Tag: party post

Fairy Garden Party
Adventures · Gardening · Party Posts

Fairy Garden Party

LSiehLeave a comment

Ready for some magic? I had a fairy garden party with some girlfriends a month or so ago and it went rather well, I think. I may have gone overboard with plants and containers, but that just meant that people could have more than one garden if they wanted to! Some of the plants were indoor plants and others were outdoor plants and I tried to get ones that I hadn’t been able to kill yet, or were marked as easy care or good for terrariums. Here’s what the table looked like. I apologize for the cut off end. I was attempting to take a pic and it was super duper sunny, so I couldn’t totally see.

For supplies, we had rocks, glass bead fillers, moss, gravel, and sand. We had just all purpose potting soil too for the actual dirt. I went to the thrift store to find containers and bought a few at other stores as well. I even got a mini bathtub from one of the craft stores that I love and I’m probably going to go back and get another one for me. The teapot is my friend’s that she brought. I used my tiered treat stand to display all the accessories and it made me so happy!

For accessories, I found little fairy garden items like bridges and tiny yoga frogs, mini furniture, and some mini fairy houses too. We had shells, rhinestones, and mirrors, and shiny rocks galore. We had some houses you could paint too, but I don’t think anyone painted one.

I found a variety of containers. The thrift store must have gotten a set of wedding table centerpieces in because they had about 6 of these really big glass vases that matched. You’ll see some of the other ones throughout the post. I only had the little ones on the table. We had a bunny yard ornament, left by the prior owners, and it had a broken bit in it. My friend T made the cutest and most charming terrarium with it! Some of the other odder containers were a lamp shade (far left, white round dish,) a mini bathtub, and a chipped mixing bowl.

My friend donated a bunch of aloe starts and I had a couple of philodendron and spiderwort plants that I had started in my office. I bought a couple of succulents, a pepperomia, a mini nerve plant, a croton, and a purple thing that looked super fun! There were some others just marked “Terrarium assortment.” Basically anything I thought I might not kill. Outdoor plants included vistas, marigolds, alyssum, lobelia, something named “Gnome Pink,” and a coleus.

I also made snacks, but tried to keep it under control, so we only had two homemade things- lemon ginger muffins, and Cathedral bars/fantasy bars. Recipes for those are here: https://www.momontimeout.com/5-minute-fantasy-bars-just-4-ingredients/

Muffins- https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/lemon-yogurt-muffins/

I did switch out butter for oil because it was 7:30 AM and I didn’t have thawed butter or the will to go find it in the freezer. The muffins were a little overbaked, but they tasted good! The Cathedral bars were the stuff of dreams and now I want to make a pan again. I might get mobbed at work for it though, if I was nice enough to share. I did not take a picture of the snacks!

Here are some close ups of the terrariums. Some of these are from friends, as my phone overheated and got cranky. I hope you enjoy seeing them!

25 Treats of Christmas
Party Posts · Recipe Roundup

25 Treats of Christmas

LSieh2 Comments

Hellooooo out there! I’m still here! I had some bad depression episodes and am still pulling myself out of the hole a bit. It made it really hard to have any motivation to do anything other than read silly things and pet the dog. Part of my coping skills for these were to try to do things as normally as I could and that meant that I made Christmas treats for work again! We did have an Epiphany party, but it was super tiny. We were okay with this, as I couldn’t find the table cloth- I put it “somewhere safe” while we were setting up the Christmas decorations and I’m sure will find it again as we put them away. I did have people sign a strip of white fabric though, as I’m going to add a white border and a red border on it to make it fit our table a little better. So when I find it, I’ll add that on for this year.

I didn’t get as many treats made for work this year as I thought. The new staff at work was super excited to be there for this tradition and I got lots of good feedback.

The surprise hit of the year was the gluten free ginger cookies. I got the most compliments on them and am going to send the recipe out to the staff as a whole because I had a bunch of requests for it. It is also nut free and can be made dairy free too, so essentially can be both gluten free and vegan.

