Okay you wonderful people, here's my follow-up report. Happily, there was a lot of food at the party, so I got to bring about 1/6th of it home. Tonight, I cooked some ribbed pasta, opened another jar of homemade pesto and mixed in all the leftover torte. OMG! It was so good. Of course I made a nice salad so the meal had some semblance of nutritional value.
Because I'm just that kind of girl, I didn't allow quite enough time to do the seven-layer version, so I did the easier option that was in one of the earlier recipes which worked out better (or should I say butter?). I saw the most recent recipe that WTH posted (cool site!). I'm guessing that's an even older version. On reflection, I'd say 50-50 or 60-40 ratios both work, given sufficient chilling time. I cheated and put the bowl in a bigger bowl of ice water in the fridge to speed up the molding process.
I have this cool little "bowel" that I use to make DH's oatmeal every morning. It's already prepped for tomorrow, so I took a shot of it sitting inside my hideously expensive microwave, which some of you might remember from some other thread I posted on. Oh yeah, it was happy plant's thread about replacing appliances.
AR, because I used the squatty "bowel", and an improvised quick chill method, the whole cranberries weren't sticking, so I tossed them in the food processor, pulverized them and kinda piled them on the top, which worked well enough taste-wise, but didn't help it look like a Christmas tree.
Finally, I mentioned I made crackers to go with it. They turned out great, so my gift to you for all your wonderful help is this easy peasy recipe, from a cookbook called "Easy Christmas" by a publisher called Ryland, Peters and Small. I bought it at the end of my library's Holiday Book Sale on Saturday for $1.00. I am happy to report that the sale was a resounding success, with our best take ever. The party was for my other library board, so it was quite the literary weekend.
Parmesan Herb Crisps
1 1/4 c freshly grated Parmesan Cheese (or thereabout. I didn't measure, just eyeballed it.)
1 c Flour
1 stick cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
1/2 teaspoon Dried Herbs de Provence*
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire Sauce**
2 tablespoons White Wine***
Dump everything in a food processor and process until it forms a ball. (It really will. I was amazed.) Smoosh the ball o'dough well so there are no air bubbles inside. Turn it out onto parchment or wax paper, and roll it until it looks like a paper towel tube. Tape the tube closed and chill it well. When it's good and cold but not frozen (if you're cheating like I did) slice it into thin, uniform 1/4" (-ish) discs and place them on cookie sheets. Bake at 375 for 12-15 minutes****. Remove when lightly browned, let sit for 2 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to completely cool. Don't worry about how long they'll keep, because they won't last long enough for it to matter.
Notes: The ingredient list is theirs, the directions are, well, paraphrased.
* Didn't have any. Googled it and had 7 out of 8 dried herbs. Smashed them together in a mortar and pestle and it worked fine. Fresh snipped rosemary might be a good substitution if you have a pot of it handy.
** None of this either. Used A-1. Worked fine.
*** Didn't measure this, just sloshed a little out of the glass I was drinking.
**** Next time, I'll lower the heat and increase the cooking time to get a crisper cracker. Maybe 275 for half an hour. Also, the ones that browned a bit more tasted better, so let 'em get a little more golden.
[ETA: I made these again for another party. This time I used a fork to pierce an X in each cracker. The holes closed up in baking, but before they did, allowed the heat to escape so the crackers baked flat this time. Yay. Lowering the heat/extending the baking time helped too.]
To choppingwood: Thanks, I love my life too! I adore my DH for helping me have such a good one. Of course, his mom and her pal Al Z. Heimer keep things interesting, too. My life is insanely wonderful and I've made lots of friends and connections in my community, all because I started volunteering at the library in my pre-FIRE (and pre-DH and pre-MMM for that matter) days because I wanted to make some friends. (And because I made myself say "yes" to new opportunities.) I'd encourage you to see what's going on at your local library. Oh, and buying that butter was no accident. I always load up my freezer over the holidays when it's cheapest. The accident was that I bought BLOCKS of butter, not sticks. They are a pain in the ass to cut and measure and take forever to defrost. I'll be making a lot of holiday toffee this week to use some of it up.
Okay, that's all for now. You guys made my weekend. Post FIRE, I hang around here in hopes of offering the kind of guidance that I wish I'd had available to me in my early working years. I am amazed and grateful to all of you for the help you've given me with this recipe quest. Y'all are the best, I tell you, simply the best.
ETA: WTF?!? The photos attached upside down! They're fine on my desktop. Anyone know how to fix them? They don't show up in print preview, only once posted.