2 posts tagged “birthdays”
Quite well, thanks for asking! We had ten people at our house, counting ourselves, and most of them even arrived before M did, so we consider that a good deal too. The last three showed up at the front door about a minute after M came in the back, so that wasn't too bad.
Did I mention the other day that the Husband laughed when I came home with two dozen buns? Ha! We had to buy more the other day, but then again we're still eating sandwiches. The shredded chicken was a big hit and the Husband's already talking about how we could adapt it for our holiday open house in December- looks like we're doing it again. Anyway, the recipe was stupid easy- six cups of shredded chicken, which ended up being two dozen chicken tenders (some moron was in a hurry at the grocery store and didn't realize what she was buying), two cans of cream of chicken soup, a bit of chicken broth and two pieces of crumbled bread- I used one of the buns because all we had was wheat and rye bread. Throw it in the crock pot and let it warm up. We have about half a large square Gladware container of shredded chicken left and the 1.5 quart bowl of this set full of sloppy joes. Also, I'd like to point out that when we bought those bowls, the lids were different and we had no freaking clue how they went on. I'm glad they've changed them. Anyway, the ton of sloppy joes will go in the freezer for later and we'll probably be able to finish the chicken tonight, which would be good, since we're both getting tired of sandwiches.
Let's look at the cake. I think it went together pretty well- better than the Christmas debacle, at least. I think the recipe called for too much kirsch, though, because that made the cherry pie filling a runny mess. I ended up fishing cherries out of the goo and putting them on the cake and it still ran, even after its stint in the fridge. Covering it with whipped cream was super easy, even making the little blobbies on top. Unfortunately, as you can see the cherries on the top ran, but hey, people ate it anyway. Also, that's right, there are 33 candles on that cake. It made one hell of a blaze when we lit them all. We had to light the cake with the thing we use to light the grill- that thing with the long tip at the end and the clicky igniter? Yeah. Look how thrilled M is that he has to blow out 33 candles.
Yes, all those candles are causing the top of the cake to kind of melt. Heh. It doesn't help that we kept making him laugh, so blowing them out was a problem too. We did really well with the cake, there was one large piece left and M took it home with him. It was quite tasty and definitely less hassle than the last time. Box of cake mix (that was supposed to have a packet of instant pudding added, whoops! I did get the dark chocolate cake mix so hopefully that helped), can of cherry pie filling, tub of whipped cream and a bit of kirsch. I might have to do this again.
The rest of the party was a lot of fun. We eventually ended up playing Celebrities and I laughed until I cried listening to M trying to get someone to say both John Holmes and Long Dong Silver. I think by the time the last person went home, it was 12:30. Everyone left full, tired and happy.
Saturday is the Husband's older brother M's birthday and since we already have a busy weekend we decided to throw him a surprise party on Friday. Whee!!! That reminds me- must go out and buy giant wheel of Swiss cheese as gift. Anyway, we've invited about a dozen people out to the house and there will be dinner and cake and hopefully fun.
I put my foot down and declared that dinner was going to be something easy cheesy, like sandwiches. The Husband has been reminiscing about the shredded chicken sandwiches of his golden yesterdays so I planned on those and sloppy joes. Sloppy joes are easy, all I need to do is buy meat and the mix- I am NOT trying to do my own from scratch again. The shredded chicken, however, was a little more difficult. Were I still living up at home, I'd just go out and get a couple things of Root's shredded chicken, which is what I grew up on. No one made their own, we just bought Root's at the grocery store. Anyway, I did some searching for shredded chicken recipes online, preferably ones I could put in the crock pot, and didn't find anything I liked. This morning I went through my small collection of church and school produced cookbooks and managed to find one, so we're good to go on that.
Monday night I was at the store and I saw cake mix was on sale so I called M and asked what kind of cake he wanted. I believe our phone call went something like this:
Me: Hey! I'm looking at cake mix, what kind of birthday cake do you want?
M: Oh, no cake, please.
Me: It's your birthday, you HAVE to have cake. I repeat, what kind of cake do you want?
M: Long blather about how his mom should be the one to get him a cake and she'd feel bad if I were the one to make him a cake, and how he's getting fat and told her he only wanted fruit and ice cream, but what if she actually listens to his request and only gets fruit and ice cream? Then he won't have a birthday cake! Couldn't we just get him a pie instead?
Me: (Imagine me eye rolling through that whole drama and trying to come up with a reason why we can't have pie that isn't "How the hell are we going to feed 12 people one pie?") Um, the Husband and I don't eat a lot of pie, so you're getting cake. Just pick one already!
M: Ooooh! How about black forest cake?
Me: (flinching) Um, did you hear the story from Christmas?
M: No?
Me: okay! Black forest it is!
I didn't write about it then, but at Christmas I had decided we were either going to have a yule log cake or a black forest cake. I eventually picked black forest and found a recipe for it. I think I found the most involved recipe for black forest cake ever written. I mean, I had to make my own cherry filling, it was that involved. It ended up being a giant kitchen disaster- a sticky, messy, inedible kitchen disaster- and we promised never to speak of it again. This time I've found an easier recipe from the kraft foods site that calls for cake mix and cherry pie filling and Cool Whip, so we might just make it through this alive and unscathed.
I should mention, when the Husband and I cooked up this idea of a surprise party, he thought I should make a Battlestar Galactica cake. Ha! Good luck with that one, baby! I'm saving the extreme cake work for your birthday and the Dalek cake.
