laissez le bon temps rouler!

We hosted a Mardi gras party at our house last night.  We found the "baby" in the King Cake last year and decided to go all out for our party.  Last year it was really just R & I and our friend Dan.  We didn't have a kings cake baby so we added a duck. 

We know we were a few days late as Fat Tuesday really marks the end of Mardi Gras but we really just wanted a good reason to get together with friends and have some fun.  
I started preparing for the party by perusing pinterest. :) Of course.  There are so many great ideas for everything there. Lot of great decorating and invitation ideas for parties.  


I made an adorable wreath for the party with extra mardi gras beads we had. I got a few strands from the Dollar Tree also. The hardest part was probably cutting out the fleur-de-lis from foam board.  Any suggestions on how to cut that stuff?  I already had the wreath from a previous one I made and had most of the beads. The green were actually a long strand tha was used on a Christmas garland. The amount you'll need depends on how thick the beads are and how thick your wreath is.  I just cut the fleur-de-lis from the foam board and painted it.  The center is just gold glitter. My house looked like stripper visited. :) 

For food we had craw fish that we picked up from our local Hy-Vee store. It was precooked and frozen so we just needed to heat it up. To do this I boiled a pot of water and stuck a few crawfish in at a time for about 3 minutes.    
I made some Jambalaya type soup...Our friend told me he wouldn't call it Jambalaya but it was good.  I used this recipe.  I couldn't find banana pepers (or didn't look that hard) so I didn't use those but used a whole red and green pepper.   I also used a sausage ring (near the ring of bologna in our store)  instead of polish sausage.  Honestly, I didn't even try any of it because I was so tired of food by the time the party came. I had been cooking all day and munching as I went! 
I made crab dip from here. And also made some bbq beef from a crock pot recipe book I have.  It was pretty good as well.  

Beyond that, the most important part was the King Cake. :) I made a blueberry cake and a cherry cake. King cake is a sweet roll cake. Almost like a cinnamon roll in cake form.  I used this recipe  from The Food Network.  I added pie filling with the cream cheese filling.  To hid the baby, I did it after cooking because I didn't have a real King Cake baby, I turned the cake upside down and cut a small slit in the bottom. After flipping right-side up I couldn't even tell were it was.  We made our own colored sugar because finding purple and yellow was difficult. I just took a half cup of sugar and slowly added a few drops of food coloring at a time while mixing very well.   I think it might work well if you used superfine sugar rather than regular. 

I also found a picture of super cute cookies and decided to try to copy them. I'm not the best at frosting but I really want to work out that this summer! I think they're still cute but the originals were way cuter, but I didn't have that much time to make them! 

Overall I think every thing turned out great and we had a really fun time. We had lots of beads and masks for every one.  Our friend brought over some of Pat O'Brian's Hurricanes and some other Grape punch.  Pat O'Brian's is a place in NOLA that is famous for their hurricanes as they were the original. 


I think it was a successful party. Not as crazy as the real deal but it was a good start! :) Everyone came decked out in Purple and Green some with great hats and their own masks! 


As always, Enjoy! Have a great day! 

~H

  

Delish:HERSHEY'S Perfect White Chip Chocolate Cookies

I have always loved baking. Pies are probably my specialty, but it really doesn't matter, I'll try everything at least once. That was the goal for these cookies the last time I made them. I had gotten white chocolate chips for something else and never got around to making it and didn't have a full bag of regular chips but wanted to bake. The recipe is on the back of Hershey's white chocolate chips, but here it is from the website.

Hershey's Perfect White Chip Chocolate Cookies 

(link to website) 

 <my printable version> 

Ingredients

• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) HERSHEY'S Premier White Chips

Directions

1. 1 Heat oven to 350°F.
2. 2 Beat butter and sugar in large bowl until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla; beat until light and fluffy. Stir together flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt; gradually beat into butter mixture. Stir in white chips. Drop by rounded teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheet.
3. 3 Bake 8 to 9 minutes. (Do not overbake; cookies will be soft. They will puff while baking; flatten upon cooling.) Cool slightly; remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. Cool completely. About 4-1/2 dozen cookies.

 This recipe really does make about 4 dozen cookies, (not like other that say they do but you only get about 2. ) The dough will be kinda stiff when you get all the flour in but that's how it's supposed to be. I always press my cookies down a bit before baking, but I suppose you wouldn't have to. Depending on your oven 9 minutes is about perfect for mine because you want them to be a little bit soft. I guarantee you won't be able to eat just one. (sorry for terrible pictures, I'm not a photographer!)

In other news, I have an ADORABLE new nephew. I'm pretty excited about it, but they live in Texas so I won't be able to see him in person for a while. Although we're thinking about making a trip down later this fall. Despite only seeing a few pictures of him and him only being born yesterday about noon, Rylan has stolen my heart! How could he not!? So precious.