new year's spread

  Chris and I decided to spend a quite New Year's Eve in at the apartment.  Good thing we didn't make any plans that didn't involve lounging around and making food - we got snowed in!  Happy (late!) 2009 :).

Blueberry waffles, and banana white chocolate chip waffles. Mmmm.  Plus some bacon (YUM), cherries (still not as good as the Washington ones, but pretty good!), and coffee made with my new stovetop percolator and espresso cups from Nina!  Plates from an old woman's closet at a craft fair Heather and I went to a few weeks before Christmas.

Yum.

Making Ham and Cheese Scones (recipe coming this weekend!), and to the right, fresh spinach artichoke dip.  I use this recipe for the dip, and usually replace all/part of the mayo with ranch dressing (I usually don't have mayo in the house).

Everything on the coffee table!  We also had olive oil + spices for bread dipping, and the Scharffenberger brownies. If you're wondering what Chris is doing...our couch ate the TV remote :(. 

Happy (sleepy!!) 2009!

a black tie affair

Last weekend one of my roommates (not the apple picking one :P) and I hosted a very classy party, in honor of the opening of a new performing arts center at our (engineering) school.

The opening of this performing arts center has been the topic of a lot of controversy lately, over many issues that generally center around the need for other improvements on campus, and the sheer amount of money being spent on this new building.

While I have my own opinions about this, I won't go into them in too much detail on this blog.  However, as a club officer, I was invited to the invite-only Gala Opening Event last Friday night.  I definitely wanted to go check it out, mainly because I was sure there would be good food there (and I was right!).

It was black-tie only - so sophisticated!  I've never been to such a "grown up" event, so I was pretty excited to get to wear my black prom dress again ;).  Unfortunately, I forgot my camera and didn't get any pictures of the night!  I have some bad-quality cell phone pictures, but it doesn't do anything justice.  The pictures you see now are from re-visiting the building the next morning, with my mom.

So, anyway, I spent most of the day on Friday preparing for our unofficial after-Gala event - the anti-event!  Julie (my date for the evening!) and I really enjoyed the irony in the party hopping we did.  I present to you our menu for the evening:

• Vegetables with Roasted Red Pepper Humus
• Strawberry, Grape, and Mandarin Orange Fruit Skewers
• Parmesan Rosemary Walnut Shortbreads
• Grape and Rosemary Focaccia
• Warm Cheese Artichoke Spinach Dip
• Cayenne-Paprika Spiced Popcorn
• Raspberry-Lime Petit Fours

The petit fours took the longest to make - about 2 days.  I deviated a bit from the original recipe listed above, starting with the Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcake recipe, baked as a sheet cake, as the base.  From the birthday cake mentioned in a previous post, I found layers were extremely easy to cut when using this recipe, so I didn't want to risk anything new!  Especially trying to balance making all of this between classes and meetings.

The focaccia recipe's already made a debut at the Apartment Warming party, made by Chris both times!  It's a huge crowd pleaser every time - everyone's usually surprised that it tastes so good, since the idea of grapes on pizza dough is a bit strange at first.  I LOVE this stuff, and it was definitely a hit at the party.

(Can't have a classy party without champagne!)