The Haunted Carnival

 This year I thought it would be fun to have a haunted carnival for our annual church Halloween party. So, I decided to dress up some skeletons in some simple costumes and use them as carnival performers. I made two trapeze artists and one tight rope walker. You can find lots of information on the interwebs on how to make something like this. It's a bit of work, but it looks pretty awesome once it is set up. 

 I wanted to stick with the carnival theme for the food, so we served hot dogs, popcorn and caramel apples. For the drink I just made some red punch from a fruit punch soft drink and some ginger ale. I then added some dry ice so the punch was bubbling like a witch's brew. 

The whole space was decorated with lights and we set up some game booths with candy for prizes.  Sadly, I didn't take any pictures of the booths, but we had a coin toss, haunted bowling, a ghost hunt  and a fishing booth. We also had a fog machine which ended up setting off the fire alarm -oops. Other than that, the party went off without a hitch. By the time the party started, the room really did look like a carnival. It was so much fun.  And I want to give a shout out to all the people who helped to set up and take all of the decorations down, thank you, it was a huge help!

Pop-up Dinner Party

So, I have this friend  who heard about something called a pop-up dinner party. Since she knows how much I love planning parties, we decided to throw a pop-up dinner party together. What is a pop-up dinner party, you might ask? It's basically a fancy dinner party in a picnic location. 

So, we decided to give it a try and throw a pop-up dinner party at a park on the shore of Cayuga Lake. It was raining earlier that day, but the weather cleared and it turned out to be a wonderful night. 

We wanted to make easily prepared food that could be served at room temperature. So for the starters we had roasted asparagus wrapped in prosciutto served alongside crackers, fruit and an assortment of cheeses. 

I brought my camping stove so I could cook the main course while we ate the starters. We decided to have a clambake, because it's simple, elegant and delicious. For the dessert I wanted to stay simple, so I bought a coconut cake and decorated it with fresh strawberries and mint. 

For the centerpiece I used a piece of driftwood, which I found on the lake shore. I then added the orchid to the driftwood, some flowers from my yard and a few candles. In the end we had a cheap yet beautiful centerpiece for the party.

The outdoor lighting was created by hanging candle holders from a tree.
The location and atmosphere really made the evening perfect! I think that pop-up dinner parties might just be my new favorite thing. I (and hopefully said friend) will definitely be doing this again soon.

First Publication!!

My first paper was recently published in PNAS! It's titled: "Direct substitution and assisted dissociation pathways for turning off transcription by a MerR-family metalloregulator" and you can check it out at the link below.

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/08/27/1208508109.full.pdf+html

Raspberry Cinnamon Rolls

Let me start off by pointing out that these are most definitely not good for you. So, if you're on a diet you have been warned: proceed with caution!

With summer drawing to an end, I find myself craving warm desserts more and more (I included the flower to conjure up summertime memories -is it working?).  So, when I stumbled across this recipe I had to make it -with a few minor changes, of course!

The filling is the only thing I changed. I added some homemade raspberry jam (recipe to come), melted butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon. So, it ended up being a fusion between a raspberry roll and a traditional cinnamon roll. And let me tell you something, it was so, so, good!

Troll 2 Movie Party: Why the worst things are sometimes the best things!

This year my Mr. wanted to have a movie party for his birthday and we thought, instead of showing a good movie why not show a really bad movie. And so, the idea for our Troll 2 Movie Party was born!

Mr. requested that I make him my  spumoni cake . So, this time I decided to make it as a round layer cake instead of the rectangular cake. I stuffed it full of frosting, because that's his favorite part.

The movie was...well...let's just say it was as awful as was promised. But, awful in an amazing hilarious sort of way. If you haven't seen this movie I highly recommend it, it is good for quite a few laughs!

Poblano Peppers Stuffed with Chicken, Cheddar and Chorizo

Stuffed peppers, yum. This is going to be a short post because lets face it, what more needs to be said than yum? I made one minor change to the recipe. I had some extra chorizo sitting around (I'm pretty sure it's a good idea to always have chorizo around the house -you never know when you'll get the urge to add it to something), so I chopped it up and threw it in the stuffing mix. My goodness, it was good.

