party stef

This weekend I "catered" a friend's Halloween party. It was quite a bit of work, but not stressful at all. I got to try some recipes I've been hoarding. Here's what I made:

Hummus:

I made 3 kinds; Plain, Roasted red pepper and curry. I didn't use a recipe for any of them, because Hummus is simple and hard to mess up. It's basically canned chickpeas, fresh garlic, lemon juice, olive oil and tahini (sesame seed paste). However, I could not seem to find tahini at my normal stores, so I used sunflower seed butter instead, which was a good substitute I think. For the Roasted red pepper I simply threw in some jarred roasted red peppers. For the curry I added curry powder, ginger, cinnamon, and turmeric. I served them with pita chips and raw veggies. People who were hummus eaters at the party liked them, but these ended up being the least popular of my 5 items. Just not the crowd for it, I guess.

Brie tarts:

These are a simple idea I got from attifood. Basically you put cubes of Brie in pre-made phyllo cups, put some kind of preserves (I used pepper pecan jelly) on it and top it with a walnut. Bakes them for about 10 minutes, and voila! The second most popular item I made.

Meat Lollipops:


These were an idea from Food Wishes. Simply spread goat cheese on a bread stick and wrap it with some delicious meat. I used proscuitto, capicolla ham, and salami. For half of them, I mixed in chopped fresh basil with the goat cheese. These were a pretty big hit. I wish I could have found skinnier breadsticks (which I did a couple days later, darn it). On second thought, the cheese makes the stick a little soft after awhile (don't be grossed out, it's still tasty, and you hardly notice because the rest of the stick is still crunchy), so a skinny breadstick might not have held up well unless people are eating them right away...

Salami and Pistachio mini muffins:

These were adapted from Chocolate & Zucchini's recipe for a Chorizo Pistachio and Sun-dried tomatoes loaf. I simply replaced the hard-to-find chorizo with some smoked salami and cooked the batter in mini-muffin tins instead of a loaf pan. These were Jack's favorite, and he has requested that I make some for Thanksgiving.

Sweet & Sour meatballs:

These were so popular I didn't get a picture of the finished product. That's just a naked meatball, there, fresh out of the oven. It's a very 60's recipe, with a sauce consisting only of chili sauce and grape jelly and lemon juice and garlic powder. The meatballs are a mixture of pork, hamburger, onions, garlic, breadcrumbs and eggs. Here's the recipe I started from, but I added more to my meatball mixture. It's amazing how such a weird sounding and simple recipe can be sooo popular. A few people commented that the flavors brought back memories from when they were kids. Ha!

overall I enjoyed doing this. It was like I was hosting a party myself, only it was at someone else’s house (my apartment could not handle it) and someone else was paying for everything. Awesome!