Official Launch of Two Party Planners

It's official. Cion and I are launching Two Party Planners. Deidra is going to help us out when she can and be a great help to us on the business side. We have designed a logo and ordered business cards. Our first open house is scheduled for Saturday, August 2 at 7:00.

The menu we have planned consists of appetizers and finger friendly foods.

Lamb bites
Crab Cakes
Baked Brie
Zucchini wrapped in proscuitto
Mini Caprese
Crackers served with warm goat cheese and fruit
Stuffed Mushrooms
Antipasto Tray
Steamed asparagus
array of desserts

We are going to pick a red and a white wine to serve. Our goal is to give our friends, family and potential clients a glimpse into what we plan to offer.

If I left you off the email and you would like to come please RSVP to me by July 30.

Cheers and wish us luck!

4th of July Holiday

So for the 4th of July Cion, James and I will be gathering to let Tashi have a playdate with Reilly and Zachary. We will be grilling hamburgers and bratwurst served with Cion's famous salsa and quacamole. I will be making a cucumber tomato salad and a blueberry cheesecake.

The cucumber tomato salad recipe I got years ago and have made on numerous occasions. The ingredients are cucumber, tomato, red onion, mint, olive oil, white vinegar, salt, pepper and sugar. Once I get home I will post the recipe for everyone. It's always a light, refreshing side and a great accompaniment to burgers, fish and even chicken dishes.

The blueberry cheesecake recipe is a new recipe I am trying from Tyler Florence. Usually his recipes are a great success and if it goes well I will repost it. Based on the reviews it needs some cooking adjustment and a little bit of tweaking.

Hope everyone has a wonderful 4th of July holiday.

It's been awhile...........

Wow I did it! Dave made me promise not to throw any parties during the month of June and today is June 25. I succeeded! My reward was supposed to be a dinner at Mark's but we decided to buy a puppy so that is my reward. For those who don't know above is a picture of Tashi Massey.

So July is now around the corner and I am going through serious party planning withdrawal. I have so many new recipes I want to try so everyone get ready!

Party #1 - Project Runway Season 4 premiers on Wednesday, July 16. My dear friend James started the tradition of getting together as a group to cheer on our favorite contestants. He so graciously included me in the fun and of course my party planning took over and now I like to help organize the wonderous events. So our first event will be the season premier. It will take place at my house and I will provide some snacks. I just sent an email to the group notifying everyone so I should have an RSVP count soon. Then I can plan what snacks I would like to do. I may do a red pepper hummus recipe from Barefoot Contessa I have been wanting to try.

Party #2 - I would like to host a small cocktail party. This is still in the planning stages and a date has not been selected.

Hope everyone is doing well and I will post more soon.

Disco/Mexico Bridal Shower Brunch

James Phillips, Jennifer Massey, Cion Ortega

(There were 4 hosts for this party; Kim Simmons is missing from this photo)

The Disco/Mexico Bridal Shower Brunch was another success. I was fortunate to have 3 other co-hosts for this party: James Phillips, Kim Simmons, Cion Ortega and myself. Dave was kind enough to do the grocery store shopping for me on Saturday and Saturday night James came over to help me decorate. To add some fuel for the decoration committee we grilled hamburgers and I made home fries (russett potatoes, olive oil, Tonys seasoning) and baked beans (ranch style beans, pork and beans, ketchup, mustard, brown sugar).

I think I did a great job combining the themes and really making everything come together. I strung some chilli pepper lights along the fire place and attached 3 disco balls. We hung a 12" disco ball from the ceiling fan and tied Mexcio tissue flowers (miriam made these) along the staircase.

On Saturday evening we marinated the chicken and beef. Sunday I got up bright and early and made the fruit salad. Then Kim came over and we made the quiche. Dave started grilling about 11:00 and we were able to assemble the quesadillas by 12:00. We ran behind on the shrimp but the whole food spread was finished by 12:30. Cion made homemade red salsa, spinach dip (AMAZING) and quacamole.

