These ideas add flexibility to your holiday plans

Christmas and Hanukkah are just a few days away, New Year’s another week-plus.

If you’re like most of us who are hosting a holiday event, your plans by now are set. Well, mostly. There’s always room for that last-minute addition or substitution.

To that end, here are a few sources of holiday ideas or inspiration that have recently crossed my desk.

E-book recipes

Anniversaries are as good an excuse as any to compile a group of festive recipes. And so the Lutheran Home and Harwood Place in Wauwatosa, anticipating its 110th anniversary next year, has put together a free e-book of recipes from residents and staff.

“Holiday Recipes for the Ages” contains 35 recipes, most from the independent living retirement community at Harwood Place, home to about 200 residents. There are pates and pumpkin cakes, cookies and casseroles, main courses and desserts. And a few cocktails created by dining services director Ryan Ptacek, including a smoked-cinnamon old fashioned that Harwood Place executive chef Tonya Garrido raved about. (Warning: It involves a blowtorch and a special hickory box.)

Independent residents of Harwood Place have full kitchens, and many still cook, Garrido said, but they and their assisted-living neighbors also have access to a dining program that includes a fine-dining restaurant and a 1-year-old pub and lounge.

Nancy Holz, who moved to Harwood Place about a year ago with her husband, said the dining room food is very good, but she still cooks a meat-and-potatoestype meal three or four times a week. She doesn’t want “to give up all those good foods,” and cooking is more enjoyable now that she doesn’t have to do it every night.

Her e-book recipe contribution is an apple dessert baked in a 13-by-9-inch pan.

“It was my mother’s recipe,” Holz said. “It tastes like apple pie, and it’s much easier to make. My mother loved to bake, so I try to carry on some of her recipes.”

Garrido was not involved directly in the e-book but has seen some of the recipes.

“This cookbook … is more about the memories it provokes than the recipes it provides,” Garrido said. “We’re promoting the book as a fun way to bring together younger people and older people. Residents are proud of their recipes; a lot have come from their moms or grandmas or are something they made for their husbands for 70 years.” The e-book can be accessed from thelutheranhome.org (scroll down to the “holiday recipes” link).

Dash of dairy

For Wisconsin residents who love their dairy products (who doesn’t?), the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board offers a holiday edition of its online magazine, Grate. Pair. Share. Available at gratepairshare.com, the issue tells how to make several party worthy recipes, including Christmas tree-, wreath- and starshaped cheese boards; brandy slushes and a Swiss almond cheese log; various sweet treats; and a brunch menu consisting of savory biscuit pinwheels (spinach, fontina, sausage), hash brown casserole and cherry cheese scones.

There also are creamy-cheesy dip recipes, plus tips for putting together a cheese board and pairing various kinds of toffee with cheese (coffee toffee with Parmesan, milk chocolate toffee with Gouda, dark chocolate toffee with Dunbarton Blue).

Ready-made fare

Finally, if you’re at the max for all the cooking you can handle, or if you need a quick host gift, there are plenty of ready-made options waiting at the nearest grocery store or, perhaps, even a restaurant.

Tre Rivali, the restaurant in the Kimpton Journeyman Hotel at 200 N. Broadway, has these house-made items for sale just inside the door:

Raspberry jam (8 ounces, $7); sea salt caramel sauce or hot fudge sauce (8 ounces, $7); dried pasta (various shapes; 1⁄2-pound bags, $8).

Also peppermint or vanilla bean marshmallows (10 pieces, $6); Mediterranean spiced salt (3-ounce jar, $3); and dark chocolate hot cocoa mix ($6).

And don’t forget the cookies: Four flavors of cookie dough balls to bake fresh at home are available: ginger molasses, chocolate chip, peanut butter and oatmeal raisin (six 2-ounce dough balls, $10).