This past Saturday my husband had not one, but two parties to attend. The first was a birthday party for our friends' two year old. The second was a pot luck work get together. Since this is a food related blog, I figure I can write about the yummy treats we ate that day.
At the birthday party, they made a shrimp/sausage/veggie boil. There were non spicy and spicy options. Of course I went spicy for everything, including the corn. The spice wasn't anything too strong, which was nice. Sometimes a 'baby kick' is just right. There is no need to go overboard and make people sweat and cry just to get the ultimate spice. The various kinds of sausage tasted good, but I really loved the corn and potatoes. I have been on a major veggie kick recently and those are two that my husband isn't too fond of so I don't make them all that often. Plus that made me feel less guilty about how much I was eating! We weren't able to stay for cake, but I will say that it was an adorable sea-inspired cake with Ariel and all! Too cute for a two year old!
I made a version of the almond and chocolate fudge cookies I mentioned a little while back. I think I figured out the best way to make the cookies so that they look nice and the fudge topping turned out just perfect. The only down side is that after using up my entire batch of fudge to 'ice' my cookies, I still had about half the cookies left and not enough ingredients to make more fudge! I took the cookies that I had to both parties and they seemed to be a hit. (In case you are interested, I made a batch of chocolate buttercream for the other half of the cookies. This worked out well, though it does have a different consistency. Its almost a toss-up, but I think I almost like the fudge a bit better).
For the second party, there was a large variety of food, everything from ribs to Chinese dumplings to French potato pie to baked beans and watermelon. There were too many good looking things to try! I had to go for the ribs, which I haven't had in a very long time. Bone-in ribs are not something I have made at home, I always cop out and get boneless pork or beef ribs for the grill. I didn't notice until later in the party that there was a barbeque sauce with ghost chilies. I think I would have been brave enough to try it out, just to say that I did, even if it was the smallest of small drops. But alas, I did not see it until after I had dessert. Chocolate cake and ghost chili barbeque sauce do not seem like the ideal combination to me. I brought corn bread and my cookies to add to the huge tablescape! I made a simple corn bread, without pieces of corn, per the request of my husband. The bottom was a perfect light golden brown, which made me so excited! (I know its the little things, isn't it?). Its just so nice when breads or cakes are done just right, which has been happening more and more often for me recently.
For dessert, there was a chocolate and raspberry cake from Alon's. A chocolate sponge cake with chocolate and raspberry mousse that looked gorgeous. I hope that one day I can make something that looks that perfect! I have the flavors down, I just need to perfect my presentation skills, which will take all sorts of practice. I also took a small bite of homemade peach pie...yummy!
So if you can't tell, I certainly ate a lot this weekend! But it was all great and best of all I got to try things from all over the world that I might not have made on my own.
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