Kitchen Fun/ Happy Birthday KARI!!!!

I hosted a dinner for the Holiday's and wanted to pass along these cute ideas I found/stole. This first one is "Cheesy Snowman". Isn't he cute? My friend Patty made this for a birthday party. I loved it so much I had to make it. I revised it just a bit. I used all cloves instead of some cloves and some olives. I also dashed in some Worcestershire sauce too. Just to give it a different flavor. It was a hit. And the presentation is appropriate for the entire winter season.

Here is the recipe:

1 pound cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 cups Monterey Jack cheese, grated
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Celery, clove, pumpernickel slice, black olives, and carrot

In a food processor, combine cream cheese , 1/2 cup Monterey Jack, garlic, and salt and pepper to taste. Freeze until firm, 30 minutes. (I did this with my Kitchen Aid mixer)

Shape mixture into 3 balls; roll balls in remaining Monterey Jack. Freeze until firm, about 1 hour.

Just before serving, stack balls; secure with toothpicks. (I used shish-kabob sticks) Use vegetable peeler to shave celery scarf; pin with clove. Cut bread into 1- and 1 1/2-inch rounds; pin hat together with a toothpick. Push through far enough so the stick doesn't poke out the top. Punch dots from olives with plain round pastry tips, and cut end off carrot; press in place. (I used all cloves so I wouldn't open an entire can of olives.) Serve with crackers.

This next one, I was skeptical at first when I saw the recipe. I really wanted to make pineapple up-side down cake. But it seemed so boring. Until I came across this on allrecipes.com. It looked too good to be true, but I was pleasantly surprised when they came out looking like this:

I didn't present them nice, but they were as good as they look. The things I did different: I used jumbo muffin tins and I cut a section out of the pineapple slice so it would sit flush on the bottom. Whatever I didn't have in pineapple juice I made up for with water. I used the whole cherry, putting it in the bottom before I poured the batter in. Ooooohhh.......these were fun!

Here is the recipe:

INGREDIENTS

• 2/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/3 cup butter, melted
• 2 (20 ounce) cans sliced pineapple
• 1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix
• 3 eggs
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 12 maraschino cherries, halved

DIRECTIONS

1. In a small bowl, combine the brown sugar and butter; mix well. Spoon into 24 greased muffin cups. Drain pineapple, reserving the juice. Trim pineapple to fit the muffin cups; place one ring in each cup.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the cake mix, eggs, oils and 1-1/4 cups of the reserved pineapple juice; mix well. Spoon over pineapple, filling each cup two-thirds full. Bake at 350 degrees F for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
3. Immediately invert onto wire racks to cool. Place a cherry in the center of each pineapple ring.