Superbowl Party

What a night this was... the NY Giants were once again underdogs against the New England Patriots... wonderful night for food, fun and football.  Oh, and did I mention food?

That, my friends, is a turducken.  In all of its roasty-toasty-delicious glory.  Obviously that was the highlight of the evening - the bird of the hour and the star of the show.  We also enjoyed some buffalo chicken dip, seven layer dip, homemade cinnamon roasted almonds and red velvet cake batter cookies with chocolate and white chocolate chips. 

There was probably more, but my camera was not as active as it should have been that evening - I was too busy licking my fingers. 

Christmas Eve-Eve Party

Last year we hosted the first of our parties on December 22 - a Christmas eve-eve gathering with our families and friends - it was a great night of food and fun!

The food included a platter of crackers, meats and cheeses, most of which were bought at our local grocery store, or our favorite cheese shop here in town, pretzels with assorted mustards, "fried" ravioli (that were actually baked) in several varieties with marinara sauce, and phyllo cups filled with a home-concocted mixture of ground lamb and couscous flavored with sage and feta cheese.  Desserts were homemade gingerbread cookies with ginger cream cheese frosting, and rum balls.  this was also our first attempt at eggnog.  Delicious!  We made irish coffee drinks later on in the evening, which is my favorite thing:

Strong Coffee
Irish Whiskey (we like Red Breast)
Brown Sugar
Whipped Cream

In an 8-ounce footed glass coffee mug, add 1 tbs of brown sugar and 1 ounce of whiskey.  Top with hot coffee, leaving a little space at the top.  Stir well, top with whipped cream and enjoy!

I can't wait to do this one again in 2012...

Party Menus...

We like to have parties, as often as we can.  Please don't misunderstand - for us a party generally consists of little more than a few good friends coming over and enjoying some themed food, beverages and music.  We all particularly love summer themes like islands, and it's a way for us to experience those things without the burden or expense of travel. 

My goal for the next few weeks is to catalog the parties we've had and get some of the menu details down so I can reference them later.  I'm going to try to go chronologically and hit the big ones from the last year.