Something highly unusual happened on the way to my 2013 Fall Craft Party.

I sorta forgot about the food.

Honestly, it completely slipped my mind … until the morning of.

That is seriously out of character for me!

Food is always the main thing that I plan nearly every party around. It’s my centerpiece, the reason I have a party in the first place.

This time I was so into the craft aspect; what we’d make, collecting the necessary supplies for each project (9 in all!), deciding how to display each option, writing up and printing out the instruction sheets for each.

Tallying up my expenses and figuring out how much to charge for each craft – OK, that means high-level math was involved, so you can just imagine how many hours of my valuable time that took! Dear Lord, no wonder I forgot about the food!

Anyhow, the morning of the party, I tossed around ideas – a large table of appetizers is always fun but it’s too time-consuming to put together within my restrictive 9-hour time frame.

Chili! That’s the perfect solution!

Exceedingly easy to slap together. Plus it’s tummy-warming and satisfying on a nice October evening.

So chili it was. I jumped in the car and flew into Trader Joe’s; bought a bunch of flowers, cheese, crackers, wine, juices, chili fixings, and sweets.

And that was that.

Here is the first of two chili recipes I’ll be sharing with you… then, later in the week, we’ll get to the crafts.

If the portions in my photos look off from the portions I list on the recipe – I doubled mine –  remember… I was feeding 24 lovely ladies dinner.

And if you are dying to ask – “What is that waffle doing alongside your chili?”

Those my friends are a cornbread waffle! Honestly, just pour the cornbread batter into your waffle iron, and presto – cornbread waffles –  golden crispy goodness! No messing with a muffin pan, just cook them up, place them on cooling racks and then reheat in the oven until ready to serve. Easy as can be.

Wish I’d have thought of it – but no, I found the brilliant idea on Pinterest.

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No not that!

It is Sweet Salvage time, of course!

As much as I’m dying to share recipes and projects from the Fall Crafting Party – I can not pass up the opportunity to give you a taste of the gorgeous vignettes I saw plus the amazing finds I found at this month’s sale.

One thing I’ve come to realize – I may have a thing for vintage French enamel porcelain. Last month, it was the scale and large measuring cup.

This month, I found a smaller and even more detailed measuring cup and…

… This!

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I am busy setting up for the Fall Crafting Party that I’m holding tonight.

Too busy to put up much of a post.

Just a few snapshots of what I’ve been up to.

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When my kids were young, there was a chain of restaurants called El Pollo Asado, in our area. I don’t know what happened to them or exactly when they went away. But we really loved their chicken.

Photo credit – stolen from Ty’s Facebook page

Fast forward to this past Sunday when I was over at my cousin, Ty, and his wife Michelle’s, home for potluck Basketball & BBQ.  Since it was a smaller crowd than they’ve had in the past, Ty brought in chicken instead of grilling.

Three it was – that chicken we loved so much – way back when.

Ty said he got the chicken from El Pollo Asado, but when I went to look up the location, I could only find El Pollo Loco. I’m guessing that is what he meant, and where he bought the chicken.

I decided to try and recreate it at home.

This comes pretty close. Not exactly that same distinctive flavor – but close enough – in a pinch.

P.S. Ignore the fact that in the photo above, I have only 2 oranges and 3 limes. I flipped that ratio after the photo was taken and conveniently forgot to take another picture. Please forgive.

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Are you looking for an easy and family friendly side dish?

Look not further, this is it.

It’s as easy as steaming and mashing a whole head of cauliflower, core, and tender leaves included.

Add a little Parmesan, serve with chicken or fish and dinner is on the table in no time.

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Back in April 2010, when I did a charity-prize dinner with Larry Fitzgerald in my kitchen, I knew I had some serious “light issues” on my back patio.

We ate dinner out there and even though I loaded the table with candles and turned on every available light in the vicinity, it was so dark that we couldn’t see our food! It was quite embarrassing actually.

Fast-forward 32 months – problem solved!

Click Here to see my dream light fixture from Restoration Hardware.

When you look at that price tag, you can easily see why it is … “But a Dream.”

Even though they’ve marked it down $270 since I first set my eyes on it, you’ve got to add back in the $125 shipping fee and another $185 in tax for a grand total of $2635 for one light fixture.

No!
Can!
Do!

Click Here to see my solution …

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I am spending all my waking hours either supervising the front yard remodel, trying to keep the dirt and dust from said remodel to a minimum, or driving all over town gathering supplies for next week’s Craft Party.

Dave, on the other hand, is spending each waking minute working on taxes for the October 15th extension deadline.

Under the current government crisis, could this one be any more accurate?!? [Read more →]

Sorry to have to be the one to tell you, but officially, Oktoberfest is over.

Oktoberfest is the world’s largest fair held annually in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. It is a 16-day festival running from late September to the first weekend in October with more than 6 million people from around the world attending the event every year.

So, yeah it ended on October 6th, but here in the USA, we celebrate all October long!

To help you keep that party spirit going, I give you this informative chart sent to me by web journalist, Alex Hillsberg.

Enjoy!

Last year I drove up north to Freeman Farms in Chino Valley, Arizona to buy these Jarrahdale pumpkins. Then, after Thanksgiving, I harvested the seeds, dried them on a rack, and waited until this year to plant them.

Problem is, I planted them too late for Halloween.

This is what my “pumpkin patch” looks like as of today.

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Even though I may be a food industry professional who generally avoids big chain restaurants, even I have to admit that Olive Garden’s all-you-can-eat salad and bread-sticks are hard to pass up!

Not that we are frequent diners at Olive Garden. In fact, I believe the only times we’ve eaten there in the past decade have been on road trips.

This is the salad I made for work-weary Marissa and Jeff on Friday night. I have a few more photos of the apartment kitchen too. Here you can see that 6′ 3″ Jeff doesn’t have to stretch much to touch both ends of the kitchen at the same time.

After I complained about how dark the sink area was at night, Dave went to Costco and bought a cool light strip that Jeff and I installed around the kitchen and over the sink. It even has a remote and you can have a full-color light show! Most importantly, it really lights up the place.

Lastly, Marissa used the velvet pumpkins I made for her last year, to cover up and camouflage the TV cords and components on her mantel. Cute!

And most wonderful of all… I found the Jarrahdale pumpkins, which I so love, at Marissa’s corner market which is only two blocks from her house. I smuggled home three of them in our luggage! So excited!

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