Snowman Themed Dinner Party

We are in the last month of 2020, and at least here in California, we are still in quarantine-mode with stay at home orders.  I am definitely ready to be back at work and life with people in general, but for now, my monthly dinner parties are continuing to be virtual.  For a little December fun, I decided to have a snowman theme for my monthly dinner.  I know...not a whole lot of snow to be found in sunny Orange County, but it was a super easy and fun theme to put together.

Invite:  I wanted to tie in that this is the last month of a hard year with COVID-19, so I decided to title our dinner, "SNOW, MAN I am glad 2020 is almost over" because I am SO glad it is almost over even though it's hard to see the new year changing much at least for a while.  I kept the invite simple and used a fun snowy font that was still easy to read.

Party Details: As this was a virtual party, I did not decorate my house or table as I normally would, but I did create some touches to give to the guests when they picked up their meal.  My party favor was my favorite! (I know I don't usually talk about the party favor until the end of my posts, but I am just too excited about this one!). Since toilet paper is in such high demand right now because of COVID, I thought it would be fun to incorporate it into the party.  I made snowman favors out of it!

It is fairly simple to make these, and I love them so much I think I may make them for my kids' teachers at school to put with a gift card or even for neighbors.  A gift that is cute, but also able to be used after the holidays!  To make these, I used 2 rolls of toilet paper.  I put a piece of packing tape on top of the bottom one and one brown pipe cleaner across before adding the second roll so they were at least loosely attached. I tied a ribbon around the middle as a scarf and added the face and buttons.  I cut these out with my Cricut and just glued them on.  For the arms, I used a second brown pipe cleaner, wrapped it around the other pipe cleaner once and cut it to be the length of fingers I wanted.  For the hat, I bought mini plastic cups (8 per pack) at the dollar store and spray painted them black.  Then I attached them to the top of a black circle of cardstock.

The tag for my favor played off the COVID hoarding of TP!

Another party detail was for the wine.  I designed two wine labels - one for red and one for white.  

The label for the red wine matched the party invitation and read, "Let it Snow and pour the Merlot."  The white wine label also had a snowman.  It read, "Let it Snow and let the wine Flow."

To spice up my napkin, I simply added a snowman eyes, nose, and smile using my Cricut and cardstock.  These were so easy because I already had the parts for my party favor.  I just needed to resize them and glue them on.

Menu:  I had a bit of simple fun creating a menu to go with a Snowman theme.  I stayed simple since the meal is "to go" style and needed to be easy to transport.  We started with Snowman Stew.  This was delicious and very easy to make.  I made it on the stove and then baked it in a casserole dish.  

I baked the snowman separately and then added them to the top.  Here is the recipe.  I doubled it for 10 people, and there was zero left.  Wish I would have tripled it for leftovers.

1.5 pound ground beef
1 package (16 ounces) frozen vegetables
1 can (10-1/4 ounces) beef gravy
Potatoes (prepared with milk and butter)
Whole black pepper for the eyes

Instructions:  Brown the beef in a skillet on medium heat until pink.  Drained it and add the frozen vegetables.  Be sure to take out the number of peas and carrots you want to use to decorate your snowman before you add the vegetables to the beef.  After the vegetables thaw, add the gravy and mix well.  Then, pour the mixture into a casserole dish and bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.  You can top it with your snowman mashed potatoes before you bake it or bake them separately.  I did them separately because I needed to transfer everything after baking.  To make the snowman, I used an ice cream scoop for the lower portion and a butter scoop for the head.  I baked them at the same temp and time as the stew and then added 3 peas for buttons, 2 whole black peppers for eyes, and a sliced carrot from the frozen veggie bag as the nose.  You can add a red pepper or ketchup to make a scarf, but I ran out of time to do this.

I also served a salad that I called a Deconstructed Snowman Salad. It was lettuce topped with 3 mozzarella balls, sliced olives, sliced carrot noses, and pretzel sticks.  The pretzels were like croutons and gave the salad a yummy crunch. I served the salad with a creamy bacon ranch dressing.

