Top 5 Holiday Treats

Mom’s Chocolate Covered Pretzels
Mom’s Chex Mix
Maine blueberry pie
Elizabeth Bonzani’s Ischler Cookies
Mushroom Strudel

The pretzels and chex mix making are a tradition of my mom's during the holidays, and are full of nostalgia for me. The memory of the smell of the butter and Worcestershire mixture, heating on the stove, waiting to be slowly drizzled over the baking chex mix, makes my mouth water.
The chocolate for the pretzels was always white, and slowly melted, with a careful dip of the pretzel, and laid to cool on wax paper. The anticipation of waiting for the chocolate to harden enough to pick a pretzel up and "test" it, is almost too much. Yum!

Maine blueberry pie making became a tradition of mine, only when I moved west and did not have direct access to picking my own blueberries. I started trafficking Maine blueberries, and my holidays have been enhanced ever since. Yum!

Every holiday since I've known her, Elizabeth Bonzani has made her famous Ischler cookies. I shortbread of sorts, with nutmeats in the dough maybe? Raspberry in the center, with a chocolate drizzle, how can you not love this? At her staff holiday parties I would always plant myself down right next to the plate of cookies divine. Yum!

This is Mushroom Strudel recipe is adapted from Molly Katzen's Moosewood Cookbook and is a great vegetarian option for the holiday gatherings. I like to use puff pastry instead of filo dough. You can buy it in the freezer section in sheets, stuff it and fold it up like an envelope of goodness! Yum!

1 pound mushrooms, chopped
1 c cream cheese, cut into pieces OR cottage cheese
1 c sour cream, yogurt, or a combination
1 t salt
fresh ground black pepper
1 t dill
1 c bread crumbs
2 whole scallions, finely minced
¼ c parsley, minced
3 T lemon juice
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1 box Peppridge Farm Puff Pastry sheets
½ c poppy or sesame seeds (optional)

Preheat oven to 375.

Remove puff pastry from box, and allow to thaw on marble slab or parchment paper.

Cook mushrooms over med. heat for 10 minutes. Drain and squeeze out all the liquid. Place in bowl.

Add cream cheese or cottage cheese, mix well, then add everything else up and including the lemon juice.

Once the pastry sheets are at room temperature (20-30 minutes) unfold on baking sheet and fill with 1/2 mushroom mixture.

Pinch top of pastry together and fold in ends. Repeat with second pastry sheet. Sprinkle with optional seeds.

Bake 25-30 minutes, until lightly brown.

Cut with serrated knife and serve hot or warm.