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The countdown to Christmas and New Year's Eve is ON! How are you all doing with the holiday To Do lists? I hope you are all having fun with your friends and family, making lots of fabulous holiday memories!

With so many holiday parties and gatherings, I find myself constantly in need of new last minute ideas for holiday party recipes. You, too?  Well today, I have TWO new party recipes that come together quickly and are perfect for holiday entertaining: one sweet dessert bites recipe and one savory appetizer recipe. Both use new Town House crackers that are easy to find at your local Target in the crackers aisle.

Town House Crackers' awesome new selection of pretzel thins, pita crisps, and flatbread crackers are sure to become party favorites throughout the year. They come in delicious flavors like Sea Salt and Mediterranean Herb.

I decided to use the pretzel thins for a chocolate dessert bite, and the flatbread crackers to go with a new dairy-free dip.

Chocolate-Covered Pretzel Thins with Bacon Sprinkles

The combination of chocolate, bacon, and sea salt works wonderfully for this fast, sweet and salty dessert recipe.

You definitely want to serve these immediately, or soon after they are made; if you let them set out for more than a day, the crackers get soggy.

INGREDIENTS:

24 Town House Pretzel Thins crackers
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips or dark chocolate chips (your preference)
¼ cup heavy cream or coconut milk
3 pieces of crispy cooked bacon, crumbled into tiny bacon sprinkles

DIRECTIONS:

1. In a large bowl, pour in the chocolate chips and cream or milk, then microwave in 30 second increments until the chocolate is completely melted. Stir with a whisk in between heating times.
2. Working quickly before the chocolate sets, dunk the salted side of each pretzel thin onto the melted chocolate, then set onto a prepared sheet of wax paper, chocolate side up, on a cookie sheet.
3. Sprinkle bacon over the chocolate while it is still wet.

4. Place cookie sheet into the refrigerator and cool until the chocolate has hardened, about 15 -30 minutes.

Serve immediately. RIght NOW. They will go fast. This is chocolate, bacon, and sea salt all in one bite, after all!

Fortune Flatbreads with Good Luck Dairy-Free Pesto Dip

For my second holiday entertaining recipe, I've developed a savory dip that I found to be an excellent companion to the Town House Flatbread Crisps in Sea Salt & Olive Oil. This dip uses my Cashew Cheese recipe as a base, but you can also use cream cheese. I'm also showing you two fun serving ideas for inspiration!

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup Cashew Cheese or cream cheese
¼ cup (plus up to 2 Tablespoons as needed) olive oil
1 cup fresh basil
1 garlic clove, minced
salt and pepper

DIRECTIONS:

1. Put all of the ingredients into a blender and puree until the basil is chopped up into tiny pieces. Add more olive oil in tablespoon increments if you find the texture to be too chunky for you. The dip should be smooth and creamy. Add salt and pepper to taste.

That's all there is to it! So easy, so fast, so very good!

New Year's Eve Entertaining Idea

You can serve the flatbread and cheesy pesto dip alongside each other on a plate as in the photo above. For New Year's Eve, however, I thought it would be fun to do something special. So I created these fortune slips, placed one on an appetizer serving spoon, put a couple of teaspoons of the pesto cashew cheese dip onto the spoon along with two or three pieces of flatbread. Ta da: now it's magically transformed into Good Fortune Flatbread with Good Luck Dip! :)

Now you have two new holiday party dishes - one sweet and one savory - to bring to your festivities! For more holiday recipes, be sure to check out the #WaystoWow site.

When contributing to holiday parties, what type of dish do you usually like to bring: a sweet or savory dish?