The wattle waddles…er, wobbles – Thanksgiving turkey cheeseball
That was one of my Thanksgiving dinner contributions.
I can’t even remember which cheeseball recipe I used, but it was delicious, rolled in a mix of chopped walnuts, almonds, and pecans. What? I couldn’t decide.
The wattle is made of a tiny piece of spaghetti, soaked in red food coloring. The neck and head piece are from a Slim Jim that I forced to hold its shape with a clip for a while.
The beak is a bit of cream cheese colored yellow, and the eyes are the same concept. I did my icing with the tiny corners of ziploc bags like this:
And the tailfeathers? They’re a combination of pretzel sticks in the front and larger sesame sticks in the back row. By the end, only a few tail feathers remained, and even those didn’t make it through the night. Delicious.
Groundhog’s Day meatloaves – Happy Rodent Day!
I think my meatball groundhogs are more like meatloaf gophers, but same idea, right? B thought they were more like squirrels even, oops! And another looks more like a rat. Hmm. A rodent is a rodent?
I wasn’t sure what to make the cartoon faces out of, so tried a few different things. This one has radish and and cut chocolate baking chips as eyes, cranberry nose, monterey jack teeth, and baking chip ears. I gave each rodent a lobotomy, it seems, to wedge their new found body parts into.
I tried oyster crackers for ears on this one and cut the cranberry in half so it’d be flatter on this one. Not that you can tell in the picture, but he’s a little less Rudolph-ish.
Gopher caught in the headlights! Er, I mean, ground hog. I switched to dark colored cranberries cut in half for the eyes and walnuts for ears. This one is a little more squirrel-like.
Anyway, more rodents!
I tried going for a more realistic “groundhog walking around on the ground” viewpoint, but uh, yeah, it looks like a rat, hehe. The only thing that’s missing is a licorice tail.
When I started running out of time, I solicited some help. :D This little guy is my sister’s groundhog. Oh, and that’s brown mustard on the eyes to help stick some of the parts together. My little rodent family:
Happy Groundhog’s Day, guys!
Why I disappear every time there’s a birthday – I eat, drink, sleep, breathe party prep
Birthdays around here are special. We don’t have many traditions but the ones we do have, have been around for years. Duh, that’s what a tradition is, right?
It’s not about the gifts. Christmas is for the gifts. I mean, err, surrounding yourself with people you love. :P Birthdays are about the cake. Everything revolves around the cake. It’s always a surprise, always homemade, and always meaningful to the person at that time.
Growing up, I can barely remember any of the presents I got but I can remember the parties and the cakes. Actually, the only presents I can really think of are *because* of the party.
Like one year, my party was a treasure hunt. There were little notes left around the house that led me from present to present. I distinctly being directed upstairs where I found an angelfish in the bathroom sink. And by the time I got back downstairs to where my next gift was (Hungry Hungry Hippo game in the refridgerator, of course….adorable, no?), my mom had completely decorated the table with my cake waiting for me.
So when I got older, that’s one of the things I want to be able to pass on. I actually never got the experience with cake decorating because that was always my mom’s job, but I’ve put even more effort into the whole “theme” of things.
Over the last few months, we’ve had several birthday parties and they’ve been some of the best ones I’ve been a part of, so of course I want to share the food and cakes with you. I just didn’t want you to have to read all this rambling sentimental stuff at the beginning of one of the “really cool party” posts. ;)
Expect to see a luau, Mario, Pacman, and some spooky treats over the next several days.
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