I love any party that has shrimp cocktail, don’t you? I had the honor of attending another party by the ever gracious R, and this party had a theme. It was a holiday pollyanna, but the opposite of “healthy and clean”. I’ll let you all figure that out on your own. Shrimp cocktail. I could eat this all day. Grapes… and a lovely salad that A brought.
This bean dish was definitely the appetizer hit of the evening. A mix of pinto, black-eyeds, pimentos, white corn, onions, vinegar, sugar, etc… it was the perfect topping to the chips below. I could have eaten this whole thing. In fact, I probably did eat most of it. Sorry!

A variety of cheese and crackers, as usual, along with some other tapenade type stuff. Did I mention how many chips I ate?

This is where I always go wrong… I stuff my face with appetizers so that I’m already practically full when the main course comes around.  Here we have some roasted tomato and fennel soup (seriously, who makes this kind of stuff?) and a three meat lasagna. Both were excellent, as always with R’s gourmet cooking. He puts the rest of us to shame!

In keeping with the theme of this little party, E created a special dessert. Let’s just use our imaginations to figure out what this dessert is shaped like. It is banana wrapped in bacon (yes, this dessert had bacon in it!) with two scoops of ice cream. :-) And this whole thing was flambéed! Using cognac, we lit these puppies on fire to burn off the alcohol. The fire looks fake in this photo, but it is totally real! I saw it! I felt it! It was so fun! And even though the dessert sounds odd, it was delicious! Thanks for another great party!

Ahhh Thanksgiving.  A glorious holiday whose sole purpose is to make us eat good food. This holiday always gets a big thumbs up from me. This year I went with my moms to her friends’ residence in upper montgo. There was the requisite turkey, of course! This one was about 15-ish lbs? I’m a dark meat person, how about you? Although every bite was a bit nerve-racking as I had just watched this clip from the Today show talking about how terrible dark meat was for you. F em, I say! Corn. I love me some corn. Do you see the fancy plates and such? This was a proper meal!
We had a bevy of sides, of course, some traditionally thanksgiving, some not. This broccoli cheese casserole was a nice surprise. Instead of the green bean casserole, it was broccoli, and I ate it up. Mashed sweet potatoes. While I love plain old mashed potatoes, nothing beats mashed sweet potatoes. This is all in line with my preference for sweet potato fries over plain. Brussel sprouts and sliced carrots! Ok, I’m being honest.  I didn’t touch this plate. Ha!
Stuffing. Good ‘ol stuffing. For me though, I’ve never been much of a stuffing girl.
And to round out the sides we had cole slaw, green beans, and mashed potatoes. Some cranberry sauce for you? Why yes! And of course, the thing that makes thanksgiving what it is – GRAVY. I admit it, I would put gravy on just about anything. I am a gravy girl.
We had three desserts with this meal. And even though we were all stuffed, we forced everyone to try all three. The first was the standard pumpkin pie. It’s one of my favorite things about fall. That and sweet potato pie! We also had this pumpkin cheesecake from an argentinian bakery in northern jersey. It was so damn cute it was nearly a shame to hack in to it. But hack into it we did.
And to round out the thanksgiving dessert trifecta, we had this berry tart. All in all, my stomach was beyond satisfied. Oh, and I also drank some homemade cactus flower hooch. It was so odd tasting, yet fascinating. It was the color of beet juice, yet thick. And it was super sweet touching the lips but then had a bizarre savory aftertaste. It’s one of the strangest things I’ve ever tasted! This was an especially memorable thanksgiving spent with great people over some great dishes!

As a bookend to the project runway premiere, E held a fitting project runway finale party. She once again cooked everything, and made it seem effortless. Homemade breadsticks using phyllo dough and cheese. Obviously, the before! Even though the veggie tray came with a thing of dip, E made her own. It didn’t quite turn out like the photo in the cookbook (it should have been green!) but it was still good. But it did taste a bit strange. It was hard to pinpoint what it was, but it was a bit odd. The beautiful veggie tray, crackers, and the breadsticks. The breadsticks had some problems in that they stuck to the pans. So they ended up being breadstick bits and not whole breadsticks. They still tasted fine. The main entree was mac and cheese, made with corkscrew macaroni and genuine cheese! This shot was obviously before the cheese sauce was poured in and the whole thing was baked. The mac and cheese turned out amazingly well. It was cheesy but mild, piping hot, and with a nice breadcrumb topping. The other main entree was asian chicken wings. And the girl didn’t even buy pre-cut chicken wings at the store, she actually bought whole chicken wings and cut them into the wing bites! Nuts I tell you, nuts! These were fried up after being coated in a corn starch mix and then drenched in an asian marinade. These puppies were delish! E throws good parties! And she even gives away door prizes! Can’t wait for the next season!