Category — Entertaining

Yesterday, I held my 5th annual Craft Party. This time around, I only provided three craft options and asked the attendees to provide crafts they wanted to share too.

Just as only one of my three crafts sold out while the other two went nearly or completely untouched – some of the guest crafts were very popular and others only had one or two that were made. But, it’s all good – everyone had a great time crafting, eating, drinking, and socializing.

I made two egg dishes, a sweet crêpe option, muffins, and, as promised, the Frosted Pumpkin Cookies.

The first recipe I’ll be sharing is a fun breakfast or brunch lasagna.

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Last night I taught a private cooking class here at my house. It was a demonstration class with an appetizer theme.

Since individual appetizers can be time-consuming to assemble and to make the class a bit more fun, I did ask for assistance from the students on a couple of the recipes.

The best of both worlds, I teach with free help!

Setting up for a class is a lot like entertaining and many of the techniques I use for a class are the same that I suggest to people when they entertain, such as:

• Choose do-ahead recipes
• Mise en place is a must
• Lay out your serving pieces and “map out” your table long before guests/students arrive
• Make Lists and a Timeline

All five of these recipes can be done well ahead of time, perfect for entertaining.

Blue Cheese Grapes, Caesar Dip with Crudités, Pigs in a Warm Puffy Blanket, Hot Feta and Tomato Spread, and Smoked Salmon Quesadillas.

For a cooking class, we set all the ingredients and utensils needed and place them on individual trays for each recipe. When entertaining (or cooking in general) pull together everything you need and prep (chop/dice) what you can ahead of time. This is known as Mise en Place, or “everything in its place.”

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Last night, we had George and Julie over for cards and dinner. You may remember George and Julie as the “side vs. salad” couple from the 4th of July party. That’s George sitting on the cool deck and Julie in the blue top on the far right.

We’ve always been a big “cards family.” We play either Hearts, Spades, Rummy 500, Pinochle, or Gin Rummy with my dad nearly every Sunday. So “cards and dinner” is nothing new at our house, but having another couple over for that explicit reason is.

I had family obligations all morning and into the early afternoon, so dinner had to be fast and easy. I made a quick cocktail by whizzing a few frozen mixed berries in the blender with about a cup of purchased lemonade. I strained out the seeds and put the mixture in a pitcher and then added the rest of the bottled lemonade and popped that in the fridge to chill. When it was time to serve, I poured the berry lemonade and an ounce of vodka over ice and topped it off with a splash of homemade limoncello. Cocktail Done!

When Dave got home from work, I asked him to scour the refrigerator for olives and the pantry for smoked fish and pâté and arrange it on a platter with some crackers and grissini breadsticks.  Snacks Done!

Below is the recipe for one of the two salads I made, the other will follow in a day or so.

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Peggy, Sloane, and Katie all brought dishes to the 4th of July BBQ. Even though I don’t have (or in some cases, need) recipes from them, I don’t want to leave them out.

Peggy brought watermelon slices. It was some of the sweetest watermelon I’ve ever enjoyed.

Plus she shucked, cleaned, and boiled corn on the cob that Dave later grilled.

Then there were the berry-themed desserts…

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One of the appetizers that I planned to serve at the 4th of July party was these cheese-filled grilled mini peppers.

Don’t they look yummy? My guests never got a taste, let alone a glimpse, of them. This photo of some other cheese-filled peppers is lifted from the web. That’s because, my grill-master husband turned the 30 little peppers, that I lovingly spent time and effort cleaning out and stuffing, into charcoal.

Photos of his burnt-to-the-crisp peppers at the bottom of the post.

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If you can find Easter egg radishes and colorful heirloom cherry tomatoes at your grocery store or farmer’s market, this perfect colorful summer salad!

If not, I’m sorry for you but it will still taste fantastic without the “fancy” vegetables.

Isn’t it pretty?

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These mouth-watering BBQ chicken thighs were inspired by a recipe from the Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond.

When it comes to making bbq chicken quarters or just anything bbq related, there are many ways to make a recipe your own. For me, all I did was switch out peach preserves that she used to kick up some purchased BBQ sauce with red pepper jelly to really spice it up. The result – fantabulous!

These are what I was baking while the haboob rolled into and over Scottsdale and did a number on my 4th of July decorations the night before the party.

I neglected to let you know how all that turned out … it was fine. I spent the latter part of the night trying to track down all the blow-up stars that had been hanging from the front pillars. They were blown all around our cul-de-sac. I found about 2/3 of them that, the dark, and the rest the next morning. I was able to hang up and repair all the damage from the storm. So all’s well that ends well!

