Growing up in Panama City, we used to eat at a restaurant called The Cheese Barn and they served one of my favorite dishes, their French Onion Soup.  I had a bit of nostalgia a few weekends ago, so I started hunting for a recipe to satisfy my craving.  If you have time one weekend, I recommend you try out Betty Crocker’s Golden Onion Soup.  It takes a little over 3 hours but the majority of that time is spent cooking the onions in the oven so you won’t be in the kitchen all day.

I made a few subtle changes to the dish merely because I didn’t have all the ingredients I needed.  Instead of making the Parmesan Croutons, I cubed up some Asiago Cheese Bread from Panera Bread.  You could also use Parmesan croutons, like those you put on a salad.  I only had one can of condensed beef broth so I improvised; using water and beef bullion cubes.  Once the soup was complete, I poured portions for Adam and me into two ovenproof bowls.  I added the cubed bread and sprinkled 1/4 cup of mozzarella cheese on top.  I then broiled the bowls of soups in the oven for about 2 minutes until the cheese was melted and golden brown. Be sure to put the bowls on a sheet pan as it is easier to get them in and out of the oven and the pan will catch anything you spill.

  16 oz packages cream cheese softened 
  8 oz stick butter softened
  1 teaspoon vanilla extract 
  3 tablespoons brown sugar
  3/4 cup confectioners’ sugar
  1 1/2 cups finely chopped pecans
  1 cup miniature semisweet chips

Beat softened cream cheese and butter until well blended.  Add brown sugar and confectioners’ sugar and blend until light and fluffy. Blend in vanilla extract. Fold in miniature chocolate chips and 1 cup of the chopped pecans.

Place plastic wrap into a small bowl as a liner and add the cream cheese mixture. Refrigerate in bowl for at least 3 hours. Flip out the cheese ball onto a plate and press the other 1/2 cup of chopped pecans into the sides of the cheese ball. Serve with animal crackers.

Alternate preparations include pouring caramel sauce over the top or replacing 1/2 the chocolate chips with butterscotch chips . Also goes well with sliced apples, graham crackers or vanilla wafers.

Saturday, November 14th we celebrated the upcoming birth of Katy & Michael Woodruff’s baby boy.  I offered to host the festivities along with my mother-in-law, Janie Pate.  We were able to rent the lovely and convenient club house in Katy’s neighborhood in Calera.

I learned a lot from this shower because though I have had a few showers and been to a few of my friends, I have never hosted a baby shower.  I made the invitations and was able to get those out a month in advance. I purchased scrapbooking supplies and was able to make 52 invitations for about $1 a piece.  Not too bad.  

Katy and I went shopping for linens and chose the colors mint green and chocolate brown.  They looked really great together. While we were at Party City, Katy picked out some cute party favors that I thought would work well for the event.  Making the labels was the easier part; the hard part was finding the candy to fill them.  I wanted to find colored M&M’s but I couldn’t find them anywhere locally and online they were really expensive.  I ran by Target as a last ditch effort and found their Jelly Belly section.  They had the Mint Mint Chocolate Chocolate Chip^®Cold Stone Jelly Belly and Chocolate Devotion^™ Cold Stone Jelly Belly in the perfect colors for our event. A little ribbon to accent and we have a cute party favor for the guests to take home.

The meal plan was to have finger food appetizers since we didn’t have very much seating for the event.  We had invited over 100 guests so we were unsure if people would be standing to eat.  It turned out that Michael’s family had a bunch of folding chairs the could lend us. Our final guest count was around 40 so we ended up having plenty of seating.  I went a little overboard on the menu (typical Brandy) but it was for one of my very favorite couples and a life long family friend. Luckily, I had the help of two wonderful friends, Carol Long and Beth Tillman to help me put everything together. (Two of the photos below were taken before I put out the the meat and cheese trays but you get the idea.)

Our menu included (from left to right):

• Mixed Nuts
• Crab Stuffed Mushrooms
• Spicy & Sweet Meatballs
• Turtle Cheesecake Cheese Ball with Animal Crackers
• Sliced Cheese Tray: Sharp Cheddar, Monterey Jack & Pepper Jack
• Sliced Lunch Meat Tray: Hard Salami, Roast Beef & Honey Ham
• Poppy Seed Rolls for sandwiches
• Cold Spinach Dip in a Italian Loaf & Sourdough Loaf served with a variety of crackers
• Sundried Tomato & Olive Bruschetta with Italian Toast Points
• Mini Quiche: Double-Cheese and Spinach
• Vegetable Tray
• Veggie Patch Pizza
• Fresh Fruit Tray with Strawberry Cream
• Mini Cupcakes: Chocolate Caramel, Strawberry Vanilla & Lemon Poppy Seed
• Publix Marble Cake with Butter Cream Frosting
• Treats for the kids: Fruit Snacks, Granola Bars and Scooby Snacks.
• Assorted Beverages: Sodas, Water, Sweet Tea, Wine, Beer & Lemonade

LOOK FOR THESE RECIPES SOON!