For dessert, I made Snowman Bark.  This was so cute & would make a great gift for neighbors, friends, etc.  Super easy.  Here's is how I made it:

1 package while chocolate almond bark

30 (or so) candy eyes

Red M&Ms

15-16 miniature peanut butter cups, cut in half

Black edible marker to draw arms

Melt the almond bark on the stove according to the directions on the package.  Then pour it into a lined baking sheet.  Smooth it out.  Then place candy eyes, three M&M's for buttons, and the halved peanut butter cup as a hat.  After this hardens and cools, use the black edible marker to add arms.  Then heat a small knife to cut the bark into pieces to separate the snowman.  Go slow and be careful.  Some of my snowman didn't make it as the bark cracked and decapitated them or they lost an arm!

Everything was super easy and fun for this dinner party theme.  We had a great time on Zoom eating our meal and sharing our lives with each other.  Of course, it is more fun to be together around a table, but that time will come again soon.  For now, I am grateful to be able to at least see my friends briefly when they pick up their food and then on Zoom.

Wishing you all a happy and healthy holiday season!

Election Themed Wedding Fun

One of my best friends and monthly dinner girls is getting married on Saturday.  She and her fiancé had their first date on Election Day years ago, and she follows politics closely, so I decided to have a bit of fun combining an election theme and a bridal celebration/wedding!  It was so much fun to plan!

Invite:  I designed a fun invitation to look like a formal political candidate dinner.  I started with a bit of fun using the word BIDEN and the word TRUMP in my opening lines.  No divisions politically in this dinner party....all of us were supporting Nazly/Ed!  I tried to stick with political wording by calling our dinner a "rally" even though we were again on Zoom. My guests were "campaign supporters."

Party Details:  To hold a red napkin, I folded a piece of typing paper to look like an envelope.  I put in the napkin and designed an "Election Ballot" to put inside.  I added my friend and her fiancé to the ballot along with Biden/Harris and Trump/Pence.  I used the same wording as my official absentee ballot for the signature box to make it look a little more official.

I designed Nazly/Ed 2020 buttons for each guest to wear for our dinner.  I found the buttons at Michaels Craft Store and just popped in the design I created.

I also made small Nazly/Ed signs for each guest to hold during our dinner rally. I taped tongue depressors to the back, and we had fun showing our support for our candidates throughout our dinner!

For the wine, I designed a label to be like the gillions of political pamphlets we have all been receiving these past few months.  It let everyone know that Nazly/Ed support the Red, WINE, and Blue!

As a little gift to our bride-to-be (or candidate), I collected money from the girls and put together a nice wine and a wedding themed Home Depot gift card for our friend to use on their new home.  The tag read, Happy to celebrate your Red, White, & I DO!

Menu: Since we are still on Zoom with COVID-19, the girls are picking up their food and we aren't able to eat together.  Finding a meal that will travel well has been a priority these past months.  As usual, I tried to come up with a menu that relates to elections.  

We started with a green salad with cranberries.  To have it match politics, I called it "Lettuce Wrap Up the CRAN-paign."  Along with the cranberries, I cut cheese into small stars and added sunflower seeds.  I served it in a baggie for easy transport and put in a ramekin of raspberry vinaigrette. 

For the main dish, I served pulled pork sandwiches I made in the crock pot.  I called these "Polled" Pork Sandwiches.  I followed this recipe which was super easy and very tasty.  I used Sweet Baby Rays BBQ sauce and added a bit of coleslaw to the top of the meat before serving.  For buns, I used ranch rolls.

I also served Right and Left Wings - chicken wings in two flavors!  I made a batch with buffalo sauce and a batch with parmesan garlic sauce.  Each guest got one of each to represent both "wings" of government.

The final side dish was a potato medley of red, white, and blue potatoes.  I followed my mom's recipe that I normally use for baked potato bites which is just adding butter and seasonings before baking them in the oven for 35 minutes.  These are delicious!

For dessert, I made a chocolate chip and M&M cookie pie.  I used red, white, and blue M&Ms and sprinkles, so the cookie looked festive.  A bit of whipped cream on top with a few more sprinkles just made it festive.

Favor: I went easy with my party favor and bought trail mix already made to wish our couple well on the Campaign Trail (Mix).  I swapped out the M&Ms included in the trail mix with patriotic M&Ms to make it match the theme.   

It was fun to celebrate this amazing woman (and her future hubby) as our candidates for 2020. 

Wearing buttons and holding our signs made for a fun Zoom evening!  I wish only the best for these soon-to-be Newlyweds.  They definitely got an unanimous vote!

