Short Tablecloths and Many Mini Apple Pies

 

Fellowship time again this week! Whose idea was it to do fellowship time a little over a week after having surgery?? Just FYI, don’t do that. Anywho, I tried to make things that weren’t too complicated, but somewhere along the line I think that idea went by the wayside.

I made:

 Mini apple pies with small apples for the top

Meatball slider sandwiches

 

Mini zucchini and onion quiches (this link is in metric, but it's not too hard)

Bacon and corn dip (picture SO does not do it justice!!)

Saltine Toffee

Gigi Tea- I'll post about this later this week... Teaser!!

The set up went much quicker this time thanks to easy packing in our great cooler with wheels. I realized that I’m much more into what I’m making and I don’t really worry about how it looks or having other things on the table to gussy it up, you know, like flowers, etc. But Nick is really helpful in this area and went down the street to the store and got a couple of apples to sit with the pies and some rosemary to put with the sliders. He also was the one who was trying to get tablecloths for the two tables. It was sort of difficult because the church has 3 or 4 different styles, but no two matching and some were even too short to cover the tables! Finally I was looking for something else and saw that someone had put a second purple one in the wrong place… maybe I just need to go to Bed, Bath and Beyond and get two or three for each season… you think I can convince Nick of that?? I think what I’m trying to say here is I’m glad that Nick usually helps me out with these things, we seem to compliment each other well.

It may have been a mistake to do fellowship time before the church picnic.  The church kitchen can be a little difficult to work in just because of the way it’s set up, but when you add stuff that’s not yours…ugh. And as we were trying to clean up (ok, Nick was cleaning and I was toddler-wrangling) four or five members came in to set up. You know the old saying “Too many cooks in the kitchen…” We figured it out, but in the future, I think I’ll make sure to see what other events are going on the same day so we don’t have similar issues.

All in all it was a great event, the food was a huge hit and everyone kept talking about how delicious everything was.  I even got a few potential opportunities in the coming months. YAY! And if anyone out there has an event they need me to do, just  post a message, send an email, give me a call, write a letter, send a pigeon, whatever!! No event or budget is too big or too small!

Hello out there!!!

I know it's been a while since I've posted, but I've been busy... ok, I haven't, and I don't even have a good excuse... maybe because I wasn't used to doing it I just forgot?? dang, that's another excuse! anywho, I'm back, and I have a couple of posts to put up for you!! (pause for standing ovation :)

So, for my "re-intro to blogging" post, I've decided to do a little cook by numbers... this one is super easy and inexpensive and AWESOME if you have kiddos! (or are just one at heart :) 

BITE SIZED, BAKED CORN DOGS

 Ok, first, you buy some hotdogs, a store-bought muffin mix, and the stuff to make it... you know, milk, eggs, that kind of stuff. (I'd actually add some flour next time so it's not so gritty and more corn dog-esque.)

 Then you mix up the cornbread according to the recipe, heat the oven to the prescribed temp (probably 400..) and cut up those dogs!! Here I used the bun length (which are longer) so I cut them into 8 pieces each. If you use "regular" hotdogs, I'd do 6 pieces.

 Now, this is very important and definitely a "do as I say, not as I do" moment... SPRAY THE PAN!!!! for the love of all that is dear to you SPRAY THE PAN! as you can see, I did not spray the first two cups, and, well, you'll see....

 I used a mini muffin pan, it has a good dog-to-cornbread ratio. (I also had a little extra and made myself a little muffin to go with my chili. Maybe I'll do a recipe on that sometime.)

 Ok, next you put the hotdogs in. I think it's best to put them cut side up. Also, when i did it again, I rolled them in flour, just to make the cornmeal stick better.

 Cook....

 Plate....

 (See!! Foolishness! Spray The Pan!)

 And serve!!

 As you can see, my beautiful taste-testers liked it so much, they couldn't be bothered by silly things, you know, like mommy....

Hope you guys enjoy these as much as I did!!!

Confirmation Reception

This weekend, I catered my second event, a reception for the confirmands after the confirmation service at our church, Raleigh Moravian. Since it was a pre-lunch soiree, we didn’t have a large menu, but since it was for a big group, we had to have a lot of it.