The second batch of these were thicker. I think I must have messed up the ratios somewhere. They both had crystallized ginger in them, but the second/party batch also had Chinese 5 Spice in them instead of just ginger. https://smallfarmbiglife.com/gluten-free-ginger-cookies/

I made marshmallow fudge as well and I was told someone hoarded it in the kitchen and was jokingly telling everyone that it was horrible and that she would “save them all from it.” I don’t think anyone believed her because the entire tin of it was eaten up by the time I went home. I was glad I had kept some back for the Husband, who also liked it. https://tastesbetterfromscratch.com/perfect-chocolate-fudge/

I made these orange cranberry snowballs too, which I didn’t like- they were too dry, but our Practice Manager loved them. I like trying new combinations of flavors. It’s fun to see what people will respond to and what they don’t like. These weren’t as sweet as most cookies are and people liked that they were a little bit unusual. The orange and cranberry combo was a seasonal hit, of course! https://thegoldlininggirl.com/2016/12/cranberry-orange-snowballs/

The last cookie I made for work was these pistachio thumbprints filled with bittersweet chocolate ganache. They were made using pistachio pudding mix! They were definitely green and apparently made the Husband uncomfortable on a visceral level. He wouldn’t even try them and he likes pistachios! I used mini chips in them. they had a powdered sugar frosting for the top originally, but I had a bunch of melted chocolate already and think they were better this way. These were from A Quilter’s Christmas Cookbook.

Of course, for the party, I made all sorts of things! Knowing it was going to be small, I didn’t go as big with recipes as I normally would.

One of my favorite party experiments were these Finnish Blueberry Buns. They’re like Nissu, but have blueberries on the top! https://www.womanscribbles.net/finnish-blueberry-buns/

They were yummy! I would definitely make them again.

Next up is the pickle tray and relish tray, of course. I made homemade dilly beans and squash pickles for the table. Both recipes were from my Small Jars. Big Flavor Canning book.

I didn’t get many pickles this year, although I did have a bunch of cucumbers because I had two jars of pickles burst in the canner. I was pleased with both of these pickles though!

We had Rulle. My favorite years are when I get to eat it twice at Christmas! This batch did not hold the shape as much as I would like, but it was super tasty. And I had just enough to not waste any.

I wasn’t going to make a cake, but I had leftover sparkling wine jelly and mascarpone whipped cream (side note, who is this fancy person with this in their fridge… I feel like this isn’t actually me,) and it’s traditional to have a filled cake on the Scandinavian Christmas Table. Plus, I said something about it to one of my friends from work and she got super excited because I was going to make a white cake. So here’s my fancy Christmas Cake. I opted to leave it undecorated to celebrate the snow (Hahahaha! You know I just didn’t have time or ideas for decorating, right?) It was delicious!

Here’s the whole table with the things I didn’t get individual pictures of: Peanut Butter Balls, clementines, Caramel Chocolate chips, crab dip, sandbakkels, the second batch of ginger cookies, and the blackberry almond cookie cups. The sandbakkels and the cookie cups were from my Modern Scandinavian Baking book by Daytona Strong. The cake is from the Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook. We also had fruit soup, but it was on the stove and I think I did not get a picture. (The elbow in the corner belongs to another K named friend I think she’d be K5? Too many Ks.) the truck in the upper corner is actually a cookie jar! A friend gave it to me a couple of years ago and I was finally able to have room to use it.

The Husband and I knew we’d probably be wanting actual dinner, since we didn’t think people would be coming all day, so I made this yummy Swedish Meatball Pasta Bake. You make the gravy and cook it like a casserole. It was actually something I think we’ll make for our Christmas years by ourselves. I didn’t have the make the Husband gravy this way and it reheated very nicely and kept the meatballs moist, even though I over broiled them slightly. Not the prettiest, but tasty! https://thebeachhousekitchen.com/swedish-meatball-pasta-bake/

I didn’t quite make it to 25 Treats this year, but I’ve definitely been feeling the urge to keep baking, so I think I might be in a better mindset than before. Hopefully that spirit will continue to be uplifting all year. I hope your year is filled with little comforts and joys, just like our party!

Life Posts · Party Posts

Missing Hospitality

LSiehLeave a comment

Hello from our house to yours! We had our Covid bubble friends over today and I realized how much I missed entertaining! We had been doing at least one event a month with multiple sets of friends and I think I’m going through pandemic fatigue and social withdrawal.

We do have a distance movie watching party planned. This year our fall movie is The Hobbit and I really wanted to keep something going, even if it was going to be really different. The plan right now is to offer an “unexpected culinary journey” box of snacks for people to come pick up and then take home and watch the movie. I have a couple of people who I will probably be mailing their boxes. I’m looking forward to it! The Husband thinks I might be a little weird, but I have had some interest in it already. To prep for it and boost our decor, I bought this fun Michigan/Middle Earth themed picture. It’s from an Etsy shop called Home Squirrel, which is located in Marquette!

