Indian Birthday Party

We celebrated my mom's birthday with an Indian themed dinner party at our place. I have always loved Indian food and am learning more about it these days. I owe a lot of my new found knowledge to Aarti Sequeira, winner of last season's Food Network Star. I love her show Aarti's Party and her blog. For this meal, we used mostly her recipes. I love her tin of spices called a masala dabba which are found in most Indian kitchens. I found mine at World Market for about $10.


We started out the evening with her recipe for newspaper nuts. I upped the flavor by adding a bit more spice than she calls for and I added raw sugar at the end for that wonderful, sweet gritty texture that I love it for.


For dinner, we ate a roasted root jumble over polenta with haloumi cheese. This was my first introduction to Haloumi cheese which was available at my local Publix. I thought it was a wonderful cheese to grill, saute, etc. It holds up well instead of melting similar to a Feta but with a less intense taste.


We also enjoyed beef kababs stuffed with dried cherries and cashews which is a recipe I will be making again and again. I loved them! I used Trader Joe's Naan bread which is a staple in our freezer and my husband will eat anything I ever cook as long as he can wrap it up in this bread. It is that good.


I made lychee aqua frescas with lemongrass and coconut. It was a very different taste for me that I have not ever had before. I thought they were refreshing and would prefer them on their own rather than with a meal.


We preferred this selection of beers with our food instead.


For dessert, I deviated from the Indian theme to make my mom's favorite dessert (and mine too cause nothing beats it). It is a Rachel Ray recipe that I have made for years that is a quick twist on Baklava and Ice Cream. You should definitely make this!!!

Here is the recipe:

• 3 (13 by 17-inch) sheets phyllo dough
• 4 tablespoons melted butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons cinnamon
• 1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts
• 1 pint vanilla bean ice cream
• Honey, for garnish

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Spread a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Top with a layer of phyllo and brush or using a spritz bottle, spray with butter. Combine sugar and cinnamon and cover the sheet of pastry 1/3 cup sugar. Repeat with 2 more layers of pastry, then top with the finely chopped walnuts. Cut pastry into 3-inch squares with sharp paring knife. Cover the pastry with another sheet of parchment paper and another cookie sheet. Place pastry in hot oven and bake 10 minutes or until golden. Serve warm squares of pastry with ice cream and a drizzle of honey.

It's A Pirate Life For Me

It's birthday season around here. We have more holidays and birthdays in May than we can count in our family. My kids have birthdays 5 days apart and this year we celebrated with a Pirate themed bash. Our first mission was the invitations. I dressed the kids in their pirate gear and took them to my favorite wall. It is a hot turquoise brick wall with yellow trim and pipes that is a building salvage supply store on Howell Mill. Here are some shots from our shoot:

Here are our invitations. I made them on Photoshop and then had them printed at Costco as 5X7 photos in matte finish. They are a real deal at 39 cents a piece.


We decorated our place and anxiously awaited our big day. I made a pirate map for the wall, served Pirate Booty in small single serving bags, ordered cupcakes from Publix and dressed them up with Pirate flags I made with wooden skewers and pirate themed scrapbook paper.



I finally found a good use for those red and white striped paper straws, made Bloody Pirate Punch (a half and half mixture of Berry Juicy Juice and Ginger Ale), decorated with wooden pop guns I found at World Market, scattered Playskool pirate figures all around, and made a Goldfish Pirate Ship with more of the scrapbook paper and wooden skewers.


It's a good thing we did not give out a prize for best costume because we would have never been able to decide. We are thankful for all our friends and family for outdoing themselves on their costumes and coming to celebrate our kids.


The guests were entertained coloring skulls and pirate boys that I found at Michaels in the paper cutout shapes. We all made compass necklaces with wooden beads and compasses I found at Hobby Lobby. And we played Pop Up Pirate which is a fun game of luck and surprise for little ones. It was a perfect party, full of chaos and joy, just like a kid's party should be!