21st Birthday Celebrations 2009

December is the month of celebrations - celebrations for Christmas and for New Year's Eve. For WX and I though, it is also the month of our birthdays. So amidst preparations for all the other family celebrations that we were to participate in for those two weeks, we were also busily organising our party which had a 60 person guest list. Personally, I've never hosted a house party with more than 30 people, let alone cater for all the food instead of just ordering pizzas but with our resident cook, WX, in the house, I was put in charge of organising and aiding the other logistics of the event.

Guestbooks? Check! Balloons? Check! Speeches? Check! Seating area? Check!

 

What remained was, of course, the food the feed 60 hungry people! WX came up with a list of ingredients for a variety of cold and hot food so all that was left to do was make the purchase and cook! Unfortunately for us, the timing of our party landed smack bang after the Christmas period on the 27th. And so since this year, for some reason all the shops were closed on Boxing Day, what we hadn't purchased prior to Christmas, had to be purchased on the morning of the 27th. Luckily, I had the help of AW at 8am in the morning and since we wanted to make the most out of our purchases, AW asked the girl at the cash register to let us know everytime we reached the $30 mark so we could get ourselves a fuel voucher. I don't think I've swiped and signed so many times in the space of 10 minutes nor have I ever been contacted by bank security to verify my long string of consistent $30 purchases!

Thank you to our own personal troopers of the morning who helped us prepare and cook all the food for the day - WF, JL, AW, my dearest mother and of course my own thank you to WX who's cooking expertise we couldn't have done without! The morning was like our own little production line, especially when we were piling on the ingredients for the finger foods!

Mini BLT

Sun-dried Tomato Aioli & Prawn Canape

Chicken & Walnut Sammich

 Salmon Tartare

Goats Cheese & Roasted Capsicum Melts (Before we put it in the oven!)

Pizza (all stacked, ready to be chucked in the oven!)

Since I did a work placement at a bread company in the past six months, I got a lot of free bread products including Turkish Pide and pizza bases! All we needed to do was prepare the toppings and load them into the oven when people started arriving - quite convenient! WX had a list of different pizza flavours we could make which included Cheese Lovers, Margherita, Roast Beef & Rocket and Pepperoni!

Fruit Salad Platter

Fruit Punch

Smokin' Pepperoni Pizza in the Oven

Thanks to FL & JZ for providing these donuts!

Finally, what birthday celebration is complete with a cake, or in our case, 65 cupcakes? Thank you so much to AL and VH for all the painstaking effort they put into the cakes themselves, the sheer quantity, amazing taste and creative layout.

When they first arrived...

Creative!

 

Although it was the first time we had catered for so many people and hosted such a large party, it was an amazing experience. By the end of it, we were incredibly tired but very happy at the turn out of people, the comments about the food and decor of the night and generally just ecstatic that our 21st had been so awesome! Thank you to all those who attended and provided a helping hand, both WX and I are extremely grateful to have friends like you!

My Scrumpdiddlyumptious Mexican Nachos!

Disclaimer:Sorry about the slight blurring of the photos. We tried and tried and just simply could not get the lighting right. Oh, and this recipe is by NO MEANS diet-friendly. If you're looking for something healthy, just walk away now. You have been warned.

Gosh. Where do I begin?

I was really feeling like something different for dinner last night, but without the cost of having to eat out again. I have Suminoya lined up for tonight, which requires a little saving up - hence, no eating out until Suminoya.

I don't know what it was that struck me, but I suddenly felt the urge to make Mexican Nachos. I've only made this dish once before in my life (using a bolognaise sauce as topping ha!), so I have no idea why it even crossed my mind.

So, I went and picked these babies up:


I realised I'm really bad at this whole gather-the-ingredients-together-beforehand business. Usually it's just, "oh I need this, grab it out of the fridge, chop, done."

So I'm just going to have to tell you, that picture is missing Worcestershire Sauce, onion, garlic, black pepper, dried parsley and dried oregano.

Oh and you may have noticed that that doesn't look like my kitchen. That's because it's not.

And hence everything about this post seems a little chaotic. I prefer the comfort of my own kitchen.


Those babies up there were for the home-made guacamole. You can't be having Mexican if you don't have guacamole.

Oh, and in that picture we're missing the salt. Gosh.

