Scrumptious Shower Food

For the pretty in pink diaper shower I hosted Saturday, I kept the table simple yet elegant with a white table cloth and an overlay of pink toile fabric. I found this pretty fabric with nursery rhyme scenes at Hob Lob. It was a pretty place for all the scrumptious food that was served. I made a few things and a friend brought some delicious mini quiche and a rich and creamy mousse. Great food to celebrate our mommy-to-be and her baby girl. Be sure to get the recipes below.

The Menu

Ham & Spinach Mini Quiche
Turkey Cream Cheese Ranch Pinwheels
Spinach Dip & Crackers
Fresh Fruit
White Chocolate Drizzled Brownie Bites
Mini Cupcakes with Strawberry Frosting and Candy Diaper Pins
Chocolate Hazelnut Mousse
Sparkling Pink Lemonade
Water

Ham & Spinach Mini Quiche

1 box of puff pastry (2 sheets per box), thawed

6 eggs

9 Tbs. cream

3 tsp. grated onion (fresh)

generous dashes of salt and pepper

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese, tightly packed

1 cup minced spinach (fresh)

1/2 lb. thinly sliced sandwich ham, diced

Preheat oven to 410 degrees.

In a small mixing bowl, mix together eggs, cream, grated onion, salt and pepper.

Unfold sheets of puff pastry and using a biscuit cutter, cut a dozen circles from each. (If you have a standard-size biscuit cutter, this IS possible, I promise! Cut the circles right against the border of the next, cutting 3 on the first row, 2 on second, three on third, and 2 on fourth.)

Generously spray your muffin tins with Pam. (You can bake these back-to-back if you only have one muffin tin.) Press a round of puff pastry into the bottom of each muffin tin. They'll only come a little way up the side, but that's fine.

Divide the cheese evenly among each tin, then repeat with the spinach, then ham. Using a tablespoon (measuring spoon), measure three tablespoons of the egg/onion/cream mixture into each tin. Place in hot oven and bake 16-22 minutes, until puffed and golden. Mine are done at exactly 18 minutes, but each oven is different, so start checking at 16 minutes.

Recipe from Renee

Chocolate Hazelnut Mousse
1(13 oz.)jar Nutella
1(16 oz.) container Cool Whip

Whisk together Nutella and Cool Whip until well blended. Store in refrigerator.
**You can fill a pastry bag fitted with a star tip with mousse and pipe into small cups. Grate a chocolate bar and sprinkle chocolate on top of mousse for a nice presentation.**
Recipe from Renee


Turkey Cream Cheese Ranch Pinwheels
1 pkg. soft taco size flour tortillas
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/2 pkg. ranch salad dressing mix
shaved turkey

Mix together ranch salad dressing mix and cream cheese until well blended. Spread heaping tablespoon onto a flour tortilla, covering entire tortilla. Lay 2 pieces of turkey over mixture. Roll up tortilla. Cut ends of rolled up tortillas. Cut remaining rolled up tortilla into 1-inch pinwheels. Repeat with remaining tortillas.

Second Birthday---Sweet Style

On Saturday we celebrated my daughter's second birthday---sweet style! I had seen these candy/dessert buffet parties online before and thought they were sooo cute. It fit perfectly for our little sweetie. I knew I wanted their to be lots of color so I came up with a colorful candy polka dot theme. It was very playful and fun! And, hey, who cares if we ate our dessert first and then went out for lunch! It's all good!



The table definitely got the b'day girl's attention. She just wouldn't leave everything alone until my family got to our house. I love how fun the table looked. For the cupcakes, I made picks with an SU! "sweet" stamp, punched it out with a circle cutter, mounted them on a scalloped circle and tied on coordinating ribbon. They kind of looked like lollipops. With cupcakes and gumball filled vases it's just right for a sweet girl.

"Happy Birthday dear Ivy, Happy Birthday to you!"

Party Munchies

Today I want to share some recipes that we munched on for the party, but first the table. I knew I wanted to use primary colors because those are the classic Lego colors. A 12x12 sheet of green scrap book paper served as a place mat for red square plates topped with yellow circle plates. The plates were topped off with a sheet of fun Lego facts I found online. Our guests thought these were interesting as did I. A yellow Lego cake was the centerpiece. I have to say not one of my better cakes. Maybe the fact that I was decorating it at midnight had something to do with that. Trent loved it though, so I got over how it looked. It did taste good, too. For the cake, I stacked two 9x13 cakes on top of each other (a chocolate and a yellow) iced them with yellow butter cream and put four iced cupcakes that had the tops cut off on the top to make it look like a Lego brick.





Now for a fun way to dress up a simple bottle of water which some might think is totally unnecessary, but not for us crafty types. I thought these really stood out and went with the theme. Just peel off the label , measure and cut out of the scrapbook paper of your choice then wrap around the bottle. I used a piece of sticky tape to make sure my label didn't go anywhere. How fun!



