Here are the odds and ends of my pictures from the night!


I'd like to show off my awesome salad bar which was all pre prepped, I even thought of chopped hard boiled egg!

Ready to eat!

The girls!

We more or less fit around my table!

Partini playing!

We have a sorority sister who graduated a year early so we skyped her in!! 12 screaming girls vs 1 Janelle, it worked out beautifully. If you have someone who can't make a special event I really recommend trying to skype them in =)

Using the draft mode on my printer I printed the outlines for this banner, colored it in with my trusty crayolas and mounted it on construction paper. They are hung on the sequins by cutting a slit between the two punched holes so I didn't have to thread them all on.

I also added tons of framed photos from throughout the years and the tv and my computer played a photo loop of our years of memories.

Our lovely Alumnae brought us each a beautiful rose as well.

Even the silverware got the red buff and green treatment with ribbons tied round plastic canisters (Target trail mix containers with the labels carefully removed)

Short bits of ribbon tie round the stems of glasses served as easy wine charms

Compound butters are easy as can be, look and sound very fancy, and are super tasty.

All you do is whip the softened butter in your stand mixer, then add the herbs, whip again, then spoon into a ramekin. Doesn't get easier than that.


Alton's Compound Butter (I didn't make a whole pound)
  • 1 pound butter
  • 3 to 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 2 tablespoons fresh chives, chopped
  • 1 tablespoon thyme, chopped
  • 1 tablespoon sage, chopped
  • 1 tablespoon rosemary, chopped
  • 1/2 pound unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons minced fresh chives
  • 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • 1 tablespoon minced flat-leaf parsley leaves
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • Freshly ground black pepper
  • Pinch of cayenne
  • Sticks unsalted butter, softened
  • Chopped garlic
  • Chopped fresh herbs - parsley, basil, thyme, rosemary
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Kirsti's Creation Compound Butter
  • Unsalted Butter
  • Pressed garlic
  • Chopped parsley
  • Chopped chives
  • Splash lemon juice
  • Fresh thyme
Not much to go along with this recipe except that this sauce was easy to make and combine with easy frozen meatballs.
Just two photos of this since I was a little busy at the time.

Spaghetti Sauce Recipe from Ree at the Pioneer Woman Cooks!
Amount photographed is a doubled batched.
Sauce:
  • 1 whole Yellow Onion, Diced
  • 3 cloves Garlic, Minced
  • 1 whole (28-ounce) Can Whole Tomatoes
  • 1 whole 28 Ounce Can Crushed Tomatoes
  • ½ cups White Or Red Wine (optional)
  • ¼ teaspoons Salt
  • 1 teaspoon Sugar
  • Freshly Ground Black Pepper
  • ¼ cups Flat-leaf Parsley, Minced
  • 8 whole Fresh Basil Leaves, Chiffonade (optional) I skipped this
Preparation Instructions
In a large pot with olive oil add the onions and garlic and cook for a few minutes, or until translucent. Pour in whole tomatoes, crushed tomatoes, and wine, if using. Add salt, pepper, sugar, and parsley. Stir to combine and cook over medium heat for 20 minutes.
 Reduce heat to a simmer and cook for 30 minutes, stirring very gently a couple of times during the simmer.
Just before serving, stir in basil if using.
Serve over cooked spaghetti. Sprinkle with extra Parmesan.

The finished product

Just part of the reason these are the only photos.
It's too hot out, and it's been too hot out, cool off with some sorbet this Fourth of July weekend. The sorbet paired perfectly with our Italian theme and heavy spaghetti dinners.


Lemon Sorbet from Emeril 
Sorbet is one of my new loves, the flavor is so condensed and so natural you cure your sweet tooth's ache with just a little bit. I hope to try to try to make a splenda version soon so it's not so many empty sugar calories.These look great served my baby trifle dishes.

Ingredients
Amount pictured is a double batch

  • 1 cup water
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 cup  1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (the comments on this recipe recommended this and it turned to be the perfect amount of tart)
  • 1 tablespoon lemon zest

Directions

Make your sugar water and juice your lemons far in advance to when you want to put it into your ice cream maker, everything must be well chilled to freeze well. (Learn from my mistake, spilling simple syrup in your freezer is a horrible horrible experience, plus the burn isn't fun either.)

Bring the water and sugar to a boil in a small saucepan, remove from the heat, and cool.
Combine the syrup with the lemon and zest and pour into the bowl of an ice cream machine.
Freeze according to the manufacturer's instructions. After the sorbet is made, transfer to an airtight container. Cover tightly and freeze until ready to serves 5


Raspberry Sorbet from Paula Deen

Ingredients

  • 2 cups sugar
  • 2 cups water
  • 2 quarts raspberries, hulled and sliced
  • 1/4 cup fresh lime juice
  • 1/2 cup white corn syrup this recipe uses syrup, the lemon one does not.