Everyone raved about how great the food but we still had lots of leftovers. Group size was 20 and we did go through all 10 bottles of champagne in 2.5 hours. Elizabeth (our bride and guest of honor) really got some wonderful gifts.

James and Kim were most excellent at making sure all the guests were taken care of and this really helped as Cion and I cleaned, prepped and took care of the food. I was impressed with how we all worked together!

After the party I was exhausted and was able to join Cion poolside for even more champagne and we munched on leftovers. We had a major brainstorming session about forming a new partnership so hopefully we can iron out details and start something soon.

So this is my last scheduled hosting party for awhile. I hope that Cion and I can reach a joint venture and really make something out of this. I do have a few parties to attend (Cion's pool party June 1st, Breann's kitchen unveiling party June 28) so I will post more details soon.

CHEERS!

Pictures from Cinco de Mayo Housewarming

The biggest success from the Cinco de Mayo party was the beef fajitas and of course the seven layer dip. For the beef for this party I used flank steak from Kroger. Dave uesed a tenderizer to thin the meat and we marinated it for 24 hours with lime juice, garlic, olive oil, liquid smoke, salt and pepper. It was incredibly moist and really flavorful.

For the seven layer dip I used Rosarita Vegetarian refried beans (3 cans), 3 bags of Quac Sals (you can find this in Kroger vegetable area), Large container Daisy Sour Cream mixed with taco seasoning, 3 tomatoes, 1 container blak olives sliced, 2 bunches green onion and colby monterry jack cheese. This is always a hit!

I also made Trey's Mom's Green Sauce but not many people touched it. I need to tweak this recipe.

Elizabeth's Disco/Mexico Bridal Shower Brunch

Boy the title says it all. The shower I am cohosting on Saturday is a compilation of all sorts of themes. So here is a translation of sorts:

Mexico - Elizabeth and Rob are having a Mexico destination wedding
Disco - Well Elizabeth loves Disco music and it sounded like lots of big ol' gay fun
Brunch - The shower is taking place on a Sunday at noon to accomodate for several guests working on Saturday and we all love to gather for brunch and drink champagne
Bridal Shower - This is a bridal shower afterall

So to carry off all the themes I stocked up on disco balls from Arnies on Saturday. I got 6 4" disco balls, 1 12" with a motor that spins it, disco ball necklaces for each guest and even got disco plates (Arnies total $87.01). For the Mexico part my friend Miriam made these wonderful colorful tissue paper flowers for the Cinco de Mayo that I am borrowing, I have a bunch of chili pepper lights, Mexico decorations and of course teh menu will contain chips, salsa and quesadillas.

I was reading Racheal Ray Magazine last night and came across a fruit salad recipe that I am going to try. Here is the recipe:

Fruit Salad with Black Pepper Dressing, Rachael Ray, May 2008
Ingredients
2 bunches fresh mint leaves, washed
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon pepper
4 teaspoons cornstarch
6 large peaches
1 honey dew melon, cut into wedges
1 cantaloupe, cut into wedges
4 cups strawberries
2 pints raspberries

Directions
1. In a small saucepan; combine 1 cup of water, one half of the mint leaves, sugar, vinegar, and pepper. Bring to a boil, lower the heat and let simmer for 5 minutes.

2. In a small bowl, mix the cornstarch with 4 tablespoons of water making sure to get out all of the lumps. Stir this into the saucepan with the dressing and bring it back to a boil. Remove from the heat, let it cool for about 10 minutes and strain.

3. In a large bowl toss the dressing with the honeydew, cantaloupe, peaches, and strawberries, (I would add the raspberries midway through tossing so they don't fall apart) Top with the remaining mint leaves.