At this point in time I was still juggling between cooking and photographing what I'm doing. JL's kitchen lacks bench space, which means its hard to find a spot to rest the camera without the danger of splashing sauce onto the lens.

The pot was smelling awesome. I know this because 1.) I was drooling and 2.) Rocky was hovering by the kitchen, eyeing the pot down.


As the pot simmered away, I got to work on the guacamole.

It was around 7:30pm and I was tired. So I was pretty glad to just be mashing avocado as opposed to potatoes or carrot. Ok fine there's not MUCH difference, but a little goes a long way during times like these.


And while all that was happening, I kicked JL in the backside to get to work on the salad instead of taking photos. It's a pretty darn good looking salad don't you think? I cheated and bought a packet of Caesar Salad straight from Coles, then just grilled some chilli chicken tenders, panfried some extra bacon and boiled a couple of eggs and just tossed everything together.

Oh and yes, that is my Management Accounting textbook sitting in the top left corner. And yes, despite all this foodie-business, I do in fact, study.


That, my friends, is a picture of a can of joyous refried beans spooned out straight from the can and heated in the microwave for about 3 minutes.

That, my friends, is also my biggest discovery of the day. Never touched the stuff in my life before, but it'll be a regular in my pantry from now on.

I could literally eat the stuff from the can. I'm a weird child like that.


After about 30mins we started putting everything together. There were 2 of these pans, both filled to the brim with nachos. At this point I think JL declared that he and AL would be eating nachos for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the next two days.

Yum.

I think we had a good dinner. Even though there was a tonne of leftovers and the amount of energy and saturated fat we consumed would probably make any dietician cry, it was a meal made special with something different. We sat there not knowing whether to use our hands, or fork or spoon (I ended up using all three), and it was definitely something I wouldn't have had at the dinner table in my household.

As Elmo would say, it's a "sometimes" food.


My Scrumpdiddlyumptious Mexican Nachos
Serves: A billion people (or roughly 10+)

Buy:
500g beef mince
250g red kidney beans
3/4 large red onion, finely diced (use the last quarter for the quacamole)
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tsp dried parsley
1 tsp dried oregano
1 1/2 cups beef stock
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp paprika (mild)
1 tblsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tblsp tomato paste
1 can refried beans (find this where the taco shells are)
460g corn chips (2 bags)
Grated tasty cheese (use as much or as little as you like. You can even try other cheeses. I think gruyere would've worked well)
Freshly cracked pepper, to taste
Sour cream, to taste
oil for cooking

Cook:

1. Preheat oven to 180C. (You may want to turn it on with the grill as well.)
2. Saute onions and garlic in a pan until onions turn transparent
3. Add cumin powder and paprika and saute to release flavours
4. Add beef mince and cook till brown
5. Add red kidney beans, beef stock, worcestershire sauce and tomato paste and bring to simmer while stirring gently. You may want to keep some beef stock on side in case the sauce dries up too much.
6. Add dried parsely and dried oregano. Cover and simmer for 30mins (or until sauce thickens), stirring occasionally. If it's taking too long to thicken, just take the cover off after 3omins and let it simmer on.
7. Season with cracked pepper.
8. Take meat sauce off the heat and let it cool a little.
9. Spoon refried beans out of the can and heat in microwave for 3 minutes.
10. Remove and stir around.
11. Lay out corn chips in an ovenproof dish (or two). Spoon the meat sauce onto the centre and spread evenly.
12. Next, spoon refried beans on top of the meat sauce, spread evenly.
13. Top with grated cheese and place in the oven until cheese is melted and slightly browned.
14. Serve with Sour Cream and Guacamole.
    

The Sidekick - Homemade Guacamole
Serves: the same billion that the nachos serves, except if you're at a party then you might want to make more because it's awesome with bread and a billion other things.

Buy:
1/4 red onions, finely diced
2 large avocados
1 tomato, finely diced
Juice of 1/2 lime (or one if it's not juicy)
Salt, to taste

Cook:

1. Mash avocado in a large bowl
2. Squeeze lime juice and mix well
3. Combine with diced tomato and onion
4. Add salt to taste
5. Serve with the scrumpdiddlyumptious nachos, or bread, or whatever rocks your boat.