Fantasy Football Draft Party

 

Sheet Pan Pork Chops with Apples

Ingredients: 

1/4 cup olive oil

1 1/2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

2 tsp maple syrup

2 tsp mustard

salt and pepper

1 onion sliced in wedges

2 apples, cored and cut in 8 wedges

4 boneless pork chops

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. In a small bowl, whisk the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, maple syrup, mustard, and about 1/4 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper. 

Put the onion slices and apple wedges on a baking pan. Drizzle with about half of the liquid mixture and toss to combine. 

Season the pork chops with salt and pepper on both sides. Place the pork chops in the middle of the onions and apples. Brush the remaining liquid mixture on both sides of the pork chops. 

Bake in the center of the oven for about 15 minutes. 

Turn the oven to high broil and move the pan to the upper third of the oven. Let it caramelize for about 3 minutes. 

Remove from the oven and let the pork rest for about 5 minutes before serving. 

 

Boston Cream Birthday Cake

Ingredients: 

2 yellow cake mixes plus ingredients to make the cake

Custard:

2 cups milk

1 egg

5 egg yolks

1/4 cup cornstarch

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup butter

1/2 tsp vanilla

Chocolate Ganache: 

1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

3/4 cup hot whipping cream

Heat the milk in a saucepan. 

In a separate large bowl, add the full egg and the egg yolks. Add the cornstarch and sugar. Whisk together. 

When the milk is warm, add about 1/2 cup of the milk to the egg mixture to temper the eggs. Whisk together. Then add the egg mixture to the rest of the milk. Let it boil. It will get thick really fast when it starts to boil. 

Remove from the heat and add the softened butter and vanilla. Whisk one more time. Put a piece of wax paper on top of the mixture and put in the refrigerator to cool. The wax paper will prevent a film from forming on the top. 

Bake the yellow cakes (It only took about 1 1/2 cake mixes to make the two large circles. I made 12 cupcakes with the remaining batter. 

I put the custard between the two cooled cakes. Then mix your ganache. Make sure the whipping cream is hot so it melts the chocolate chips. 

Spread the ganache over the top of the cake. 

 

Coffee Cup Birthday Cake

The cup is three tiers of cake with the bottom shaved inward slightly. The handle is fondant. I used chocolate ganache for the top. It is about 1 cup of chocolate chips with 1/2 cup hot whipping cream. Stir until it is melted and the spread on the top of the cake. 

 

Funko Pop Birthday Cake

Rachel loves collecting Funko Pops, so she wanted a Funko-theme birthday party. This is what we came up with...

For her cake, I designed a personalized Funko box with her name and her custom pop design. This is just printed on paper and folded into the box shape. 

She picked 8 of her Funko Pops to be represented around the cake. She also picked the background color for each pop. 

She picked Freddie Mercury, Chandler from Friends, Bob Ross, King Triton, Belle, Erin from The Office, Hamilton, and Bo-Katan

An alternative to the custom box could be the Ronald McDonald birthday Pop or...

 Birthday Freddy

 

60th Birthday Cake

60th 

 

McDonald's Cake

For David's 1-year anniversary at McDonald's, we made a cake to celebrate. I used an edible marker to write on the white fondant on the front.  

 

Shark Week Party

I used a tortilla and pizza sauce to make the shark. The bottom is made from cucumbers and salami. Blackberries, cheese, and gummies made up the rest of the board. 

 

Christmas in July Party

We started our Christmas in July celebration with snowman pancakes. 

The kids found small gifts under our seasonal tree. 

I made Little Debbie Christmas Tree copycats in both white chocolate and milk chocolate. http://workingmomwonders.blogspot.com/2022/07/little-debbie-christmas-tree-copycat.html

We had frozen hot chocolate, snowman pizza, and snowflake cinnamon roll: http://workingmomwonders.blogspot.com/2021/12/snowflake-cinnamon-roll-with-caramel.html

 

National Ice Cream Day Party

National Ice Cream Day is always the third Sunday in July. This is how we celebrated. 

