Queen of Mardi Gras

Mardi Gras dinners traditionally end with King Cake. Ours is no exception. Last year I made a traditional King Cake, using a pecan half as the charm to determine who was King/Queen of Mardi Gras. That person inherits the responsibility of providing King Cake for next year’s party.

Marilyn’s piece contained the pecan half, making her Queen. We weren’t overly impressed with King Cake and decided to make something different. My mother used to make Swedish Tea Rings, but Marilyn and I both dislike kneading. I found recipe using bread machine. We made a deal. Since I’m the one who owns the bread machine, I would make the dough and shape it. She would bake and decorate it.

Jacqui gets a good laugh as she watches Marilyn crown herself.

A brainstorm (or was it a brain cramp?) struck me early Saturday morning. Wouldn’t a tiara be a fun accessory for our Mardi Gras Queen? So I bought one. It even came with a bling-bling ring!

Queen Marilyn demonstrates her mastery of the “royal wave”.

Queen Marilyn didn’t wear the tiara for long. She said wearing it hurt her head. As Shakespeare said, “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”

This year, Ava (left) got the cake piece with the die symbolizing the Queen of Mardi Gras. The die is cast and she’s the Queen!

Bisque to die for

Our sister-in-love served us her Crab and Corn Bisque in December 2007. We loved it. She gave us the recipe, writing it in the cookbook she had given Hubby for Christmas. The next March, we hosted a Mardi Gras dinner using that cookbook. Our guests ate so much of the bisque that they hardly had room for the rest of the meal. A tradition was born. All our guests said they wanted to return in 2009 for Mardi Gras and that delicious bisque.

Mardi Gras isn’t a state holiday in this part of the world, so we held our party last Saturday night. And, yes, we served that wonderful bisque. Recipe follows. It’s surprisingly simple. Stefaney’s Crab and Corn Bisque Printer-friendly PDF Ingredients: 1 lb. lump crab meat (do not use imitation crab) 1 pt. heavy cream 1 can evaporated milk 1 can cream of mushroom soup 1 can whole kernel corn, drained 1 stick butter 1 bunch green onions, chopped 1 t. liquid crab/shrimp boil salt and pepper to taste Method: Sauté onions in butter, then add remaining ingredients. Cook on medium heat for 45 minutes. Stir as necessary to prevent scorching.

Christmas party

We hosted our annual Christmas party Saturday night. I like to have eight at our table, but we ended up with six (clockwise from left): Tonya, Linda, Marilyn, Hubby, my empty chair and Stacy. We love to entertain any time of the year, but especially at Christmas. The house is always so beautiful with all our decorations. The light of our trees and candles gives the dining and living rooms a warm, relaxing glow. And, of course, the food is always wonderful.

I always make the Christmas menu cards more elaborate than for other theme dinners. This ribbon decorated one of our gifts last year. I kept it for future use, not knowing what I’d do with it. As I waited for Hubby to escape a very ill-timed Saturday morning meeting, the design leaped into my head. After cutting ribbon, I lit a match and melted each end to prevent raveling. I had intended to secure ribbon to menu and name cards with knots, but my paper punch’s holes were too large. I had to tie three knots on top of each other before ribbon remained in hole. That took too long. Instead, I taped the ribbon to the cards. That method didn’t look quite as nice, but, as Patty says, life is a series of trade-offs. As I look at design now, perhaps I should have dangled the ribbon on the card’s other side. Whatever. Guests loved the cards. That’s what matters. The two menu items that are partially obscured were “Cranberry-Orange Pork Tenderloin” and “Out of This World Cranberry Salad”. We didn’t eat the salad. We intended to serve it with the pie, but we were too full. So we took it to our church’s Christmas dinner the next day. They devoured most of it.

Oktoberfest

Family friend Thelma (left) and Hubby’s mother are ready to sit down for dinner.

We love to entertain, get out the china, crystal and silver and cook foods that normally we wouldn’t be eating. We have an Oktoberfest party annually in honor of both Hubby’s German heritage and our October birthdays. Hubby’s is Oct. 27 and his mother’s is Oct. 16, which is coincidentally my brother and sister-in-love’s anniversary.

Several years go, I started making menu/place cards for these fancy occasions and I started a scrapbook featuring each theme dinner we produce. I don’t particularly like this menu card; it’s definitely not my best design. When we entertain, our dining room becomes “Ye Olde World Café”. Since we served German cuisine that day, all the menu items are listed auf Deutsch, including the café’s name and the date. Both of us took German in high school and try to preserve what we can remember of the language. However, most of the German words for menu came from the dictionary or the cookbook (“Kochbuch”). Sülztotelett is a delicious marinated pork chop, although we didn’t exactly follow the recipe. Recipe called for the pork to be marinated in gelatin made from calf hooves. That ingredient would be very hard to obtain. Besides, “calf hooves” do not sound very appetizing. So we skipped that part. Meat was still wonderful. Next is majoram potatoes marinated in beer, then sweet sauerkraut, dinner rolls, apples with raisins in a cinnamon sauce, German chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream, and guests’ choice of beverages. The apple/raisin dish began as a dessert filling, but it sounded like a wonderful side dish. And it was. Next up is our Christmas party. Deck them halls, ya’ll!