Grocery Lists:
Shrimp
Tortilla Chips
Corn Starch
Honey Dew
Cantalope
Peaches
Strawberries
Raspberries (I may use blueberries instead)
Flank Steak
Chicken Breast
Spinach
Mushrooms
Garlic
Tortillas
Green Onion
Swiss Cheese
Monterrey Jack Cheese
Saltine Crackers
Limes
White Onion

Cion has volunteered to make his homemade red salsa and spinach dip, Kim is bringing the Tres Leches cake, James is in charge of the alcohol.

Several Down and One Left

I know I have been delayed on posting a few pictures but lately on Sunday after partying on Saturday I am pooped. Plus Monday - Friday I am strapped to an office chair trying to make money for all these fabulous parties.

So... Jimmy and Donald's Housewarming has concluded as has the crawfish boil and Miriam and Tom's Housewarming/Cinco de Mayo. Below is a summary and results for each party.

Jimmy & Donald's - They couldn't have picked better weather that weekend. It was amazing. We all sat outside among the wonderfully shaded backyard drinking some purple passion concoction of Jimmy's. The menu was well executed by Jimmy and consisted of a really awesome spicy bean dip served with veggies. I was also a fan of his black eyed pea dip. For this party as you remember I just contributed cookies and my goat cheese spread (recipe below). Perhaps I can talk Jimmy into releasing on of the previously mentioned recipes for me to post.

Crawfish Boil - Where to start.... Dave and I prepared the red beans Friday night as well as the pasta salad. This allowed for us to have a little more time for set-up on Saturday morning.

Saturday morning we created a guy by the name of Homer in the parking lot of the Hideaway on Richmond and Dunvale at 10:00am. He sold us 3 sacks at a $1.50 a pound. It was quite the spectacle. He had two huge trucks with big freezers on the bag and they were full of large sacks. Now these crawfish were not small. They were quite large so I think we got a great deal.

After picking up the mudbugs we were off to Deidra's house to drop them off. We set up the tables and taped newspapers to them as our table cloths. Let me tell you this was high class. Jenny (our recruited chef) and Adrianne arrived at 1:00 and we started to purge the bugs and make the seasoning. Now Jenny did something quite interesting, she steamed the bugs not boiled them. The seasoning consisted of garlic, italian seasoning, crushed red pepper, seafood boil, orange juice, lemon juice. She mixed all of this together and would pour this mixture over the bugs as they were dumped into the hot pot. They were absolutely wonderful and were quite spicy. My lips burnt for days afterwards. I do have to say that steaming them was awesome however made them a little more difficult to peel. I look forward to trying this recipe with more of a boil soon before the season ends. We also boiled 10lbs of shrimp and 5lbs of sausage.

The sides for the party consisted of the usual corn, mushrooms, potatoes, potato salad, pasta salad and lemon bars provided by Breann and brownies provided by Christine. Not to many leftovers as the crowd size was about 50.

This brings me up to Miriam and Tom's - This event was held this past Saturday. The crowd size was about 20. We had tons of food with Dave grilling the fajita beef and chicken. I made a 7 layer dip and Trey's Mom's green sauce. Miriam made a fresh pico, quacamole, veggie skewers and a wonderful tres leches cake. We of course over did the food but it was great.

Dave marinated the beef on Friday. The marinade was garlic, lime juice, liquid smoke, olive oil and seasoning. This really makes the flank steak succulent. He also used a tenderizer to make the meat absorb the flavors and really adds a great texture to it. The chicken was also marinated in lime juice, salt, pepper and olive oil.

Needless to say after a month of non-stop parties and one more to go with Elizabeth's Bridal Shower on the 18th I am going to need a vacation. So after the 18th I will be taking a month off from hosting parties. Dave and I will be in Cabo for a week starting Memorial weekend. Dave has told me that if I can go all of June without hosting a party I get dinner at Mark's http://www.marks1658.com/ which is definitely a treat for me.

So my next post will be on Elizabeth's shower and maybe if I can get off my lazy bottom I will post pictures from the last three events.

Cheers!