Recipes from the Lovelady Christmas

Are ya'll about partied out on touring Christmas homes?? Wow, thanks for the great support in coming to the party and sharing your home links. It will take me DAYS to get around to visit all of you, but I'm going to try, really! I had a great time hosting and I hope you all got to visit lots of new people and find some fun new blogs in the process. Next year, I'll plan way ahead and get myself a blog button!
Aren't these the prettiest plates? On Monday, I met up with a couple of other Birmingham girls for lunch out at Nabeel's in Homewood and a little browsing the stores too.

That's Sandi, from Whistlestop Cafe Cooking on the left and Leigh, from Tales of Bloggeritaville on the right. I had met both these ladies before, but we sure had a great time at lunch, hanging out for the afternoon and talking blogging! I'm still amazed at how blogging has changed my world. We're thinking about doing a BIG Birmingham blogger day after the first of the year, so stay tuned for that if you're interested in meeting other bloggers here in town.

Last Thursday night was the Lovelady Christmas party (click to read more about the Lovelady Center) and me and my friend, Lynn really enjoyed sharing the season with the ten ladies at our table. We put our heads together and came up with a tablescape, menu, and giftbag items. It was a great evening and I think the ladies truly enjoyed it all. We used paper plates for the main course, along with chargers, a beautiful tablecloth that Lynn had on hand and my yardsale silverplate, her crystal goblets and dessert dishes.

I took the Linden Street hurricane lantern with the battery candles and it was a very pretty centerpiece.

Loved the scripture on these plates from Hobby Lobby and they seemed very fitting for this dinner.

Lynn and I got our table set and had a little breather before it all got started.

It was quite hectic in there with more than 300 ladies enjoying Christmas meals, but we all made it work. There were many churches represented here that night and we all had smiles on our faces. Our church had 2 tables.

Here's Lynn back in the kitchen where we had a designated area for serving our meal. We had chicken and dressing, tossed cranberry salad, congealed cranberry salad, rolls and....

A wonderful white chocolate bread budding for dessert. They all seemed to really love this decadent dessert and it definitely IS decadent (you'll see after you read the ingredients). After dessert, we handed out their giftbags, with some girly stuff inside...a pretty watch, chocolate and some bath and body products. They were all smiles so I think it was a hit!

In case you need a couple of recipes for Christmas, I'll share the white chocolate bread pudding (don't pay attention to all the calories!) and cranberry congealed salad which my family has been making for years now. The cranberry salad is a must at our table every year!

Cranberry Congealed Salad

1 can crushed pineapple

1 and 3/4 cup pineapple juice, plus 3/4 cup addit.

2 3-oz. Raspberry jello

1 can whole cranberry sauce

1 cup diced apples

1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Grated peel of one orange

Drain crushed pineapple, reserving the juice and combine with canned pineapple juice (1 & 3/4 cups total) in saucepan. Bring to boil. Stir in gelatin until dissolved, break up cranberry sauce & add to geletin. Stir in 3/4 cup more pineapple juice. Chill until slightly thickened & then add other ingredients. Chill until firm.

White Chocolate Bread Pudding

4 cups heavy whipping cream

3 eggs, slightly beaten

1 cup sugar

2 TBL vanilla

12 oz. pky. white chocolate chips

1 large loaf French bread

Icing:

12 oz. white chocolate chips

1 more cup whipping cream

Tear bread into small chunks, layer in 9x13 pan. Mix together 4 cups of cream, eggs, sugar, vanilla and 1 pkg. white chocolate chips. Pour over bread pieces. Let soak at least 30 minutes (I did mine overnight). Bake at 350* for 45 minutes. Top should be a little brown. Melt chips with cream in microwave, stirring and heating until melted. Pour over each serving as needed. Icing goes a long way, so you may not need the whole thing.

Hope you enjoy!