Wiener Wednesday: 115. Hot Appetizers

So I threw myself a birthday party!

(over 2 months ago)

So sue me.  I don’t remember every detail of the party or have photos of everything–it was my party after all. And I had, like, 10 people over. So I was busy. And buzzed–from a punch!–but I’ll talk about that later.

So I celebrated me with gusto. I even made an entire DiS! card for the occasion–#115. Hot Appetizers! I am counting this post as a Wiener Wednesday because there are little weenies involved, but this post is much more than that. Oh, so much more!

So come on in, you’re invited!

The night before the party I made the piroschki filling and the dough. OK, I am lying to you. I didn’t make the dough. It said “pastry for double crust pie” so I just bought refrigerated pie dough. Because I am lazy. But I did everything else right and wow, the filling was yummy!

So I assembled those and put them in the fridge.

Also the night before, I assembled the Frankfurters, Cheese & Bacon (couldn’t they have come up with a catchier name?) and mixed the topping for the Clam Puffs (have I mentioned how much I love anything called a puff?).

Again, as with the Swiss Frank Roll-Ups, the recipe said to split the little franks and put the cheese inside the weenie. So I obliged.

And I put these in the oven once my guests arrived. Sadly, I had to throw away this baking sheet after making these. The result was just one giant sheet of cheese and bacon grease. Cutting the franks and putting the cheese in made no difference. Because bacon is lacy (unless you’re using turkey bacon) and the cheese just seeped right through it. Not pretty. But we got them off of the sheet anyway. These may have been ugly, but there were no complaints in the taste department. Gregg stood by the oven just waiting for these puppies to come out. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone (in real life) get so stoked about pork products.

Now, it didn’t occur to me at the time to take a picture of the Bagna Cuda, but I remember thinking that my guests were a tad confused by the random garlic-anchovy fondue. However, I liked it a lot. I even took the leftover anchovy garlic dip and tossed it with pasta, parsley, and Parmesan cheese later that week for a quick and easy dinner.

Well, the Bagna Cuda was in the kitchen, and everything else was on the coffee table, but  I still failed to take a photo of the whole spread. But here are the baked piroschkis and the clam puffs:

The Piroschki were just okay in my book. When I made the filling it was soooooo tasty, but then it was kidna meh. I think because the pie filling was too thick–it overpowered it. Oh well. They looked pretty!

The Clam Puffs were great. I didn’t want to bother with making rounds of bread so I bought some plain melba toast and used that. The ends got all burnt and crispy but the topping got the centers all soft and chewy. These were good. Who knew that one day I would find the canned clam so versatile? I would definitely make these again for a party.

Well, since it was my birthday, Dan and Jon brought a boozy Peaches & Cream Jell-O mold (a recipe from the Jell-O Mold Mistress of Brooklyn) and Kristen and George brought lime green (how did they know that’s my favorite flavor?) jigglers. I have awesome friends. Here is the dessert aftermath:

And look at the size of the birthday cake that Claire made!

It was a pineapple something or other. Pretty good. And it weighed at least 5 pounds. But my favorite part was the frosting. I think Claire said it was the seven-minute frosting. Well, it was bad news having the leftovers in my house because the frosting was very Marshmallow Fluff-like. One night, over the sink, I peeled off all of the frosting from the remaining cake and ate it. Because I am gross. And since I live alone no one can judge me for it. Except Brian. Well, and now all of you.

But anyway, it was a lovely party–good food, good booze (gonna get to that soon!) and good friends. And the night ended with us watching my Britney’s Greatest Hits DVD (of course!). And no one could say anything about it because it was my birthday. All parties should end with some Britney.

And that’s just how I am going to end this, right now.  It’s Britney, bitch!

Also, I wish that I had thought of MillyAgulieraSpears. It would totally be my legal name right now.