Celebrating 14 Years Shakespeare-Style

Hard to believe, but I have been hosting monthly dinners for 14 years!  That is 168 themed dinners that my girlfriends and I have had over the 14 years.  A lot has changed over those years of course -- many of us have gotten married, had children, bought homes, changed careers, and so much more.  What hasn't changed is our joy in getting together, even if it is only once a month. Unfortunately, our celebration this year was on Zoom due to COVID-19, but we still had a good time.

For our "anniversary" dinner, I typically try to come up with a theme that reflects the number of years. I must say for 14, I was completely stumped.  Sometimes a number will go with a movie (13 Going on 30 was last year or Seven Dwarfs was year seven), but 14 was a challenge.  I brainstormed with a friend, and decided on Sonnets - they are 14 lines!  It is a very "English-teachery" theme, but a few of us are English teachers, so what the heck; I went with it!

Invite:  Being the over-achiever that I am, I decided to write my own sonnet to put on the invitation.  For those of you that don't know, a Shakespearian sonnet has 14 lines, 10 syllables in each line, and a rhyme scheme of ABAB, CDCD, EFEF, GG.  Piece of cake, right? Nope. It was bit of a challenge and I only had the weekend to pull this whole dinner together, so it's a good thing my friends aren't grading me!  It was fun to create, and I added Shakespeare wearing a party hat to the invitation for added fun.  I downloaded a free font called Shakespeare First Folio for the text.  Just FYI if you use this font, the "u" looks like a "v"  and the "j" looks like an "i" in this font.  I had to switch to a different font just for certain letters.

Party Details:  Shakespeare wrote with a quill and parchment, so I wanted to incorporate this into my dinner details.  I rolled my napkin like a scroll and added a homemade quill.  I couldn't find large parchment colored napkins without spending a fortune, so I just used grey which I already had at home.  You do need dinner-size napkins which are larger.  To make the quills, I bought feathers from Michaels Craft Store and black pens from the dollar store.  I cut the tip of the feather, took apart the casing on the pen, and then slid the pen inside the feather.  I did have to cut the plastic tube that holds the ink so that it wasn't as long (which means the quills won't last very long), but it worked.  I used a bit of black electrical tape to secure the pen to the feather.  Quick and easy. 

With COVID, not being together at one table for these dinners to share a bottle (or two or three) of wine really bums me out, but we've adapted.  For my mini wine bottle labels this month, I decided to alter a popular Shakespeare quote.  Switching the "thine" or "wine," I made a label that read "This above all / To WINE own self be true."

Menu:  I typically try to be creative and make each food item somehow match the theme for these dinners, but a sonnet theme made this more challenging than usual.   I decided instead to make popular foods from England, as Shakespeare was a Londoner.  I wrote another sonnet about the food itself instead of naming each menu item separately.

The main course was bangers and mash.  I followed this recipe.  I bought sausages from the grocery, not true bangers.  The sauce and the onions were delicious (and I don't normally like onions).  The guests really liked this recipe.  Along with the bangers and mash, I served fresh carrots and peas.

For dessert, I made a caramel brownie chocolate trifle.  I bought plastic mason jars from Michaels to put the trifle in, so it was easy to transport.  The trifle was super easy to make.  I baked brownies and crumbled them up to layer with the other yummy ingredients.  Crumbled brownies, then a caramel drizzle, chocolate pudding, whipped cream, then cut up Heath bar.  I repeated these layers until the mason jar was filled and Heath bar was on top.  Helpful hint: Pipe the pudding and whipped cream in to avoid messing up the sides of your mason jar.  It gets a cleaner look.

Although the menu sonnet included a stanza on dessert, the lid of the mason jar was so plain, I decided to add a tag. I used Shakespeare's line "Something wicked this way comes" and added in a word to read "something wicked(ly) chocolate this way comes."

Favor:  I made Shakespeare "books" out of cardstock and a box of chocolates for a parting gift.  I found a box of chocolates at the dollar store and designed the dimensions  of the book to fit that box.  On the spine I had the title of our evening "Sonnet XIV - Ode to 14 Years" and I used a famous line from Romeo and Juliet on the cover.  "Good night, good night / Parting is such sweet sorrow/ That I shall say good night / til it be morrow."

