Posts Tagged ‘birthday party’

If you missed the first two posts please click here and here for the decoration portion of this post.

So the party was a huge hit!  Everyone really seemed to have a good time and the last guest left around 3 am!  Crazy fun and totally worth all of the effort.  The food was tasty, the drinks were cold, and the guests were amazing!  This type of party is why I love to plan and cook and decorate the whole thing.  It just feels so good when it all comes together so well.  I will cut to the chase with this post because we just have too much to cover.

Green Chile Polenta with Mushrooms

I have made the polenta a million times and you can find the recipe here as well as the green chile sauce which you can find here.  I took the green chile sauce and the toasted almonds from the chicken and poured a small dollop on top of the polenta.   Natalie placed the almonds on top perfectly so these little guys looked super impressive.  This recipe is great because the green chile sauce and almonds can be made 2 days before and the polenta can be made the night before.  I would wait to make the mushrooms until the day of.

“Grown up Nachos”  or Tilapia Nachos

I added these the night before because I felt like I wasn’t going to have enough food and I’m really glad I did.  They were the favorite of the night.  Sugar and I ate them the whole next week.  These suckers are good!

4 Tilapia fillets

juice of 2 limes

40 – 50 large tortilla chips

2 cans black beans

3 tsp crushed garlic

3 tbs cilantro

1 tsp salt

3 shallots

olive oil for frying

flour for coating the shallots

Queso Fresco

raspberry poblano sauce (or any spicy sweet sauce you can find, Central Market has a ton of them)

I bought frozen Tilapia fillets and just followed the package direction for baking them.  Squeeze the lime juice over the thawed fillets before you bake them.  When they are finished allow them to cool to the touch and then shred them.  Set them aside.

Slice your shallots very finely and coat them in the flour.  Heat your olive oil to medium high heat.  Fry the shallots to crispy brown and set them aside.

Cook your can beans on the stove until they are hot and then transfer them to your blender.  Add in the garlic cilantro and salt and puree until nice and smooth.  Taste your beans to make sure they have enough salt.  Feel free to add more if they taste a bit bland, keeping in mind hat you are putting them on salty chips!

Preheat your oven to 350 and lay out as many chips as you can on a cookie sheet.  Smear a nice dollop of beans on the chips.  Do each chip individually so it is easy for your guests to pick each one up.  If you just make a giant pile of nachos it will look terrible and will be crazy messy.  Next place about a tablespoon of talapia on each chip topping them with all with the shredded queso fresco.  Bake them in the oven for about 8 minutes or until they are toasted.  While they are still hot top each one with the fried shallots and then sweep a little of the sauce on top.  These are soooo goood!

Endive and Spicy Potatoes

5-6 small red potatoes

2 tsp olive oil

2 shallots

1 tsp garlic

2 tsp chili flakes

1 tsp cumin

salt and pepper to taste

6 large endives

1 cup grated cotija cheese

Wash and dry the potatoes and chop them into small quarter inch pieces.  Heat a large pan with the olive oil.  When the oil is hot add the shallots.  Cook them until they are caramelized and then add the potatoes, chili flakes, cumin and some salt.  Cook for about 10-15 minutes or until the potatoes are cooked through.  Make sure not to over cook them.  They should not be mushy!  While the potatoes are cooking wash the endive really well and separate the pieces.  Be sure to cut off the end or stem portion of the endive.  Fill the pieces with the potato mixture and grate the cojita cheese on top.  Serve at room temperature.  This recipe should make about 50 pieces.

White Bean Crostini

2 cans white beans (garbanzo beans) – drained

1 tbs garlic

3tbs cilantro

2 tsp chili powder

salt and pepper to taste

2 baguettes sliced about 1/2 thick

olive oil

1 bunch of arugula

1 cup grated cotija cheese

In a medium sauce pan combine the beans, garlic, cilantro and chili powder.  Cook the beans and then add the mixture to your mixer or blender.  Puree the mixture into a smooth paste.

Slice the baguette into 1/2″ thick pieces and lay them out on a pan.  Brush each piece with a little bit of olive oil.  Lightly toast them in the oven at 350 for about 8 minutes.  Pull out the toasted baguettes and spread the bean puree over each one.  Slice the arugula into thin strips and top each baguette.  Cover with the cotija and serve.