I made a diaper cake a few days before the event as a centerpiece for the food table and as a gift to Michael & Katy.  It was pretty easy to make once I found a good set of instructions online. Visit www.plantheperfectbabyshower.com to see how I did it. The hardest part was finding the darn ribbon. I couldn’t find a chocolate and mint green thick roll of ribbon to save my life. After four or five stores, I went with two different ribbons to make it work.

A baby shower isn’t just about the food, gifts and cake. People like to have a good time and if you have kids attending, like we did, games and prizes are a great crowd pleaser.  I wanted to have a few homemade games for the event but, unfortunately, I was running low on time and so I had to use online games.

The first game was one Katy and Hillary Wilson did at our baby shower. You get five paper bags and we put a different baby related item in each one such as baby lotion, baby powder, Vaseline, diaper cream, baby oil etc. You number the bags and seal them with stables or tape. At the party you have the guests feel the bags and write down their guess for each bag.

The day of the event, I asked my husband to print out some games from www.WelcomeBaby.com. He chose three great games: Baby Word Scramble Game, Nursery Rhyme Rhetoric Game and Baby Animal Match Game. It ended up that mostly the children played and the adults either played as couples or in a group. The only issue I had was that I had four games and I only made three prizes. Be sure when you have your party that you bring lots of paper and pens to play the games.

The prizes were pretty simple too.  I purchases three sets of paper products from Party City,  matching notepad, gift cards, shopping list and mini journal with pen. I then found matching candles from Walmart.  Finally, when I was looking for the colored M&M’s I stopped by a Crave Chocolatier in Patton Creek. They had chocolate diaper pins and chocolate covered Oreos decorated with baby booties. I made card board bottoms and added all the matching items and wrapped them with cellophane and topped them off with matching ribbon.

So that was about everything.  I did have a CD player with soft baby music but I didn’t remember to put that on.  While the presents were being opened, Beth suggested we keep all of the bows to make a wreath for the hospital door when Baby Woodruff is born. Hillary Mathaney helped organize the present opening and made sure all the bows were collected.

As I mentioned, my wonderful friend Beth was able to come help with the event and she did a fantastic job which just means I will ask her to help every time I do an event. I also brought my husbands Nikon camera and Beth sat in front of Katy & Michael to take all of the pictures of the event. Then I posted them up on different sites, so she could share them with Katy’s family & friends. If you are a member of Shutterfly and would like to view the photos please CLICK HERE.

Well I hope this article helps you with your upcoming event. If you have any suggestions or comments about our shower or have trouble viewing the photos, feel free to comment or email me at brandy@cookingwithbrandy.com. Don’t forget to come back to get the recipes to the menu above.

I am putting together a menu for Katy and Michael’s baby shower on November 14th.  I will be purchasing and creating a variety of appetizers for 75 guests. It is a couples shower with children as well.  I have some basic appetizers chosen such as a fruit tray with dip, mini quiche, cheese & meat tray with  crackers, turtle cheesecake cheese ball and mixed nuts.  I am now looking for the recipes to make the hot dishes.  I keep reverting back to the same dishes I always create that I know are crowd pleasers. I am torn because I want to make something unique, elegant but simply made for this party but I know I will have to test the recipe prior to the event.  I would like to have two meat and two vegetarian dishes.  I was thinking of a tomato, mozzarella and basil bruchette as well as crab stuffed mushrooms and maybe spinach artichoke dip.  I should probably have a red meat dish or chicken dish to close out the menu.  Janie, Adam’s mom is making the desserts for the event and luckily Katy has chosen Janie’s famous cheesecake. The guests will be walking and mingling so I want to have food that they can pick up and eat off the plate.  I do not want to require cutting or two hands for eating any of these dishes.  If you have any ideas, let me know. I’m excited about the event, I can’t wait to do something special for our best friends.  I look forward to your ideas!

My sister, Danielle, created this simple but elegant mushroom dish.  She loved it so much that she immediately picked up the phone to share it with me and the readers of Cooking with Brandy. The recipe serves 2-3 people.

