What's cooking this holiday season

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

This holiday season has been so great. Per usual, I'm really in the spirit. In fact, M. started calling me the Queen of Christmas.

I've watched an awful lot of cheesy holiday movies -- ABC Family's 25 Days of Christmas, anyone? We've also visited two local displays of Christmas Lights - Hartwood Acres Celebration of Lights and Oglebay's Festival of Lights (both amazing!), hosted a tacky Christmas sweater party at the cabin and cut down our Christmas tree.

I can live without the green and white cup 11 months of the year, but once Thanksgiving rolls around, it's constant nonfat, no whip peppermint mochas for me. And of course, I've had the Christmas music on 24/7 since November 1.

Last night -- November 23 -- was our first official Christmas party. I made Ina Garten's amazing roasted eggplant spread for the occasion. It was really easy, tasty and seems pretty healthy to me. It's a great thing to bring to a party as an appetizer. Or perfect if you're hosting, because you can prepare it in advance.

The downside? While I was chopping the peppers, I also chopped off the tip of my thumb. I won't get into the gorey details, but it was ugly. My brand new fabulous Cutco knives sure do cut with minimum effort. Domestic fail.

So what's cooking this Christmas?

• Roasted Eggplant Spread
  
• Cranberry Vanilla Chip Cookies
• Snickerdoodles
• Cranberry brie bites
  
• Homemade raviolis

The ravioli filling was a ratio of one egg to one cup of ricotta, plus I added seasoned salt, pepper and a touch of garlic. The pasta was 2.5 cups of flour, 2 eggs and a touch of olive oil. Typically I need the dough by hand and then use the pasta attachment. But this time I used the dough hook on the KitchenAid mixer, due to the thumb injury. It worked well enough, but I think I'll go back to making it by hand next time.

I hope you're all enjoying your time with family and friends. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Picture: The tree in Rockefeller Plaza from our recent trip to New York City. Love!