate in the pan. Sprinkle the remaining mints on top. Refrigerate until set. Break into pieces.

Last but certainly not least were my peanut butter balls (aka buckeyes)

Ingredients

3/4 cup butter

1 1/2-2 cups peanut butter

3 1/4 cups powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

On low-medium heat melt the butter and peanut butter until liquid and well blended. Add in vanilla and stir. Remove from heat and incorporate powdered sugar. Once blended form into little balls (1") and drop the balls on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper. Allow them to set in the refrigerator for at least half an hour. Melt the chocolate over low heat. Using a toothpick dip the balls in the melted chocolate. Return them to the fridge when dipped to set up.

I make these every year so in my haste I forgot to get a picture. But trust me these are good!