This weekend we hosted our first Friendsgiving at our house, and I had so much fun setting the table for the event! Growing up my mom and aunt would always set beautiful tables for Thanksgiving (we alternated between households), and I love how it makes the dinner feel that much more special. Even though it took a little extra time to take out the china, I was pleasantly surprised at how easy a nice table is to create!
Funny story – you might notice that the flatware is reversed. Forks are supposed to go on the left, and knife on the right. I didn’t realize that I had made an oops until our guests had already left and we were cleaning up! In a past life I would have been horrified, but you know what? We had a wonderful and fun dinner, and that’s all that really matters at the end of the day!
I absolutely love these gold votives, which add so much warmth to the table! I also use them for our advent candles in Christmas, or really any time I want the table to feel a little special! Since my color scheme was gold and burgundy, I also pulled out our gold flatware, and gold chargers to help the lace china really pop (My china is currently on sale!). For this event I used these gold chargers, but oh my gosh I’m majorly obsessing over these gold lace chargers too!
Call me old school, but I love everything about crystal. I love the look of it of course, but I also love the weight of it! For our dinner I used our Waterford wine glasses and vase. We definitely don’t use our china and crystal every day, but it really elevates the table, and transforms a dinner into an event.
I hope everyone has fun planning fun and festive Thanksgivings over the next week!
Happy Friday, my friends! This has been a week full of testing out Thanksgiving and Christmas recipes, and I’m so excited to share them all with you! Starting today with these delicious smoked salmon filo cup appetizers, which true to this blog post title, are completely irresistible! I made one batch of these, and they were gone in an instant! So you’ve been warned!
These hors d’oeurves might look and taste fancy, but they’re actually incredibly easy and can be prepared the day ahead.
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What I love about these is that they’re perfectly bite-sized. As much as I love appetizers like crostini, they can be kind of awkward to eat at a cocktail hour. I much prefer to serve these smoked salmon apps, which can be eaten a little bit more elegantly haha!
Makes 24 appetizers
Ingredients:
2 packages of frozen filo dough cups (12 cups per package)
8 oz cream cheese
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 tablespoon lemon juice
4 oz smoked salmon
2 tablespoons fresh dill, minced
2 tablespoons fresh chives, minced
1 teaspoon dijion mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 packages of frozen filo dough cups (12 cups per package)
Directions:
Follow the directions on the filo dough cups, and bake them accordingly – usually about 3 minutes on 375.
Combine the cream cheese, sour cream and lemon juice in the bowl of a food processor, and run until combined, about a minute. Add the remaining ingredients, and run until everything is incorporated. Spoon or pipe the salmon filling into the baked filo dough cups, and garnish with fresh dill.
If preparing these the day ahead, make the salmon filling and store in an airtight container. Bake and fill the filo cups the day of your event.
We’re already a week into November (what!) and Thanksgiving is just two short weeks away! I’ve been working away at holiday recipes, and am so excited to share these pumpkin white russians with you today! They’re creamy, pumpkin spicy, with just a hint of coffee from the Kahlua! Basically a spiked pumpkin spice latte – I mean what can be wrong about that??
In our family we like to take our time on Thanksgiving, enjoying conversation and catching up with each other for a while before actually sitting down for dinner. When I started working on this holiday cocktail, I was imagining how delicious these would taste while we nibble on some appetizers like these mini savory apple pies that I shared last week!
Ingredients:
(Makes one drink)
2 oz Vodka
1 oz Kahlua or Baileys
1 oz heavy cream
1 1/2 tablespoons canned pumpkin puree
2 teaspoons pumpkin spice (with any leftovers you can make pumpkin spice latte cupcakes!)
Directions:
Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker half full of ice, and shake well to combine. Serve over ice, and garnish with a little more pumpkin spice or cardamom if you’d like!
What’s the only thing better than a delicious sweet apple pie? A savory one! After our apple picking adventure this fall, I was on a mission to think of all the best apple recipes, and I think this one might be my favorite. These mini apple pies are full of sizzling bacon, crisp apples and aromatic herbs, enclosed in a delicious buttery crust. Perfect for a fall brunch or holiday appetizer!
These mini savory apple pies are really easy to make, and can be made ahead of time and warmed up when you’re ready to enjoy them! I’m serving these as an appetizer for thanksgiving, and I love that they can be done before so I can spend more time with my family.
Crust Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) cold butter, cut into 1 Tbs pieces
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup ice water
Filling Ingredients:
Six strips of bacon
One apple (I prefer tart granny smiths)
One small onion, diced
1 tsp fresh thyme, finely chopped
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
Directions:
To make the crust, add the flour, salt and butter to your food processor, and pulse until the mixture resembles course crumbs. Add the ice water little by little, just until the dough forms a mass on the food processor blade. I usually only use about 1/8 cup. Divide the two into two pieces, form each piece into a flat disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and let cool in the fridge for 1-2 hours. It can stay in the fridge longer, just take it out about 15 minutes before rolling if it’s been in there a while.
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees f. Lightly dust a clean, dry work surface with flour, and turn your chilled dough onto it. Sprinkle a little flour onto the dough and your rolling pin, and roll the dough out to 1/8 inch thickness. (This rolling pin is amazing, because you don’t have to guess at the thickness! It rolls your dough evenly to the specified measurement every time!). Using a biscuit cutter or small bowl, cut 4 inch circles out the dough. Lightly press each circle into the well of a standard muffin tin. Bake for 10 minutes at 425. Let cool, and reduce the temperature to 350.
To make the crust, start by frying the bacon until crispy. Remove bacon to a plate, and add the remaining ingredients, apple through black pepper. Cook in the bacon grease over medium-low heat, for about 5-10 minutes or when the onion starts to become soft and translucent. Then it’s time to stuff our crusts! Press the apple filling into each crust, making sure to get them as full as you can. Bake for 25-30 minutes at 350. You’ll know they’re done when the crust is lightly golden brown.
If you’re making these ahead of time, they’re easy to reheat! Put in the oven at 250 for 20 minutes, and they’ll be heated through!
For more autumn inspiration, check out my fall fashion posts here, here and here, and my pumpkin spice latte cupcake recipe here!
Quick breads are one of my favorite things to bake. They’re so easy, flavorful and everyone loves them! Just a little mixing, pop in the oven for an hour, and you’ll have the house smelling of tantalizing pumpkin spice goodness! Added bonus? You can whip up this easy pumpkin quick bread by hand – no need for a stand mixer.
This is definitely one of my favorite treats to bake in the fall, but I actually love to bake it year-round.
