Friday evening was our potluck wine tasting....which turned into more of a "wine drinking and hanging out," which I'm totally ok with. Next time if I truly want to do a wine
tasting, I'll go with a specific theme to make more of an activity out of it. But we truly had a great time just enjoying each other's company.
I asked people to bring a bottle of wine and a coordinating snack - no other guidelines. I got a couple different rosés and made dates stuffed with goat cheese - half were wrapped in bacon and baked, the other half were drizzled in honey.
I also made some homemade crackers in 3 varieties: rosemary and sea salt, herbes de provence, and coriander/black pepper/orange zest.
Here's how my
wine bottle flower arrangements project ended up:
And the little wooden caddy I used to hold pens, wine tasting cards, and napkins.
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Chilled Wines and Snacks |
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Maddy served as bouncer/greeter |
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Selfies on Fleek |
We're throwing together a low-key wine tasting get-together for Friday night, and since I just don't know the meaning of the phrase "low-key," I'm already working on some crafts for it.
First up, I got this sweet little
wooden garden caddy at Target's Dollar Spot a few weeks ago. It was one of those impulse buys that I just "had to have" until I got home with it and was all, "....well now what?" Always eager to spraypaint that which does not move (and, let's be honest, sometimes that which
does), I forgot to take a full-on "before." Here's a "during," though:
I lucked up on a really great deal on some jumbo cans of
black spray paint at Ollie's on Friday (I find myself using it a lot on household projects), so I coated the entire interior and exterior of the caddy first.
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I've been using this cardboard as a dropcloth for awhile....toldja I use a lot of black spray paint! |
Then once the first coat was dry, I put a coat of
Krylon's Chalkboard paint on the outside surfaces. It's a great way to store utensils (business end up, of course, unless I put some sort of liner in), or pens and paper for voting or taking notes, and I tend to use chalkboard signs and serving pieces a lot because they're just so versatile. Here it is in its finished useful glory!
The other project required a little bit of homework for me....oh darn.
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Been saving these babies for a special project. |
I spray-painted wine bottles with simple black paint...
...and filled them with long-stemmed mums!
They made the perfect little accents for our event! What are some of your fave low-cost decor hacks for parties?
I must admit, this "recipe" was an attempt to use up some ingredients left in our fridge. From the
"Bet it All on Black Garlic" burger we made the other night, we had some leftover baby spinach and fresh mozzarella. I would've been content to make a spinach salad, but hubby gets
"spinach teeth" so I thought I'd be nice and cook it. I also had some zucchini crying for help, so I threw together the bastard vegetarian child of ratatouille and lasagna.
I sauteed onions in some garlic-infused olive oil before deglazing the pan with some dry vermouth. I also added a splash of balsamic vinegar, crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, salt, pepper, and dried oregano and basil.
Using my mandoline slicer, I sliced the zucchini pretty thin and steamed them in the microwave to soften. I put the baby spinach in a big mixing bowl and then dumped the steaming hot zucchini on top to make the spinach wilt.
I added some ground flaxseed for texture and some
basil paste for a bit more flavor. I mixed this together pretty well before pouring my tomato sauce on top and thoroughly mixing the whole thing. I poured it into a greased dish and baked it in a hot oven (375 or 400) for 5-10 minutes at a time until it was bubbly and looked like it was starting to brown and thicken (maybe 25-30 min total).
Once I felt it was getting close, I dotted the top with torn chunks of fresh mozzarella and put the dish under the broiler for a few minutes until the cheese got brown and bubbly.
I served the casserole? veggie bake? dish...thingy... alongside some chicken sausage I sauteed in a pan for some texture and color, and I'm getting 2 more meals out of that one recipe for the both of us! Definitely a repeat throw-together-dish!
Have you ever heard of
black garlic? Neither had I, until our obsession with
Bob's Burgers started. In one episode, Bob has entered a burger contest and most of the episode centers around his kids trying to track down the featured ingredient of his entry, the "Bet it All on Black Garlic" burger.
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Literally: black garlic. |
This burger was AMAZING (as if there was any doubt - I highly recommend this book). Tangy, pungent black garlic sauce and melty mozzarella? Yes, please.
I could eat the black garlic sauce on everything - and as a matter of fact, we did. The recipe yielded way more than we needed for the burgers, so we used the sauce to dip our fries and roasted cauliflower. Nom.
What's the weirdest ingredient you've ever put on a burger?
A few weeks ago, hubby and I attended a couple of games in the first rounds of the women's NCAA basketball tournament in Columbia with some dear friends of ours. I've grown up in the Columbia area and until I went away to Clemson, I had never been to a college sporting event. I'm not gonna lie, it was pretty cool to be in "enemy territory" for the first time.
I looked the part though - I wore garnet and black and cheered for the Lady Gamecocks. Those National Champions deserve all the praise we can give them!
One funny thing though - I didn't have a neutral stadium bag (clear bags required), only a couple of Clemson ones with either orange or purple straps. I tried to carry it with the paw facing inward so as not to call attention to myself, but it was pretty hard to miss!
As a way to thank our friends for taking us to the basketball games, we invited them over last night for some epicurean experimentation: MUSSELS. On a recent trip to Charleston they had mussels and talked about trying to make it at home. We were more than happy to step up to the challenge and try it ourselves!
I've seen mussels prepped plenty of times on cooking shows but had never done it myself (honestly I'm not a huge fan). We grabbed a couple 2-pound bags at Whole Foods and went straight to the internet to figure out what the hell we were doing.
Hubby sauteed some shallots and garlic in butter and then added the mussels to the pan. He poured in some sauvignon blanc to steam them open for a few minutes, then we added cream (and I'm kicking myself - I forgot to add thyme). I think next time I'll at least add a little tomato paste too, just for depth of flavor. We certainly learned there are hundreds of flavor paths you can take with this recipe. Since I'm not the biggest mussel fan (I did try one or two), my favorite part was dipping crusty bread in the sauce, of course!
Along with the mussels, I sauteed some shrimp I marinated in a blend of garlic-infused olive oil, sauvignon blanc, fresh thyme and rosemary, lemon zest, salt and pepper
The mortar and pestle just couldn't handle it all....had to bust out the mini food processor.
I served it with a mushroom risotto and green beans - I think everything worked really well together!
And we had a great time treating our friends to an experimental feast that we will definitely have to replicate in the near future.