So happy to have been able to host these dinners for the past 14 years and to have built such amazing friendships with these ladies over those years.  A final rhyming couplet to end this post and dinner: "To dine or not to dine -- no question here. / We loved to celebrate our fourteenth year!"

Operation: Girls Night

Here we are in what seems like week 800 of COVID-19, and I am aching for life to get back to normal or even semi normal. I miss seeing my friends in person.  I miss having my kids at school rather than at home to learn.  I miss teaching my own students at work and not through the computer.  Overall, this distance learning has me STRESSED!  With all the craziness of distance learning right now, I am in desperate need of a girls night!  Hence...Operation: Girls Night!

Invite:  We used to play the board game Operation when I was a kid.  I thought it might be a fun theme to work with for our girls night.  Turns out it was just what the doctor ordered (yes...corny joke time).  I created the invite with the color scheme to match the game (the original version).  I added some of the game pieces into the text of the invite as well.

Party Details:  Due to COVID we are still on Zoom for these dinners, so I am not doing table decorations, but I still try to add fun party details to play up the theme.  For my mini wine bottles for each guest, I purchased tweezers from the dollar store and tied them with ribbon to the top.  This was to simulate the tweezers attached to the wire that are used in the game.  

I created a wine label using "Cavity Sam" just as he appears on the game box, but with one small addition -- I added a body part/game piece.  This was the wine glass where the mouth is.  It was so small on the wine bottle I am sure most of the girls didn't even notice, but it made me chuckle!  I think I should have just included the head-shot of Cavity Sam like I did here, so it would have been more noticeable.  Hindsight, I guess. 

I don't typically serve bottled water to my guests, but one of the Operation game pieces is "Water on the Knee" so I decided to this time.  Just made a simple label and glued it over the already existing label.

For the napkin, I incorporated two of the Operation game pieces.  The pencil which in the game symbolizes "Writer's Cramp" and a rubber band which in the game is the "ankle bone connected to the knee bone."  After making the tag, I hot glued the pencil to the tag and then used the rubber band to keep it in place on the napkin.

Menu:  Several of the game pieces already go perfectly with foods, so that part was really easy.  Others I had to be a little bit creative.  After coming up with a meal that matched with the game pieces, I designed a menu on Photoshop.

I served an apple and Gorgonzola romaine salad with candied pecans and dried cranberries to represent the "Adam's Apple" game piece.  Since these dinners were picked up "to-go" style, I put the salad in zip lock baggies to keep is chilled and away from the hot food.  For the dressing, I bought the Wishbone brand of Raspberry Vinaigrette dressing to represent the wishbone game piece.  I put some in a to-go ramekin for guests.

For the main dish, I smoked ribs on my Traeger grill....so easy and delicious!  I followed the 3-2-1 Traeger Rib recipe.  Of course, these ribs represented the "Spare Ribs" game piece in the Operation game.  Along with ribs, I served heart-shaped potato bites.  I make potato bites all the time, but this time I used a cookie cutter to have them shaped like hearts to represent the "broken heart" game piece.  They were too cute to actually break, but the idea is there.

I also made these cute mini baskets to hold a roll for each guest. The "bread basket" is what the game piece calls the stomach with a the game piece shaped like a piece of toast.  These baskets are a ramekin I bought 3 for a $1 from the dollar store and then a piece of red cardstock that I taped to the inside of the ramekin.

For dessert, I made meringue chocolate chip cookies, but shaped them into "funny bones" to represent that Operation game piece.  I did the shaping by hand so they definitely weren't perfect, but they were sweet and tasty.

Favor:  I like to include a parting gift or favor with my monthly dinners.  I used the "Charlie Horse" game piece as inspiration for this.  I already had a horse mold from a previous monthly dinner (Kentucky Derby), so I used that one to make chocolate suckers.  

I added a tag with a tip from Cavity Sam: Avoid a Charlie Horse and attend Operation Girls Night.  It won't cramp your style!  Pretty cheesy, but my friends are use to that from me!

The girls stopped by my porch to pick up their food and goodies for the evening.  We met on Zoom and had a great time talking, laughing, and eating this yummy food. Overall, this theme was easy to put together.  I would totally recommend it for a fun girls night (especially if you could play the game).  It makes a great theme for a medical school graduation party too!

Thanks for reading my blog!