Black & White

On Saturday night some dear friends of mine, Laura and Hugh, hosted their first party in their new townhouse.  Being the quirky and fun folks they are, their party came complete with a theme…Black & White.  Bow ties, polka dots, dice and dominos were the focus of the evening. 

Of course, I was more concerned about what kind of food I could bring than what outfit I would wear.  I mean…have you ever really thought about black and white food?  It’s a toughie!! 

Laura put together lots of white cheeses, crackers, dark chocolate cupcakes, popcorn and dips.  She really pulled out the black and whites of the food world. 

What I came up with was Oreos.  But I can’t just show up with a bag of cookies now can I?  So I took those cookies to the next level.

Bark is one of the easiest, but prettiest treats to put together.  You melt some chocolate and you top it with your favourite yummy bits.  This version is simply white chocolate and smashed Oreos cookies. 

White Chocolate Oreo Cookie Bark

Ingredients:

• 3 cups white chocolate discs or chips
• 15 smashed Double Stuf Oreo Cookies, chilled

Directions:

1. Line a baking sheet with wax or parchment paper.
2. Place the cookies in a zipper bag and smash with a rolling pin.  If the icing sticks a lot, stir with a fork to break up.
3. Divide the chocolate into three batches.  Melt the first batch either over a double boiler, or in the microwave stirring to ensure smoothness.  Spread the melted chocolate on the papered baking sheet and sprinkle liberally with about half of the smashed cookies.
4. Melt the second batch of chocolate and pour over the first layer of bark.  Spread with the back of a spoon to incorporate cookie crumbs and even out the layer.  Sprinkle with about a third of the remaining cookies and press with the spoon.
5. Melt the third batch of chocolate and use the spoon to drizzle all over the second layer.  Press the remaining cookie chunks into the drizzled chocolate.
6. Refrigerate at least one hour or until needed.  When ready to package or serve, lift the whole sheet of paper off the tray to a cutting board and use a large knife to cut into large pieces.  Then break by hand into smaller pieces.

I stacked the black and white bark into a couple of sturdy white bowls, wrapped the whole works in white tissue paper and packed it up in a cute black and white damask bag.  Success.

Cute theme, cute eats, good times.  Black and white and fun all over!

What’s your favourite theme for a house party?

More Bacon and Blue Cheese

When Michael and I started planning the second dinner party I asked him if I could contribute another fun appetizer.  I was so pleased with the Epic Cheese Ball that I wanted to see if I could create another delicious pre-dinner snack.

We had leftover blue cheese and bacon from that cheese ball so I immediately thought of a recipe I had at home that would include those items.  Except when I got home it turned out the stuffed date recipe I was thinking of didn’t have bacon in it.  Oooops.

Well clearly the bacon is the most important part of this situation so I did what any red blooded foodie would do.  I made up my own recipe.  And it rocks…you know, if I can toot my own horn here.

Bacon Wrapped Blue Cheese Stuffed Dates

Ingredients:

• 18 fresh Medjool dates, pitted
• 3 oz crumbled blue cheese
• 6 slices bacon, sliced into thirds
• maple syrup for drizzling (optional)

* If you aren’t a blue cheese fan this would likely work well with cream cheese or goat cheese too…maybe one of the flavoured ones.  Yum.

Directions:

1. Mix a small drizzle of syrup into the blue cheese.
2. Slice each date lengthwise to remove pit.  Fill each slit date with equal amounts of blue cheese.  Lightly squeeze dates closed.
3. Carefully wrap each date with a small piece of bacon, having the thicker overlapped parts on the bottom.  Placed wrapped dates in a well sprayed baking dish.
4. Bake at 375 degrees for approximately 15 minutes.  When bacon is looking almost done, turn on the broiler for 2-3 minutes to crisp up the tops.  Watch carefully as the bacon will burn quickly.
5. Drizzle lightly with syrup and let stand 5 minutes to cool before serving.

* When you wrap bacon around something healthy they cancel each other out.  Honest.

Paula Dean came to dinner.

I have two words for you.

Cheese. Ball.

No wait!  Three words.

Epic. Cheese. Ball.

A failsafe way to provide good food at your party is to invite Paula Dean.  If you can’t get her to accept your invitation, the next best thing is to make one of her recipes.  Especially when the recipe involves the cheese trifecta of cream, cheddar and blue.  Oh and bacon.  Never forget the bacon.

This was honestly soooo delicious.  It costs a few extra pennies to make (although in all fairness we landed up with leftover bacon, blue cheese, and pecans and we used the parsley in other dishes) but it comes together fairly easily and everyone truly raved about it.

Even though we served a full ham dinner after this, I sort of feel like this was the show stealer.  But maybe that’s because I was in a delicious cheese haze.

Nutty Bacon Cheese Ball

adapted from Paula Dean

Ingredients:

• 1 package (250 gram) cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 cups old cheddar cheese, shredded
• 1/4 cup blue cheese, crumbled
• 1/4 cup green onions, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp diced pimento, drained (I found a tiny jar in the pickle aisle at my supermarket)
• 3/4 cup pecans, chopped, divided
• 10 slices bacon, cooked, drained, finely crumbled and divided
• Salt and pepper
• 1/4 cup minced parsley
• 1 tablespoon poppy seeds  (I didn’t have any and we didn’t miss them at all.

Directions:

The original recipe says to use a mixer with flat beater but I was working on this at Michael’s and found using a hand mixer with regular beaters worked just fine.

1. Place cream cheese in a bowl and soften with a mixer for about one minute. Stop and scrape bowl. Turn to speed two and gradually add milk, mixing until well blended about one more minute. Stop and scrape bowl. Add cheeses, onions, pimentos, half of the bacon and half the pecans. Turn to speed three and beat until well blended, about another minute. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
2. Transfer mixture to a large piece of plastic wrap. Form into a ball and wrap tightly.  (This is a bit mucky but just get the basic shape and don’t worry about it being perfect or pretty.)
3. Refrigerate (or freeze) at least 2 hours.  If you opt to freeze, remove it approximately 10 minutes before moving on to the next step.
4. Combine the remaining bacon and remaining pecans, parsley and poppy seeds in a shallow dish. Remove the plastic wrap and roll the cheese ball lightly in the bacon/nut mixture until evenly coated. Wrap it back up in plastic wrap and refrigerate again until ready to use or serve right away.
5. Serve with crackers, fresh veggies and apple slices. Prepare to swoon.

* Note:  I found this to be a quite large cheese ball, so divided it up and made one large for the dinner party and a small one for the freezer.