Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

Fantastic!

From Fantastic Mr. and Mrs. Fox.

What the cuss?!?

The end.

How to Host an Iron Chef Party: Pizza Edition

I'm not sure why it took us so long to do a Pizza Edition of Iron Chef. But we finally did it this last weekend and it sure was fun AND easy to set up and run.

Now there are a few things you'll want to arrange to make it all work:

1. Put someone in charge of making a bunch of pizza dough.

I made Peter Reinhart's pizza dough recipe in the afternoon and they were ready to go for the evening. The dough is even better the next day, so if you can manage to get it ready the night before, you'd be set. One batch made six 6-oz balls of dough and it was pretty quick making 5 batches!

Pre-pizza dough

2. Have the party at a place with an oven and an outdoor grill. This will help with the pizza-making flow.

The lovely Miss G hosted this Iron Chef at her new apartment and also "inherited" a grill specifically for the party from her parents--she spent 2 hours cleaning that thing for us! Side note: If you can manage to get a charcoal grill too, I bet the pizza would taste even better!

3. Put someone in charge of the sauce. Lee made a white sauce, and we also bought a couple of jars of red sauce.

4. Ask everyone else to bring 2 to 3 toppings. Those can range from meats, cheeses, vegetables, fruit, other sauces. Encourage them to get creative! Someone made a pizza with pears and bacon. I had anchovies on my pizza!

Sardines for my pizza!

5. Ask a couple people to bring drinks and a dessert in lieu of their toppings.

6. We also had these on hand, which were extremely helpful: olive oil, corn meal, aluminum foil, a cutting board, and a pizza cutter.

Then get going and make your pizzas!

Dough first...

Sauce next...

Toppings...

Then bake or grill it. Be patient--it will take a few minutes, Lee.

Lee chomping at the bit for his pizza to be done

And voila! Look at those pies!

Two pizzas?!? Strong work!

Happy pizza eaters!

That was a fun, easy Iron Chef, so give it a try!

"Stay away," growls Lee, "That's my pizza!"

Pastry Wednesday: Tulie Bakery's Red Velvet Cake

I've got a couple problems with red velvet cake.

First of all, it doesn't really taste like anything to me. It's a vehicle for the cream cheese frosting, but if that's its only purpose, so is a spoon! 

Don't get me wrong, red velvet cake can be absolutely stunning, but if its other purpose is to look stunning, then all red velvet cakes should be in the shape of an armadillo. THAT is visually stunning, if you ask me.

Red Armadillo Cake from Steel Magnolias

So, I'm not a big fan. There's too much hype and it seemed at one point in time everyone was making red velvet everything. Pretty to look at, but not much substance there.

You can imagine my non-excitement when Colonel Mustard decided on Tulie's Red Velvet Cake for this particular Pastry Wednesday.

Love the cream cheese frosting they make at Tulie

It IS a pretty looking cake--Tulie Bakery always does a nice job.

I kept my opinion to myself as Colonel Mustard cut up the cake.

My piece of red velvet cake

Wow--they must have used a whole bottle of red food coloring to get that rich color! It is stunning.

Taste test time...

Look at that crumb!

The cake was moist and dense. Nice texture, but without a definitive flavor as expected. The cream cheese frosting was excellent, of course. Overall, it was better than any of the red velvet cakes I've had in the past, but is that saying much from a girl who doesn't like red velvet cake in the first place?

Not really. 

Do you like Red Velvet Cake? Can someone explain to me the allure of this cake or what it's even supposed to taste like or why I should give it another try?

Thanks,

A concerned cake eater

Tulie Bakery

863 East 700 South

Salt Lake City, Utah

The 9th Annual Cheese and Italian Soda Party: Dressed to the Nines

Lee and I decided on this year's cheese party theme way back last year, right after we finished up the 8th annual party. There were quite a few people that wanted to know what Year #9 would bring.