• 12 large white button mushrooms (stems removed and dirt wiped off)
• 12 slices of brie cheese from a 1 ½ inch round log (1/4” slices)
• 12 small basil leaves
• 3 tbsp of melted butter
• 1 tsp garlic powder

Preheat oven to 400°. Take two large pieces of aluminum foil and turn up the edges to form two shallow bowl. Place mushrooms in foil bowls with tops down. Top with brie slice and basil leaf. Drizzle butter over mushrooms and sprinkle with garlic powder. Bake in over for 5-10 minutes until brie starts to melt and mushrooms firm, dark and juicy.

Dani

www.danielledesigns.com

My sister, Danielle, recently posted this beautiful recipe/scrapbooking page on her popular website www.scrapoutsidethebox.com.

Danielle writes: Here is an old family recipe from Spain. This is a great recipe when you need something fast and easy. It take less than 15 minutes to make if you include cutting the mushrooms and peeling the shrimp. It will be in your favorites I promise. If your kids don’t like the spice just leave out the red pepper flakes for them.

June 8th – 14th, 2008

Well, another wonderful week has passed.  Coupons clipped, groceries shopped, food prepped, and bellies bursting.  This week’s menu had quite the variety but enjoyed by many.  Most of the recipes are from cookbooks and other resources, but I threw in my “twist” when I could. From semi-homemade pizzas to slow-cooker recipes and on to luscious desserts, I recommend these dishes to the food lover in you. 

Sunday, June 8th: After venturing through my cookbooks and then visiting the local super market to pick up the ingredients for this week’s concoctions, I returned home to endulge my kitchen obsession for, sad to say, seven hours.  Sometimes, I get so caught up playing around in the kitchen, with my little tv tuned to the food network, that I lose track of time.  Baby Zoey was in my belly just dancing away and other than a little ache in my feet, I was tickled pink to be making these creations. 

June 1st – 7th, 2008

Each Sunday, I sit down and go through my cookbooks and decide the menu for the week.  I admit I’m a coupon clipper and after the Sunday paper gets here, I clip away and then venture out to the local grocery with my menu in hand.  I do use recipe books and magazines for most of my meal choices but I take creative license at every opportunity to make the dish my own.  This particular week, I let Adam influence the menu as he tends to go for more bold and hearty cuisine than I normally would prepare. 

Sunday, June 1st: Our wonderfully, dear friends Michael and Carol had just introduced little Baby Ben into the world and Adam and I indented to visit bareing gifts from the kitchen.  I wanted to put together a few menu items that would last them a couple of days and at the same time, prepare a meal for Adam and I to enjoy.

First, I put together a typical Italian Sausage Lasagna from Betty Crocker’s New Cookbook.  I doubled the batch so that I could take one pan to our friends and have the other for dinner when we returned.  I did add a little ground beef that I had remaining from an earlier recipe to the italian sausage meat.  I ran out of Mozarella Cheese after putting together their lasagna so I used the Chive and Bacon cheese from Beechwood Cheese Factory.  It is a monterey jack base so it was creamy like the mozarella but with a little something extra. 

In addition to the lasagna, I also put together the Ground Beef & Twice-Baked Potato Pie from Pillsbury’s Simply One Dish magazine (Feb/Mar 2008).  This was quite the crowd pleaser as Michael is definately a “meat and potatoes” kind of guy.  Instead of dried sage, I used fresh sage from my garden and instead of the refrigerated potatoes, I used instant garlic mashed potatoes with a little extra garlic powder added.  I carried the tomato, green onion, and bacon garnishes on the side to their home so that they wouldn’t turn to mush before they were able to enjoy it.  Check out my great tips for precooked bacon on this site.

Monday, June 2nd: It was a busy Monday morning for both of us at the office, so I am glad I had this fast receipe set aside for the evening.  Tandoori Tikka Chicken straight from the Tandoori sauce packet.  Add a little yogurt and marinate you chicken pieces until you are ready to grill.  For sides I put together Rachel Ray’s Curry Couscous from her 30-Minute Meals 2 book which I have made twice before and keep going back to because it is so fast and refreshing.  For a vegetable I just made a quick romaine salad with fresh strawberries and oranges along with some toasted almonds since I had those out for the curry.  My co-worker, Dorothy turned me on Ken’s Steakhouse’s Raspberry Walnut Vinegrette and I am addicted to it now.  Adam came in the kitchen and helped scewer the chicken and since he was heating up the grill I tried another quick grill recipe for dessert, Grilled Banana Boats.  This recipe comes from Pillsbury’s Potlucks magazine (June 2008) but I have seen my step-dad, Gary, make it before.  Bananas stuffed with chocolate pieces, marsmallows, pecans, wrapped in foil and thrown on the grill.  I know this seams like a lot for a “long” day at the office, but the chicken and the banana only took 8-10 minutes to cook at which time I made the couscous which takes about 10 minutes and the salad put together in a few minutes while the couscous was setting.  I tell you, Rachel would have been proud of me.  Not to mention, I had the leftovers for lunch and curry always tastes better the second day.  YUM!