 

Detroit Lions Birthday Party

 

David wanted a Detroit Lions theme for his 15th Birthday this year. He always requests beef tenderloin and potatoes for the main dish, but we added some other Lions' touches this year. I made non-alcoholic jello shots in the Lions color scheme and put together a Dan Campbell press conference cutout. 

The cake is two full size 9x13 inch cakes baked together in a large sheet pan. Everything is covered in homemade green fondant. I added blue and white fondant to make the rest of the field. I couldn't make the goal posts with one pole on the bottom, so we had to settle for two poles going all the way down. These are just pvc pipes covered with yellow construction paper. 

For the cutout, I took a picture of Dan Campbell from a press conference video I found online. I used my phone to capture just his image. Then I opened the image in Paint and went to the print preview setting. From there, I selected Fit To and changed it to 4 by 4. I cut out the images from the pages printed and taped them on to a foam board. Then I cut the foam board to fit the picture. I went to our local Dollar General and they happened to be unpacking a shipment, so I found this perfect black box in the shape of a podium. I taped the foam board to the box to get the final product. 

Founding Fathers' Dinner

 

Instead of the traditional burgers and hot dogs, we decided to look up the founding fathers' favorite foods and cook that for 4th of July dinner. 

We made smoked turkey breast for Ben Franklin, had green beans and pineapple for Jefferson, rolls for Madison, mini apple pie for Adams (and almost all of the others), cherry crumble for Washington, and ice cream for Hamilton. We also had mashed potatoes and smoked up some sausage and "shotgun" shells too. (Those are a manicotti noodle stuffed with a sausage/cream cheese/jalapeno mixture and wrapped with bacon). 

We also had angel food with strawberries and blueberries for our red/white/blue dessert. 

Elemental Dinner Party and Photo Board

I made this photo board on a tri-fold cardboard poster from Dollar General. I drew it freehand with pencil and painted it with acrylic paint. 

I used a blue and red tablecloth to symbolize the water and fire parts of the city. 

I also did four cupcakes to symbolize the fire, water, air, and earth. 

The water symbols. 

Air symbols. The cups have cotton candy in them. 

Earth symbols. This pots have cupcakes and chocolate wafers in them. The front cup is chocolate pudding with chocolate wafers and a gummy worm. 

The fire symbols included an actual fire, fire cupcakes, red and black candy in little drink cups, hot tamales, fire cheetos, and Ferrero Rocher candy to represent the fireballs in the movie that get eaten. 

It was also my husband's birthday, so we made a periodic table of elements that said Happy Birthday Steve. 

 

Little Mermaid Dinner Party

Rachel and I loved the new Little Mermaid movie, so we came home from the show and made some treats for dinner. 

We made some decorations with sour candy. 

We also did "shell" macaroni and cheese, crab shaped croissant sandwiches, clam cookies, mermaid chocolate tails, goldfish pretzels, crab candy, mermaid popcorn crunch, and blue Gatorade. 

 

Country Music Award Dinner

For the ACM Awards this year, we decided to throw a Nashville-theme dinner. We had meat and three (meatloaf, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, and green beans) 

We also had some music themed threats. 

 

Air Fryer Potatoes

 

Wash and dice about 5 potatoes. Put in a large bowl with 2 Tbsp olive oil and salt and pepper. Cook in the air fryer for about 10 minutes at 400 degrees. 

We like them plain like this, but you could add garlic and parmesan cheese for additional flavor. 

One-pot Pasta

For my last cooking class, we made this one-pot pasta. It is very easy and cheap to make. 

Ingredients: 

1 pound of pasta

1 can diced tomatoes

3 cups water

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

3 cloves garlic, sliced

3 Tbsp olive oil

1 tsp salt

pepper

1/4 cup parmesan cheese

cooked sausage (optional) 

In a large pot, saute the oil, garlic, and red pepper flakes for a minute. 

Add the diced tomatoes, water, salt and pepper, and uncooked pasta. Stir. Let it boil. Reduce heat and cover for about 9 minutes. Add the parmesan cheese when the pasta is done. You can add cooked sausage or other meat if you want more protein added.