Monkey Bread

Monkey bread? What the #*#* is that? I know, it sounds weird. I mean honestly who likes monkeys? Fortunately, monkey bread has nothing to do with monkeys and everything to do with ooey gooey goodness.

I found this recipe for this delicious dessert. And trust me you won't regret making it. It tastes like the best part of a cinnamon roll, but with way less work involved. I used dark brown sugar instead of light, because everybody knows dark brown sugar is superior to light brown sugar. I also substituted one cup of white flour for one cup of wheat flour. No, I was not trying to make this dessert healthy -I just like the way the wheat flour makes the dough taste, it adds some depth.

Now stop mokeying around and go make some of this amazing monkey bread. Haha, too much? Oh well, I'm in one of those moods today. Enjoy! 

New Years Eve Party!

New Years Eve, what a great excuse to go all out when throwing a party. I mean lets face it, you can never have too many balloons or too much confetti at a New Years Eve party.  So, this year my sister and I decided to go all out and throw a "fancy" New Years party.  We set the dining room table with the china and crystal and used watches and little clocks to decorate.  It looked so cute! Then we filled a room with balloons and took our party in there after the six course meal was finished, because what's a party without food?

We tried to keep it pretty simple for the meal so that we didn't have to spend the entire time in the kitchen. We served crackers with cheese, a simple tossed salad, shrimp cocktail, tomato and basil soup and a traditional surf and turf for the main course.

The main recipe I want to point out from this photo is the molten chocolate lava cakes served with peppermint ice cream for dessert -goodness gracious.  I love chocolate, so when I had my first bite of a molten lava chocolate cake I was smitten. I have tried many recipes and versions of these little cakes and I finally found my favorite one. Try it, it's easy and oh so good!

It's the Holiday Season!

Okay, so I'm a little bit behind on my posts.  No worries though, I am determined to play catch up!

Oh church cultural halls, how you haunt me with your echos and sterile spaces. Fortunately, this Christmas season I had the opportunity to transform one of these dismal halls into a holiday haven.  Wow that was some dramatic writing -apparently I am in the mood for some theatrics today! Well, back to the party. I used pine boughs, pine cones and ornaments to decorate the tables. My favorite part was the huge sled Alex and I found and decorated with presents -it was the perfect touch.     

For dinner prime rib was served and selfishly I prepared it the way I like it, medium rare..mmm. I found a  website that has directions for making perfect prime rib. I served it up with some raspberry horseradish sauce and it was melt-in-your-mouth amazing!

This is one of my all time favorite dips. It's pretty much just sausage, Rotel tomatoes and cream cheese and it is so good!

Now for my favorite part: dessert! Chocolate coconut pecan pie, need I say more? This pie is a family favorite and it is as rich and delicious as it sounds! And this cheesecake is the best. Easy and delicious, it turns out well every time I make it. The cranberry-cointreau sauce goes perfectly with the rich cheesecake and it looks so beautiful and festive. 

Chocolate coconut pecan pie 

1/2 c white sugar

1/3 c light brown sugar (packed)

1/3 c light corn syrup

2 T butter (melted)

1 t vanilla

pinch of salt

3 eggs

3/4 c shredded coconut (sweetened)

3/4 c chocolate chips

3/4 c whole pecans

19" frozen deep dish pie crust

Place large baking sheet on oven rack and preheat to 350

Whisk sugar, brown sugar, corn syrup, melted butter, vanilla & salt in large bowl to blend. 

Whisk is eggs

Stir in coconut, chocolate chips & pecans. Pour filling into pie crust. 

Place on cookie sheet in oven bake until crust is golden brown and filling is set in center, about 40 minutes.

Transfer to rack and cool slightly. 

Serve warm with a nice dollop of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.  

Trifle is such a wonderful way to have dessert, layers of cake and custard -yummy! I pretty much just made this cake and turned it into a trifle by layering it in my trifle dish, a simple and easy way to make any cake a bit more flashy.

And lets not forget about the apple pie, good old apple pie.  This summer apples actually grew on the apple trees in our yard! I couldn't miss the opportunity to make some delicious things out of those apples and of course I had to can some  apple pie filling.