Okay, finally the munchies! Trent and I picked things we thought kids and adults as well would like. The Candy Apple Dip with Granny Smith apples got excellent reviews as did the cheese dip. Oops! I thought I got a picture of the cheese dip, but I didn't. You'll have to trust me when I say this dip is SO GOOD! It is our favorite. I've made it for years for all sorts of functions. Hope you'll give these delicious recipes a try.


Candy Apple Dip
1 (8 oz. ) pkg. cream cheese, softened
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 c.-2/3c. toffee bits

Mix together with hand mixer. Chill. Serve with apple slices or assorted fruit. (Would also be good with graham crackers.) Yield: 12-15 servings

Cheese Dip
1 lb. sausage
1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese
16 oz. sour cream
16 oz. picante sauce or salsa

Put cream cheese and sour cream in crock pot. Brown sausage, drain. Add sausage to crock pot. Cook on low for 2-3 hours. Add salsa the last hour of cooking. Serve with tortilla chips.

Fancy Treats

Today I'll be sharing fancy treats from the party. I kept the menu simple, yet fancy and fun. We held the party in the afternoon, so I didn't need to feed everyone lunch. For the "cake" we had these amazing petit fours. The girls thought they were so cute. They were and they taste sooooo good. Seriously, I think I could have eaten the whole box of them. A friend of mine from church makes them and they are melt-in-your-mouth good. The best ones I've ever had! Let me just say, this was the first time that I didn't make one of my children's cakes for their b'day. Kinda sad, but I've attempted petit fours before and it did not go so well.



In the Fancy Nancy books and games, they eat parfaits. So, all the girls got to make their own parfait. They had an assortment of toppings; sprinkles, nuts and caramel that were held in cute little glass sundae cups.




The girls enjoyed the petit fours and ice cream, but I think their favorite thing was drinking out of the plastic goblets which I found at Dollar Tree. They were saying "cheers" and "pinkies out dahling." So cute!

The fancy words signs.

A Fancy Nancy Celebration!

First, a belated Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there! I hope your day was great.Mine was! ( I don't know why everything is underlined. I tried to fix it).

On Saturday, we celebrated Laci's 6th birthday by gettin' fancy with a Fancy Nancy party. We had 7 little girls that looked fabulous in their fancy dresses. I hope all of them had a magnificent time. (Like my fancy words!)

To invite the girls to the party, I sent out these handmade invitations. Quite simple ones. I guess I could have made them a bit fancier. Although, I did add a little bling with stick-on rhinestones . I was happy with the outcome.

Here are the little ladies at their fanciest.

Well, this is not the greatest picture of the table. Oh well. To make our table fancy for the b'day girl, we used a pink and purple color scheme with dainty doily place mats, plastic goblets, tiered glass cake stands for the petit fours and two round vases of beautiful white roses. We also scattered some purple gem stones down the middle for some added bling. Laci loved it! I'll share more party details with you tomorrow.

We All Scream For Ice Cream!

It seems without fail once a week the kids ask me if we can stop and get an ice cream when we're driving home from school. Sometimes we stop, usually on a Friday, and get a cup of ice cream or a sundae. Of course, they think that is just the best thing ever. So, I decided I would have an ice cream party for them after school one day. Last Tuesday, they walked in the door and to their surprise was a table set with all the fixins' for ice cream sundaes. I had set out cute little tulip sundae cups on striped napkins that matched well with the green table cloth and turquoise tulle table runner to make it colorful and fun. The toppings were in separate small bowls on top of a cake pedestal with gummy bears sprinkled all around them. A candy lover's dream! They were speechless. Trent finally said, "Is this for us?". They had a "sweet" time making their sundaes.

Our ice cream sundae bar :

vanilla ice cream

sprinkles

chopped pecans

crushed Oreos

gummy bears

hot fudge sauce

caramel sauce

whipped cream

cherries

french vanilla rolled wafers

Trent kept piling on the goodies and I didn't mind at all. They were all so thrilled that they got to put on as much as they wanted. Mmmmm!

It looks like this girl knows how to make a good sundae! That's our friend, Althea, beside Laci. She comes home from school with us everyday and stays a little while. Althea made a scrumptious sundae as well and even had a cherry on top, but she did not want me to take her picture.

Please Have A Seat

Today, I'm continuing the party theme with more details from my mom and sister's b'day celebration. We set her dining table and her bar with these perky little place settings. Although, when I look at the tabletop now, I wish I would've set a few little vases of daisies on it. Oh well. Maybe next time. They liked it, so that's what matters. I think having the table set is nice and inviting. Both of my nannies(grandmothers) were sitting at this table and they seemed to be enjoying themselves. They even played our purse game. So funny! I'll share that later in the week.

Now, a little tip! When setting your table, use a sheet of scrapbook paper for the place mat. It's a good option for parties.( At home we use the sad little plastic ones with Elmo and multiplication tables on them. )I used a textured card stock that was already cut with scallops. I think they were .79 each. Yeah! I like the pop of color it adds, too. There's so many possibilities using paper. Textured, solid, flowers, graphics, etc. Try it!

Some friends at the party were commenting and asking about the square plates. They came from Target. I like their party section! And they have several different colors of these plates to choose from. I think they add a nice touch.