Sarah's Baby Shower

Hey Everyone. Last weekend, my wife and I catered our niece Sarah's baby shower. Here's some of the food we made. 

 

 

This was the fruit plate. The baby's head was made from a cantaloupe. The eyes are red grapes and the blanket is thinly sliced cucumber woven together.

 

These are Chinese soup spoons filled with Vietnamese chicken salad. 

 

These are Zuni rolls. Flour tortillas filled with mesquite smoked turkey, bacon bits, green onions and Havarti with dill. Fried to a golden brown, sliced and served with a roasted raspberry chipotle sauce.

 

These are mini tomato cheese herb tarts made with mini heirloom tomatoes.

 

These are crab puffs. Choux pastry dough (profiteroles, eclairs, etc) is baked into little puffs then filled with a crab salad.

 

This is a french herb potato salad.  Multicolored fingerling potatoes tossed in a vinaigrette with basil, dill and cilantro.

Now for the desserts!!!

 

Here we have a tropical lime mousse pie. A light and refreshing lime mousse flavored with just a hint of dark rum and served on a toasted coconut and graham cracker crust.

 

Who can resist the good ol' rice krispy treats?!?! These are served on a stick, dipped in white or dark chocolate and accented with sugar candies. These were a hit!

 

Red velvet cupcakes. A specialty in the south but right here at home in sunny SoCal.

 

PB&J bars. A nutty spin on your traditional peanut butter cookie with a red raspberry jelly filling.

 

Nutty Chocolate Chip/Chunk Cookies. Need I say more?

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Pumpkin Peanut Butter Dog Treats

Your furry little friend will love these! They are all natural and easy to make. No preservatives and no artificial ingredients means your little (or big) friend will always want for more. Healthy and nutritious means one happy pooch!

For this recipe, you will need the following:

• 5 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 15oz can of pumpkin puree
• 1/4 cup of peanut butter
• 4 eggs

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, add the wheat flour, cinnamon, ginger and salt. Stir to combine. Next add the pumpkin, peanut butter and eggs. Blend together. If you notice that the dough is too stiff, you can add a little water. Not too much though, you want this to be a dough you can roll out. 

Once the dough is blended, divide it in half. It is much easier to work with it in halves than than rolling the entire batch at once. On a floured surface, take half of the dough and form it into a disk. Roll the disk out to about a 1/2 inch thickness. 

Then, place a couple tablespoons of flour in a small bowl. You will need to dip your cookie cutter in the flour periodically to prevent the dough from sticking. Using a cookie cutter of your choice, begin cutting out the dog biscuits. If you don't have a cookie cutter, you can simply cut the dough into random shapes. 

 

Place the cut cookies on a parchment lined (or on a Silpat) cookie sheet. Repeat this process with the second half of the dough. Bake the canine cookies for about 40 minutes. Remove them from the oven and allow them to cool a few minutes, Next, remove them from the cookie sheet and place them on a cooling rack to cool completely. 

 

This will allow the air to circulate making the cookie nice and crunchy. If you were to leave them on the cookie sheet, they may become a bit soft and not as crunchy. Once cooled, let your canine companion give them a try. If they're anything like my boys, they'll be grinning from ear to ear!

Enjoy!

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