New Year's Eve Feasting

For New Year's Eve, rather than a traditional dinner, we had an evening of snacking with a variety of meats, cheeses, fruit and other goodies. Here are the highlights:

homemade pretzels (working on perfecting the recipe here)

fancy sausages and salamis and mustards 

Vermont Creamery chevre (goat cheese) with fig-walnut confit, 

Point Reyes blue cheese and a nice aged cheddar with grapes and raspberries

These are peppadews - Guy Fieri loves them so we had to try them! Spicy and sweet at the same time, I found them on the olive bar at Fresh Market. We also had stuffed banana peppers. 

Some of our favorite accompaniments to the sausage - yummy handmade beer-thyme mustard (a gift from our friend Brooke) and 2 kinds of horseradish. (In case you're wondering Atomic is the truly hot one; the good-n-hot is hot but won't make you pound your fist on the table!)

A few other goodies we tried for the first time and loved: L'Epicuriun Fig and Walnut Confit (a fancy word for jam! super delicious with goat cheese, just like the label says), Edmond Fallel Seed-Style Mustard (nicely balanced with a hint of horseradish-y spiciness) and Stonewall Kitchen Caramelized Onion Mustard (perfect for pretzel dipping). 

Hope you all had a happy New Year's Eve with lots of good eating!