We dropped the girls off in nursery, and got to work. Casey was there, and offered to help out. I think part of the reason was because BK was having some separation anxiety, but he said also that there was no room in the sanctuary! A few minutes later, Barry came in and asked the guys to help him add some folding chairs because they actually had to turn people away! I may have gotten in over my head…

As I was getting everything prepared this past week, Nick was looking at the food and saying stuff like “four trays of sandwiches?? Don’t you think that’s a bit much?” or “eight dozen cupcakes??! Really?” (It ended up being 6 ½ dozen anyways…) but when everyone came in the food was gone in a flash it seemed! I literally came home with two boxes of crackers and a box of cheddar bunnies (kind of like goldfish). I did throw away maybe four of the cheese straws that I made… sorry, I was just kind of tired of looking at them J

Here’s the menu and some pics:

Herbed Cheese Straws

Artichoke and Garlic Dip

Italian Artichoke Dip

Turkey & Cheese Sandwiches

Cupcakes with cream cheese frosting

Lemon-filled sugar cookies

Key lime pie Meringues

Sparkling Lemonade- (Casey helped...he's an engineer :)

Things I learned this time around:

• Last time, I didn’t have a “schedule” of when I was making my food, so this time I did that, making sure to make things that utilized different equipment every day, so I wasn’t trying to use the oven ALL DAY.
• I realized there are some things that HAVE to be done on the day of, like icing with cream cheese frosting (don’t know that I’ll use that again!!).
• Maybe Linzer cookies are small for a reason
• I need to have a supply box of things that some places may not have; paper towels, trash bags, Clorox wipes, and chip clips are definitely on that list!
• Even though I now am making a schedule, I should probably run it by my husband, because he thinks more logically. For instance “maybe you should have made the lemonade a little later in the week, so that our whole fridge isn’t full for the next five days!” I’m just trying to get stuff made, and in a short time, but he’s right, I had very little to do yesterday, and could have made it then!
• EVERYONE comes to confirmation!! We had at least 300 people in the church, and we actually ran out of food! That’s one thing that’s difficult about planning an event when you don’t know how many people will be there… since it’s getting to be summer time, sometimes we only have about 100 people at church, I knew there would be family and friends coming in, but that’s just crazy!! I think Nick sees now that I know some of what I’m doing at least!

That’s all the events I have for now, but many a business card has been handed out or picked up, so I’ll let you all know when something else comes up! Thanks for reading!!

My First Paying Gig!

So, I completed my first “real” catering job this past week. It was a lunch for the maintenance staff and parents who help out at sporting events at an area private school. It started out being for about thirty people, then 37 to 40, and ended up having all of those, a few coaches, the athletic director, and the school president! I am so forgetful that I forgot my business cards, but thankfully, I know myself, and had a few in my purse as well! 

My sister came down to help out with the girls while we got ready for this event and during our yard sale the weekend before. It was great because I realized that having a couple of extra hands would really help me out at the school as well. If she hadn’t been here, I may have gone crazy!

Here are some pics of the food that we prepared for the event, and here’s the menu:

 Fruit salad

Sweet and spicy bacon wrapped chicken

Italian meatball sliders

Garden salad with four dressings

Baked potato bar

 Baked Beans

Spicy Chicken Avocado Roll-ups

Broccoli salad

Sports themed cupcakes

Ginger Watermelon spritzer

Strawberry Lemonade

The cupcakes I may have gone a little overboard on, I had chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing, chocolate with chocolate filling, made to look like footballs, chocolate with strawberry filling, made to look like basketballs, vanilla cupcakes with chocolate filling, iced to look like soccer balls, vanilla cupcakes with strawberry filling, iced to look like baseballs, and vanilla cupcakes with lemon curd, iced to look like tennis balls. There were supposed to be vanilla/vanilla cupcakes too, but I ran out of plain vanilla butter cream icing at the zero hour! I guess it was OK though, because they were the hit of the show and very few made it home with me!!

I was a little upset that there was no Sweet and spicy bacon wrapped chicken to take home with me, but I guess that’s really a good thing! Also, the Spicy Chicken Avocado Roll-ups were very popular and many people asked me for the recipe. I’m going to try to see if I can link them up, and if not, the recipes are on my Pintrest board!! 

I’m catering the Confirmation Reception at church this weekend, so hopefully I’ll get better pics and another blog post very soon!!

And so it begins....

My sister suggested that I start a blog since I am starting a catering company. That way prospective customers (you, hopefully) can see the food that I've made and the parties I've done and think "Hey, this girl is awesome! Let's get her to cater OUR event!" Or, if anything, inspire people with recipes and antics from my twin 2 1/2 year old girls! So, bear with me, since I'm adding the "blogger" hat to the many hats that I already wear! See you soon!