Isn’t it adorable? It’s a fun touch to our decorations. Tomorrow will be the day to try and switch out the outdoor decor and finish off the indoor part as well.

In the meantime, I thought a look back at my favorite parties might cheer me up a bit. Hopefully it helps spark some fond memories in you too!

Our Epiphany parties are, of course, some of my favorite parties! It’s so fun to bake and cook and welcome people in to start the new year off in style! I took pity on my Dad and didn’t feature the rulle picture. 😉

My Christmas tomte collection is growing. Don’t ask me why the ones on the left are all facing extremely left. I have no idea!

Lunar New Year started off pretty small, but got very big very quick. My favorite part about this party is that my family celebrates it and the Husband’s family doesn’t, despite there being a connection to Chinese culture. It’s been fun to look at the different cultural aspects of the holiday and incorporate them into our life. I still love the Lego set that I found unexpectedly!

Harry Potter! I’m glad we’re taking a break from this one this year, even though I loved the decorations we had. I’m saddened that the author, J.K. Rowling has had some unfortunate attitudes this past couple of years. Choosing to celebrate the good parts of the series, including messages of hope in darkness, friendship, curiosity, and the real life struggle of good vs. evil, helps me remember our party with good thoughts. Plus, I got to buy a ridiculous amount of candy!

The Tea Making party seems like it was so long ago! I enjoyed having girlfriends over to watch movies and make our own tea blends. Maybe I can recreate this one with just a few ladies!

Our very first Hobbit Party! Fancy took over the chair by the fireplace and would whine at people who dared to sit in it until they got up and moved. I remember being so nervous that no one would get it, or it was too dorky. The food picture was the Afternoon Tea table. Luckily, we have excellent friends who went right along the nerd journey with us!

I really did miss our summer party this year. If I remember correctly, this Caprese had garden basil and garden tomatoes. It is always fun to get together with friends when it stays so light out. More time for conversation and laughter.

My parents and grandparents all instilled the gift and the desire to be hospitable in me and I know it’s suffered during the pandemic. I didn’t even know if my coworkers would feel comfortable eating homemade food this summer and have only brought in a few things. We can’t see our friends, like we used to, and it’s wearing on both of us. It is helpful for Piggy to be able to decompress with just us and a very select few people, but man… I miss party conversation. Jokes about not having enough cookies, pickle trays, and friends threatening to steal whole platters of cookies. I also miss getting to try new recipes that people have made and laughing as I attempted to find a spot for them on the table.

We both miss our game nights too! We have a rotating group of friends who switch in and out. Our dining room table doesn’t fit a ton of people comfortably, but we make it fun anyway. Now, when we can have game nights again, we’ll have comfier chairs at least, with the Star Trek seat cushions I made.

No pictures from game nights, as we were always having too much fun. The thing I like best about them is that I can be myself with coworkers turned friends and friends who put up with all us weird mental health worker types. We all have such weird and mostly dark senses of humor. I like it a lot.

I really hope the distance Hobbit party works out! I really need to feed people again. It might not be quite the same, but I’m excited to try it out.

Let me know how you’re handling connecting with people too! I’d love to hear some other ideas. I’ll leave you with a peaceful Piggy dumpling as advanced payment!

Party Posts · Recipe Roundup

Party, Party!

LSiehLeave a comment

We had our Big Summer Blowout a couple of weeks ago and I have not had a chance to blog about it. We had some exciting times before it and I learned a good lesson about asking other people for help and actually getting things done ahead of time. We had water in the basement the night before the party and I hadn’t started more than one thing.

There were several panicked texts to friends and one of them even baked the Husband some lovely chocolate chip cookies!

Here’s the table pictures:

I think there are more, but the Husband took the pictures for me and I forgot to specify.

I made a couple of new recipes for the party and some older ones. I made an enormous bowl of pico for the Husband. The biggest Pyrex bowl we have was pressed into service and the Husband was super happy.

It was full of garden tomatoes and jalepenos! I had four kinds of tomatoes. Yellow tomatoes, Cherokee purple, Romas, and some cherry tomatoes. It was delicious and not too spicy.

I also made a fruit pizza! I used a couple of different recipes, one of which was the crust from this recipe: https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/fruit-pizza/

I used the Pampered Chef pizza stone and it was delicious! I did jazz up the cream cheese by adding orange extract and zest to it.