Directions

Bring the sugar and 2 cups water to a boil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat and allow the mixture to simmer, without stirring, until the sugar dissolves, about 3 minutes. Set aside to cool completely.
Place the raspberries and lime juice in a food processor and puree. I used my blender successfully without it being a pain like it sometimes is.

Press the raspberry puree through a strainer to remove the seeds. Metal mesh strainer is a must.


When the sugar syrup has cooled completely, combine with the raspberry puree. Add the corn syrup and stir well.

Pour the mixture into an ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer's instructions. Sorbet is particularly soft after churning but firms up after freezing. Andrew's sweet parents let me borrow their's by Rival  (link is to the updated version).
This is the Alfredo Andrew made us on our second date, and is his signature dish. It's pretty much amazing! Andrew was incredibly sweet and offered to make his Alfredo for our senior sleepover, a huge help!


Alfredo de Andrew
       adapted slightly from Recipezaar

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup butter softened and salted
  • 2 tablespoons  whole foil pack of cream cheese 
  • 1 pint heavy cream
  • 1 teaspoon garlic powder
  • salt
  • black pepper
  • 2/3 cup grated parmesan cheese (preferably fresh) I use the wedges you can find near the shredded cheese packs vs. the one's in the deli, much cheaper. Don't use the pre-shredded tub kind it's too dry.
  • 1 lb fettuccine, prepared as directed The fresh kind is better for this type of sauce, Alton Brown taught me so
Directions

This recipe isn't hard but it requires attention and patience.
  1. In a medium saucepan, melt butter.
  2. When butter is melted, add cream cheese.
  3. When the cream cheese is softened, add heavy cream.
  4. Season with garlic powder, salt, and pepper.
  5. Simmer for 15-20 minutes over low heat, stirring constantly.
  6. Remove from heat and stir in parmesan.
  7. Serve over hot fettucine noodles.
A true sorority girl I went with a themed dinner, settling on Italian since I was cooking for 12 for the first time, pasta sounded like a good intro. Cooking details to come for some of the items,I was a little too busy to photo document as much as I usually do, but for now the items with recipes are linked. Andrew gets lots of best boyfriend ever points for making his famous sangria and Alfredo and all his help in the kitchen.


Antipasta
Fresh Breads
Compound Herb Butters 
Romaine Salad
Assortment of Dressings

Cena
Fettuccine
Chicken
Meatballs
Broccoli

Dolce
Lemon Sorbet
Raspberry Sorbet
Merenda
Guacamole
Mango Salsa
Tortilla Chips

Bere
Champagne Toast

Colazione
Pancakes de Mary
Eggs
Bacon
Milk
Orange Juice
I've been a member of Alpha Gamma Delta my entire college experience at Belmont and it has been the most rewarding experience. To celebrate the four years I've spent with the wonderful women of my pledge class I decided to send us off in style with a senior sleepover.

Using a Google Spreadsheet form I collected what days worked best for the most people.

Making each date option a question and offering these options:
  • Perfect =D
  • Works but isn't the greatest =/
  • Can't be there =(
With that we finally settled on a date that worked, the evening of the last day of finals. (Punchbowl has their own date decider I later discovered, so for the easy way use that.)

Then came time to create the invitation.

Facebook offers such limited ways to make an invitation pretty, and with only a small number of people being invited I wanted something a little more personal.

There are tons of options out there. (Pingg, Punchbowl, evite, to name a few)

I'd used Pingg before and wasn't crazy about how much was paid nor the customization options. So I opted to try punchbowl. Overall I'm really happy with punchbowl, they don't make their unpaid version useless, basically you have a few less fonts and designs to choose from, but not so much you can't make something you like.

The Invitation I picked and altered in their web creator.
Easy to use, lots of options

Then you have tons of add-on tools, like a paypal fund guests can contribute to, this potluck list which I used to determine most people wanted to just have me buy and then spilt the cost of, maps, travel suggestions, loads and loads of extra features you control which was awesome.
Punchbowl has loads of options for importing the emails of your guests, and tons of controls to help you get a good count, you can manualy RSVP for a person and even link couples together. The best part though is you can see who looked at the invitation and who didn't and resend the invite to just the people who didn't look at it.

Punchbowl even helps you with your ettiquette, so you can be Emily Post the easy way.

Stay tuned more to come in this HK party series.