Now on to my bbq chicken.

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For the 4th of July Potluck BBQ-Pool Party, I asked guests to bring a salad, a side, or a dessert. George, who works with Dave, said he’d bring a side. When he told his wife, Julie, it turns out there was some discussion about what constitutes a side dish. Julie wanted to bring a pasta salad, or maybe a grilled vegetable salad or some other sort of dish with the word “salad” in it. All of which George put the kibosh on because they were “salads” and he signed up for a “side.”

Of course, anything they brought would have been just fine and greatly appreciated. They agreed this chilled green bean side dish would qualify as a side and all was right with the world.

Indeed it was, and it was delicious! Julie found the recipe on Rachael Ray’s website.

Here Dave is giving George a little grieve about giving Julie grieve about what is a salad and what is a side!

This is, Coney, he is the resident lifeguard at our pool. He may not have eyes to watch over swimmers, but his buff body keeps people in line!

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Peggy, Raechel, Sheila, and I met at The Simple Farm last Thursday for their last market of the summer. No worries, they’ll reopen in October when the cooler weather returns.

You might remember Raechel from my craft classes. Raechel was pregnant when she came to her first craft. Then in the next class, she brought her beautiful newborn baby girl, Brooklyn.

We were so happy to see Raechel and 7-month-old Brooklyn at the market. How adorable is this little cherub!?!

Sheila bought a few cartons of fresh goat’s milk and a jar of The Simple Farm’s Goat’s Milk Caramel Sauce.

Best of all, she shared it with us by making Goat’s Milk Ice Cream and letting us drizzle the amazing caramel sauce all over it!

Oh my, was it good! Thank you, Sheila, for sharing your farm bounty with all of us!!!

Beautiful Sheila drizzling away.

Steve, is very excited to be drizzling Goat’s Milk Caramel Sauce into his bowl of homemade ice cream!

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Besides the deliciousness of this old-fashioned potato salad recipe, I also love that when Sheila sent me the recipe she named specific brands of mayonnaise, pickle relish and seasoning salt.

All three of the brands are true Red, White & Blue Americana, all created in the early 1900’s!

Hellmann’s Real Mayonnaise

In 1905, Richard Hellmann from Vetschau, Germany, opened a delicatessen on Columbus Avenue in New York City, where he used his wife’s recipe to sell the first ready-made mayonnaise. It became so popular that he began selling it in bulk to other stores. In 1912 he built a factory for producing Mrs. Hellmann’s mayonnaise. It was mass-marketed and called Hellmann’s Blue Ribbon Mayonnaise. It was so successful, that Hellmann closed his delicatessen in 1917 to devote full-time to his mayonnaise business.

Lawry’s Seasoned Salt

The seasoning was originally created by Lawrence Frank, the original owner of the Tam O’Shanter and Lawry’s The Prime Rib Restaurant, where the seasoning was used and sold to patrons of Lawry’s. In 1938, Lawry’s began marketing its seasoned salt in retail stores.

Vlasic Dill Pickle Relish

Frank Vlasic immigrated from Poland to Detroit in 1912 and started a small creamery with savings from his factory job. His son Joseph acquired a milk route in 1922, which eventually grew into the state’s largest dairy distributor. In 1937, Vlasic was approached to distribute a home-style pickle, later marketing their fresh-packed pickle in glass jars. A star was born!

The mention of a “milk route” reminds me to show you one of my 4th of July “Americana” centerpieces.  Made with three Vintage Milk Dairy Porch Delivery Boxes.

In case you’re too young to know what these are, they are boxes that were left on people’s porches and a milkman delivered milk and other dairy products right to the door. Here is a little history from the Historic New England exhibit – From Dairy to Doorstep.

After World War II, change came to the milkman. The milkman was a familiar character in the neighborhoods of small towns and cities alike, and dairy products now held an unquestioned place in the American diet. Yet, refrigerators, supermarkets, suburban sprawl, and automobiles threatened home delivery. Consumers chose to live in different places and get milk in different ways. In fact, by the end of the 1950s, home delivery fell into a decline and never recovered. By the early 1950s, reliable power refrigeration replaced ice boxes and revised the homemaker’s job of buying and cooking for the household. Perishable foods like milk could now be bought in greater quantity and kept longer without spoiling, more meals could be made from leftovers, and frozen foods could replace fresh. The milkman did not have to arrive every day in order for the family to have unsoured milk.

I am just barely old enough to remember the milkman. These boxes (purchased on eBay) make me really happy!

Speaking of happy – check out this lovely spread of food. The potato salad is in that huge yellow stoneware bowl in the upper left corner. YUM!

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