It does indeed look it was bitten… We’ll just pretend that I was going for the “monster ate it” look…

We also had vanilla cupcakes that were supposed to be toadstools, but turned into watermelon. What can I say? Cupcake decorating isn’t really my strong suit.

They had pineapple sage jam in the middle. I did use a really good buttercream recipe from this website: https://www.bakedbyanintrovert.com/basic-vanilla-buttercream-frosting/

It was pretty delicious frosting and I would definitely make it again. The cupcakes were a white cake recipe from the Better Homes and Gardens book.

We also had two different types of cheesecake bars, but I don’t have a good picture of them. One was Oreo Cheesecake and the second one was Chocolate Covered Key Lime bars. I can’t find the Oreo Cheesecake recipe, which I swore I put on my Pinterest. Hmm… I’ll keep looking about it. Here is the Key Lime cheesecake recipe though.

https://www.barbarabakes.com/chocolate-covered-key-lime-cheesecake-bites/

I made homemade pickles from one of the summer Food Network magazines and they were pretty good. Had to have a good pickle tray, after all!

We tried Puff Pastry cheese swirls, but I didn’t really like them. I just put cheese and spices in puff pastry and baked it for around 20 minutes. Perhaps you will have better luck with experimenting.

We had a meat and cheese tray, crackers, little pigs in blankets, and a friend also brought a veggie tray with hummus and pita chips.

It was a very fun party! We enjoyed our friends’ company and are looking forward to having more company in the fall. Fancy, of course, adored the company.

I’m attempting to get my blogging back in order. We have been very busy lately. Also, I have developed sewing related tendonitis and have been having difficulty keeping up with my responsibilities when they mean moving my thumb much. Wish me luck for a fast recovery. Maybe send the Husband Legos too, to help him deal with me not being able to sew!

Big Summer Blowout- Party Post!
Party Posts

Big Summer Blowout- Party Post!

LSiehLeave a comment

This is Fancy wondering why she isn’t getting pets and what that weird thing is on my lap. She’s quite intense. She doesn’t understand the importance of blogging about the party!

I had a terrible migraine yesterday and ended up doing some hand quilting while watching Star Trek. My coordination was so off and I kept dropping things, so the Husband kindly and firmly suggested I sit down and not touch anything breakable. He’s so smart. 🙂

We had a fun weekend. I made too much food as usual, but we are working our way through it. The featured post is the view of the whole table minus the crab dip, as it was in the oven. We might need tiered serving trays or a bigger table…

It was the Husband’s birthday as well, so he had a chocolate dragon cake to celebrate. I don’t own a regular bundt cake pan, only a dragon one. 🙂

It was from Tastes Better From Scratch. 

https://tastesbetterfromscratch.com/chocolate-bundt-cake/

The cake turned out to be nice and tender and had mini chocolate chips in it as well. I poured a bittersweet ganache and edible gold over the top. It made kind of a vaguely dragon shaped lump.

It tasted delicious though!

I also made Pineapple Sage Vanilla Bean Cupcakes with the homemade jam from Southern Living Little Jars Big Flavor.

They were delicious! I used almost the same recipe for frosting as I did the fruit pizza. I added lemon flavoring to the cupcake frosting though.

Here’s the fruit pizza. I thought it would be so summery and fun. It was both!

I used the recipe from Sally’s Baking Addiction. https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2014/05/23/fruit-pizza/

We had chocolate chip cookies too, of course. The Husband was so happy. 🙂

One of the most fun parts of the party was seeing how many recipes had things from the garden in them. This zucchini bread had some of the zukes in it.

The Caprese salad had garden basil.

I used heirloom tomatoes and mozzarella cheese from the store. My in-laws had given us some fancy oils and vinegar for Christmas, so I used the pomegranate balsamic. It was very good.

Garden tomatoes were featured in the pasta salad, which I don’t have  an individual picture of, and in the Firebreather salsa. There were some Jalefuego peppers in there as well.

You can see the peach salsa too. It was a little sweet for me, but not as spicy. Those recipes I covered in the last canning post. Also in the canning post were the pickle recipes. 🙂 To refresh your memory, I made zucchini pickles, dilly beans, garlic hot pickles, and ginger pickles.

I tried all of them, except the garlic ones by accident, and liked them. Now I just have to remember to eat them! Part of the long pickles were actually made from cucs from a friend’s garden. The hot pickles have tiny spicy chilis from my garden in them. I think even my Mom might agree that this might be enough pickles! 🙂

It was a delicious and fun summer party! I’m already planning for our next big party, which will be a Harry Potter Tasting Party. 🙂 We actually had quite a few good meals last week too, so I will post more about those later. I remembered to take pictures!

