Holiday Season Food Firsts

Egg drop soup. Needs some crunch on top.

Garlic and herb goat cheese, caramelized red onion chutney, and smoked salmon on naan.

Homemade mayo. Tastes better than the jarred stuff. But doesn't keep long. This is all prep (plus dried cherries not pictured) for tuna salad.

Smoked salmon, cream cheese, and capers on crackers.

Thought it would be fun to make citrus lollipops. Not so much. Pain in the ass. Burned the crap out of the sugar first go. Sputtering, not mess. And these pink fleshy molds are kind of grody.

Wrapping them was fun and they look all pretty in this presentation. Tastes good, but candy itself needs to be harder. I brought the mixture to 300 as instructed, but maybe took off too soon. Baking and candy-making is so exact, I'm just not good at that; I'm more of an improvisor.

I've made sugar cookies before, with a recipe of my Mom's. This once is from The Kitchn. Lemon zest in the batter. Nice. Cream cheese frosting. MMMMM.