We decided on Dressed to the Nines, since we thought it would be fun to have people come dressed up all fun and fancy.

I love a fun invitation!

We kept the theme loose, because people get creative when you give them some leeway. Here are some of our favorite interpretations of dressing to the nines:

• This entire family dressed up in their formals. J was especially excited, saying that he never gets to wear his tuxedo anywhere.

That pink tulle dress was so dang cute!

• M & T sported some pleather pants, a faux fur coat, a wig, a lot of bling--awesome!

Lee was worried they had come to break his thumbs!

• These ladies paid attention to every detail in their steam punk outfits.

Steam punk all the way!

• So Smiling D is a super nerd and made a shirt with an equation that equaled P, which if you turned it backward, it would make a 9. Smiling D's wife, was just at her 9th month of pregnancy. Very nice!

• B said she went all out at the DI and found an outfit that made her look like a Polly Pocket.

Wow--even the headband!

• My girlfriends decided on classic black and gray--so chic!

Beautiful women!

• And my favorite was our newly-married friends. She step-dances and he participates in the Highland Games!

And the step-dancing was amazing during Cheese Idol!

This year's Cheese Idol was a little smaller than previous years, but we had some real quality acts. I was rather impressed by the hard shoe step-dancing and The Hot Scot's song Milkman set to Justin Beiber's hit song Boyfriend. It was awesome!

Lee's sisters won the show with their rendition of John Williams is the Man. They had a little help from their 2-D friend, Han.

Seriously, we had a great time this year! Here are more pictures from that lovely evening.

How to Host an Epic Cheese Party: Cheesy Talent Show

This is part of series called How to Host an Epic Cheese Party. We'd love to hear your ideas and tips for throwing a cheese party! See other posts here and here.

Cheesy Talent Show

So I have this good friend. I've mentioned her before--The Hot Scot. Cheese Idol started because of her.

You see, she is an amazingly talented singer/song writer. We first became friends through our church, then we ended up being roommates for a while. We had a great time together!

Because The Hot Scott is extremely musically talented and has ties to other musically talented folks, she suggested one year that we tack on an acoustic jam session to the Cheese Party.

Yes!

The Hot Scot singing!

It was awesome!

We continued it the next year for our Cheesegagement Party.

JRN giving us a good show

The following year, we decided to expand it even more--Cheese Idol.

We explained to people that it was like American Idol, but with a cheesy twist. We encouraged everyone to join in the fun and share their cheesy talents and legitimate talents alike.

Here are a few tips on how to run your Cheese Idol show:

1. Keep the show to about 1 hour or less, including awards. People have short attention spans.

Waiting for the show to start

2. Ask and commit a few people to present at Cheese Idol ahead of time. This will give you a base program that you can fill in with other people that volunteer during the party.

3. As the host or hostess, plan to present something also. Don't be shy--you can do a cheesy lip sync with bad dancing! Then start telling everyone what you're doing. We got a ton of people to volunteer for Cheese Idol when they found out Lee was doing a dance number with his little sisters to Beyonce's "Single Ladies". People get into it when you're into it.

Lee and his bedazzled velour track suit

4. Get an emcee for between numbers. Lee likes to ham it up in front of an audience. It helps the flow.

Lee, as a Russian emcee

5. Present awards for the top 3 numbers. We usually have the audience vote by clapping and give out old bowling trophies with Baby Bell Cheese taped to them.

The prizes for Cheese Idol

You may be wondering what types of things we've seen during Cheese Idol. We've seen beatnik poetry readings, someone who could eat cheese whilst standing on his head, violin numbers...

...someone playing a toaster, someone who could talk really fast, comedy stand-up bit about bacon...

...legitimate singer/song writers...

...lip syncs, interpretive dance numbers, Irish step dancing...

We've even had one of our doctor friend's take someone's blood pressure as her talent.

Just have fun--it makes the evening more memorable!

Next up, we'll take a look at the 9th Annual Cheese and Italian Soda Party!