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Archive for the ‘Entertaining at Home’ Category
Flag Day!
Posted in Holidays, tagged Flag Day, Shanna Hatfield on June 14, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Driving Around
Posted in Captain Cavedweller, Entertaining at Home, Musings, tagged Alpacas, blue mountains, Captain Cavedweller, landscape photography, Shanna Hatfield on June 13, 2013| Leave a Comment »
The other night Captain Cavedweller and I went for a drive.
Since I climbed behind the wheel, I handed CC my camera and told him to take photos.
We started out the trip by stopping to visit some new residents who moved in just down the road.
They are cool and distant, ignore us, and on occasion stick their tongues out at us.
Our neighbors recently added not one, not two, but eight alpacas to their farm.
As we drive to work, we gawk at them every single morning.
They fascinate us so.
Next, we headed off to an area rich with wine grapes and wheat farms.
If you look really hard, you can almost see the wind turbines on the hills in the background.
The grapes right now are lush and green and so pretty against the blue sky.
We also admired the growing wheat with the mountains in the distance. Just a few weeks ago, the tops of the hills were still dusted with snow.
But now they provide a perfect green backdrop to the surrounding farmland.
She Who Likes Taking a Backroad
Man Candles
Posted in Captain Cavedweller, Entertaining at Home, Musings, tagged father's day gift ideas, Savvy Entertaining, Shanna Hatfield on June 4, 2013| 1 Comment »
I received a catalog in the mail the other day that made me actually burst out laughing.
On the cover was a selection of candles in “man” scents like “Riding Mower,” “First Down,” and, my favorite, “Mmm, Bacon!”
The inside of the catalog had several pages you could scratch-and-sniff, including all their Man Candle pages.
With names like “Man Town” and “Midsummer’s Night” (which, by the way, stinks like High Karate after shave), I couldn’t keep this to myself.
I showed the catalog to Captain Cavedweller who took a sniff or two, turned up his nose and said I should throw the catalog out before it stunk up the whole house.
Packing it to work with me, I took an informal survey of my coworkers (both male and female) and the results came back pretty much the same as CC’s reaction.
One single guy said if he was buying a candle, it would be something a girl would like to impress her, not something that smelled like a bacon.
If you like the smell of fresh cut grass, the Riding Mower candle isn’t bad, but if you’re looking for a great father’s day gift, I’d cross man candles off your potential list.
She Who Will Not Be Purchasing any Man Candles
Butterfly Food Part 1
Posted in Entertaining at Home, Entertaining Ideas, Party Theme, tagged Butterfly Food, Butterfly food ideas, Butterfly party theme, Savvy Entertaining, Shanna Hatfield on May 30, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Sticking to the Butterfly Party theme I began earlier this week, here are some food ideas I used for my party.
I’ll start with the sweet stuff and then get to the healthier options.
Use a basic sugar cookie dough, from a package or homemade although I love this cookie recipe, and roll the dough about 1/3 an inch thick. Cut with butterfly shaped cookie cutters and bake until set but not quite done.
Remove from oven and let cool completely then frost with a simple buttercream frosting.
Then you get to have fun decorating the cookies. Here are some of the things I used to bedazzle the cookies. If you haven’t tried it yet, the Color Mist spray from Wilson is like edible spray paint. It’s fabulous.
And it makes cool designs like this on your cookies and cakes.
You can add whatever embellishments you like. I would have liked mine better if 1. I hadn’t been in such a hurry and 2. If my kitchen hadn’t been so hot. The frosting was melting faster than I could blink.
I also attempted to make a butterfly veggie plate. You basically use leaf lettuce for the foundation and add whatever veggies you like in hopes it looks like a butterfly.
Someone with artistic talent would probably have much better luck than I did with this.
However, my guests were kind and pretended they could make this look like a butterfly. I, however, could not.
I also made a pasta salad using butterfly shaped pasta. Sorry, I forgot to take a photo of just the pasta. But the salad recipe is simple.
Pasta (cooked, drained and cooled)
Feta Cheese (1 cup)
Parmesan Cheese (1/4 cup)
Olives (I used a mix of black, manzanilla and Kalamata) (about 2/3 cup)
Caesar Vinaigrette Dressing (about 1 cup)
Mix and let sit overnight in your fridge before serving.
It is super easy to make but looks and tastes like you’ve gone to a lot of work.
Our main dish was butterfly sandwiches (glamorous, I know!).
I used some old-fashioned white bread and a butterfly cookie cutter to cut out the pieces, then allowed the guests to put whatever they wanted on their sandwiches (assortment of meats and cheeses).
And when they were done, they looked like this.
Tomorrow I’ll share a few more food ideas for hosting a fun butterfly themed party.
She Who is Practically Fluttering
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