Now, I need to go figure put dinner for tomorrow. We need a little break from leftovers. Send us good dinner vibes!

Party Post and Recipe Catch Up
Party Posts · Recipe Roundup

Party Post and Recipe Catch Up

LSiehLeave a comment

I realized I never shared the party post! And I have a lot of recipe catching up to do! I’ll start with the Epiphany party, because that’s much more fun. 🙂

I made way too much food as usual, and people kept getting th cold or flu that was running around, so it was a smaller party this year. The Husband’s Grandma and some of the other family came though, so that was fun. Fancy got to see her favorite uncle who buys her fun toys. 🙂

Fancy did very well at the Epiphany party. We kept her on leash and in her party harness, so she seemed to be a bit calmer. We had several friends who were comfortable holding the leash for us too, so we could actually talk to people. She had one incident of guarding/biting a box, but she did give it up when the Husband got out a beef chew for her. She was very sleepy that night and the next day.

New recipes included two gluten free/dairy free cookies, one of which was Keto friendly. We also had pigs in blankets with homemade crescent dough, because I couldn’t help myself.

I mean, I could have used the crescent roll dough in a tube, but that doesn’t taste nearly as good.

The smaller ones are gluten free almond flour chocolate chip cookies from off of the Trader Joe’s almond flour bag. The butter was switched out for margarine.

The other ones are Keto friendly snickerdoodles from I Breathe, I’m Hungry. https://www.ibreatheimhungry.com/low-carb-snickerdoodles-keto-gluten-free/

They were both pretty good. They ended up being soft, due to the almond flour. I’m not the biggest fan of artificial sugar, so I borrowed some from my friend Kayla.

She was lovely enough to come help the Husband and I food prep for the party and it worked out well to have help. Something hilarious happened though that kind of made the kitchen look like the Mayhem commercials happened…

This would be what happens when you hit the mixer switch to the highest setting by accident and have just put about a pound of powdered sugar in the mixer… After the initial shock, Kayla laughed too and I’m pretty sure she was the one to remind me to take a picture for the blog. 🙂 I had removed a few things from the counter  before taking the picture, I think, the spatula and a measuring cup. It was a mess. We got it all sorted though.

I made peppermint bark from the December Food Network Peppermint Insert, but completely forgot to serve it! We had plenty of other sweets. 

I had frozen the other honey sugar cookie dough, so those were made into sweater bears. The Husband likes bears in sweaters, ever since I bought a tin with a bear in a sweater holding a tree a few years ago.

We also had regular chocolate chip cookies, Berliner Kranzer, peanut butter balls, and the peppermint sugar cookies.

Other savory options were crab dip, a cheese and sausage tray, chicken salad, and the traditional rulle.

Also, a veggie tray and pickle tray. The Husband brought home some fancy popcorn and sugar cookies, so we had those too. It was lovely. We have been happily munching on the leftovers.

So that’s the party part of the post. On to the regular recipes!

I think I mentioned we got an Instant Pot and maybe the fact that I was a little terrified of using it…

It wasn’t as scary after I let the steam out the first time. I made a tomato, hamburger, and pasta soup.

https://www.skinnytaste.com/beef-tomato-and-acini-di-pepe-soup/

It needed more seasoning and I already added more than what the recipe called for. It was good enough to add to the recipe bank though.

I also tried two recipes from the Gordon Ramsey’s In The Heat Of The Kitchen cookbook. Homemade pasta and Tagliatelle with Mushrooms, with the homemade pasta. Technically this is fettuccini, but it worked.

We had the mushroom dish with steaks on New Year’s Day.

The pasta was delicious. I thought it was one of the better batches that I’ve made. It was silky and smooth. The dough was drier than previous dough and I think it made it less prone to sticking together.

Fancy was very determined to share our dinner.

I have made two recipes from the 2018 January/February Food Network Magazine already.

It has 12 muffin recipes! I used the Lemon Zucchini muffin one, but switched out the lemon to orange. I had the latter, but not the former.

Mmmm… they were delicious! I will happily make them again.

We had the Chili Shrimp from the stir-fry insert tonight and it was also good.

The last couple weeks have been a blur, so I’m sure there are ones I’m missing. I’ll post them when I remember them.

Have a wonderful weekend! My back is acting up again, so I may not be able to do much, but can maybe get some meal planning done. There are more Instant Pot recipes to be explored!