Tuesday, June 3rd: Adam loves the Orange Peel Beef from PF Chang’s and so I did the dumbed down version of that on Tuesday night.  Beef Strips with Orange and Ginger from my Chinese: The Essence of Asian Cooking cokbook.  I didn’t really change anything in this recipe but I was rather upset that I ran out of white rice (my favorite food, really).  I searched the far depths of my pantry and came back with this ancient box of Instant Minute Rice.  I’ll admit, I don’t think I have ever had minute rice, but it worked for the meal.  Besides, you put crunchy rice noodles on anything, and I’ll eat it.

Wednesday, June 4th: I had originally intended to have th Fajita Chicken Wings from Pillsbury’s Potlucks magazine (June 2008) on Tuesday but I didn’t realize that the chicken needed to marinate for at least 4 hours. So while making dinner on Tuesday, I put together the marinade and vacuum sealed the chicken refrigerating it for the following night.  I really think the vacuum sealing helped concentrate the flavors of lime and cilantro into the meat.  Also, my co-worker Ted, had recently made the recipe and suggested that I definately add the lime zest that the recipe note recommends. (Thanks, Ted!)  I wasn’t really sure what to have with the wings, which, by the way, I did not split from the legs, nor did I remove the tips. They were just fine.  I decided to “use up” some little bits that were in the fridge so I came up with this hodge-podge of menu items.  There were a few frozen hush puppies that I threw in the oven with the chicken and then served with the little bit of Ranch dressing I had left in the jar.  I also cut up the last of the celery and carrots and served those as a vegetable with that ranch dressing.  I used a Mahatma packet of spanish rice but I put the last bit of leftover salsa and a dab of butter into the water as it boiled.  The salsa added the litle bits of onion and peppers that the yellow rice needed and complimented the fajita chicken very well.  For dessert, I had some leftover plain yogurt from Monday night’s Tandoori so I added a dolop of whipped cream, the last few strawberries (diced), some dried cherries, and a few chopped pecans.  I then took a Hershey’s kiss from the candy jar and shaved it on top.  It wasn’t the sweetest dessert by any means, but it was a fairly healthy end to the meal.

Thursday, June 5th: We had leftovers from the night before so I planned on just eating that but we needed a little something extra to round out the meal.  I put together the Bacon-Crab Dip from Pillsbury’s Summer Appetizers magazine to eat with crackers, celery and carrots.  It was very good; however, I did add some onion powder and garlic powder along with some smoked paprika to give it a little zip.  It was a quick fix, especially because I had my bacon precooked for the week.

Friday and Saturday we attended Geoffrey and Courtney’s rehearsal dinner, wedding and reception so I didn’t need any additional meals for the week.  The food catered was so delicious I am glad that I didn’t eat too much before heading over there.  Oh, we also tried McDonald’s new chicken biscuits on Saturday morning and my friend Kendall was right, they ain’t got nothing on Chik-Fil-A.

So… that was our eccentric week of food and of course, today, being Sunday, I started the whole process over again. I look forward to putting together this week’s choices: Lamb Tangine with Potatoes, Chickpeas, Pistachio Mousse Brownie Torte, Flank Steak Pinwheels and much, much more. Look for Last Week’s Menu, next Sunday.

Bon Appetit!

I was working on a Rachel Ray 30-minute meal recipe called Jerky Turkey Burgers with Papaya Salsa and realized I didn’t have the ingredients to make the salsa portion of the dish. I started improvising and come out with a great recipe!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup frozen mango, cubed (fresh or canned is fine as well)
• 3 medium oranges (peeled and diced, reserving the juices)
• 1/2 red bell pepper, seeded and diced
• 1/4 red onion, finely chopped
• 1/2 jalapeño, seeded and finely chopped
  
• 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, finely chopped
• salt

I have presented stuffed mushrooms in many different ways but I was up for a challenge when my vegetarian friend asked for a spin on a sausage-stuffed mushroom. An easy fix was using vegetarian style beef that tastes just like the real thing.

Ingredients:

• 12 large button mushrooms
• ½ cup of vegetarian meat substitute
• ¼ cup finely diced white onion
• 1 clove of garlic, finely minced (about a ½ teaspoon)
• ¾ cup seasoned Italian bread crumbs
• ¾ cup Pecorino Romano, finely grated
• ¼ cup Parmigiano Reggiano, finely grated
• ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon dried parsley
  
• ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil plus 4 tablespoon for cooking preparation.
• water
• 4 slices of mozzarella or provolone cheese.

Serves 6 (2 per person)