Countdown to 2019: Best Appetizers and Snacks

It's time to share the best recipes of 2018 to ring in the new year!

It's that time of year once again! I am joined by my blogging friends to share the best recipes of 2017. The schedule is shown above in the little image - the countdown runs from December 26th to January 1st. I hope you stop by each day to see what recipes made our lists for each category. If you are a food blogger and just now hearing about the Countdown, please feel free to jump in. You don't have to participate every single day by any means. The blog hop is open from 12am EST the day the category goes live until 12pm EST the following day, so you still have time to draft something up and post it!

An InLinkz Link-up

Menu Plan Monday - December 24, 2018

Christmas is almost here!! We're doing our week a little wonky and having soup on Thursday instead of Wednesday. I also decided to take it easy on Monday evening and do frozen pizzas for our movie night. I'm making pancakes for Christmas morning for the first time ever and I'm pretty sure I'll be bringing sweets for Christmas dinner and a few sides. Hope you all have a great week and get to spend it with your loved ones - no matter if you celebrate Christmas, another holiday, or no holiday!

Monday - Frozen Pizza
Tuesday - Peppermint Hot Cocoa Pancakes // Jalapeno Popper Deviled Eggs, Sweet Potato Casserole, Herbed Gruyere and Bacon Au Gratin Potatoes, Sparkling Cranberry White Chocolate Cupcakes, Amazing Pecan Cobbler
Wednesday - Leftovers
Thursday - Butterfinger Maple Bars // Unstuffed Banana Pepper Soup
Friday - A&W Chili Dogs
Saturday - Salted Nut Roll
Sunday - Eggs Florentine Casserole // Roasted Red Pepper Pesto Chicken Sandwiches

What are you having for dinner this week?
Feel free to leave a link to the recipe in the comments!

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Black Eyed Pea Stew with Sausage and Kale

The perfect New Year's Day stew to bring prosperity for the new year with some black eyed peas!

Each year on New Year's Day, we eat black eyed peas in some form. It's a Southern tradition that's meant to bring prosperity in the new year. Of course, we don't truly believe that, but it's a fun tradition to do and it's a good positive thought to start out the new year, so no harm in it, right?! For 2018, I made this stew. I knew I couldn't go wrong with kielbasa and kale and I was correct. The kids and Nick aren't huge fans of black eyed peas, but they liked them a lot in this. It was an all-around wonderful stew and I just had to share the recipe in time for our upcoming New Year's Day. This is also pretty exciting because I believe it is the first recipe on my blog with black eyed peas!

Bacon Crackers

Are you ready for the most addictive party snack there is? Only four ingredients too!

Sometimes the best recipes are simple ones and this recipe is definitely evidence of that. These bacon crackers are simply butter crackers topped with bacon, brown sugar, and cayenne and what a magnificent group of ingredients they are! The sweet and salty combination with a pinch of heat all on top of the buttery crackers is just beyond amazing.  If you think you can get away with eating a couple, you are sorely mistaken. These easy crackers are perfect for NYE or game day or just a regular old Saturday!

Bacon Piggy Brittle #FantasticalFoodFight

Welcome to another Food Fight! Fantastical Food Fight is a group of food bloggers who will get a theme or ingredient each month and make some sort of variation for it. It could be traditional or nontraditional and can be found in a cookbook, on a blog, or be a blogger's own creation! For more details, check out this page.

This month's Fantastical Food Fight theme is CANDY. I originally was going to do hard candy, but had trouble finding a recipe that may fit the theme and figured my blogging friends might also have that same problem, so I broadened our theme to candy. There are so many good types of candy to choose from: fudge, toffee, taffy, brittle, hard candy, etc. I decided to try brittle once again. I haven't had the best luck with brittle. I think I need to invest in an instant read thermometer. But this recipe wasn't terrible at all. I think I just got it slightly too dark, but not burnt. So I can absolutely deal with that.

This was a recipe from Food Network Magazine that was in the "Name the Recipe" thing that they do and I could not find the name of it for the longest time. I went ahead and made it and decided to name it Bacon Piggy Brittle before finally discovering that it was named "This Brittle Piggy" which is SO cute. So whatever name you call it, it is definitely perfect for any bacon lovers you may have in your life, including yourself!