Chorizo Meatballs with Avocado Crema

3 lbs of good chorizo meat (Ask the butcher at your favorite grocery store what brand he recommends)

Roll the chorizo into bite sized balls and bake them in the oven at 350 for about 12-15 minutes.  Chorizo already had so many spices in it that you really don’t have to do anything else.  The avocado crema is a really great cool flavor with the spicy meat.

Click here for the Avocado Crema recipe.

I also made a giant 3 tier chocolate cake and every part of it was a disaster.  The recipe had me bake the cake portion for too long and it was over-cooked.  The icing never solidified and I ended up pouring it over the cake.  The icing was so runny that the top tier keep sliding off and landing on my counter top.  I had to take popsicle sticks and stick them through the cake tiers to make them stay.  I had icing on the ceiling ya’ll!  Sugar walked in the kitchen and all he could do was laugh because I was covered in chocolate icing.  The cake tasted pretty good but it was horribly unsuccessful!  I will not be posting the recipe.  I will admit that at 3 am when everyone was gone I took a giant fork to this cake straight from the cake stand.  It didn’t taste that bad but I’m still mad at it….

I made Trece Leches and it turned out really well.  I have made this recipe a million times so luckily it came out just as it was supposed to. )f course I didn’t get any photos of this either.  Whoops!  Click here for the recipe.

We also put together these great little take away gifts for everyone.  I ordered the tags from www.myownlabels.com and bought mini Hershey’s, Popsicle sticks, marshmallows and graham crackers.  S’mores are such a great summer time treat that I thought it would be cute to use them as take aways.  I stuck the marshmallows on the sticks to make sure the treats were ready to use.  My little tags say “here is to many S’MORE birthday’s to come”  get it, get it, hehe!

My husband turns 30 in just a few short weeks and I’m planning a big party for him at our house.  As I started to research and gather ideas for his party I noticed a total lack of ideas and other posts that include males in general much less adult males.  All of the parties featured tend to be for kids or for women.  Surely the only parties thrown for men are not bachelor parties!!

Since I couldn’t find any really good examples of manly parties I have decided to create my own.  I believe having themes are very important.  They help keep you on track and coordinated.  Please be careful not to make your theme too cheesy especially for your man!  My theme is “Hot Spanish Nights” and I plan to subtly incorporate it in everything I do.  My colors are chocolate brown and white, which are neutral and masculine.  I decided not to get all obsessive with the colors so I opted to keep them simple.  I wanted to incorporate as many of his favorite things into the menu as possible so I went through several rounds of appetizer ideas with him until we finally nailed one down.  He did make a few things a bit difficult for me but being the amazing super woman of a wife that I am I figured them all out!!

The Menu:

I make little appetizer cards and cut them out and put them in mini frames to have out in front of each item.  This way you don’t spend half the night explaining your dishes.

1st Dessert:

Michael loves dessert and lately he has been obsessed with my Trece Leches.  He insisted that this was the dessert I served at his party.  At this point I’m on the third round of a menu for him and my patience has worn thin.  I re-list all of the reasons that this is the worst dessert ever logistically to serve to 50+ people and re-tell him that it is made of milk so it can not just sit out all evening, and on top of that it isn’t pretty unless it is already cut, and the whip cream needs to go on right before you eat it because, well, it just has to.  Michael -1  Emily-0

We are serving Trece Leches because this is not my party…

2nd Dessert : (it’s like we are hobbits)

I don’t know if you have noticed but I’m white as can be and my husband is brown, aka Mexican.  I was brought up eating home made tall cakes covered in icing.  My husband grew up eating Shasta cake or some type of flat low sheet cake with milk and sugar poured over it.  Trece Leches doesn’t feel like a real birthday cake to me so I’m going to have both a Gringo Cake and a Mexican cake!!  This will be a pretty standard home made chocolate cake with chocolate icing.  I’m going to make mini chocolate chip cookies to dot the cake with since chocolate chip cookies are also an all time favorite of Michael’s.

Drinks:

Mexican Chocolate Shot:

I have insisted we have a specialty shot for his party even though he thinks it is a bad idea.  He is very concerned about everyone driving home and doesn’t want people taking shots.  I totally agree with this but you haven’t heard what my shot is yet!!

I’m serving Ice Cream shots!  A little bit of Bailey’s, a lot a bit of ice cream and a dash of cinnamon.  See!  It’s an wussy shot!

Frozen Mojitos:

We are going to have a machine set up and will be serving frozen Mojitos.  I will share this recipe with you on one of the next posts.  This recipe is the all time best Mojito you will ever have!!