Goonies Birthday Party

I love themed parties and I love the movie Goonies so it seemed like a fun idea to have a Goonies themed birthday this year.  After looking at pinterest I decided this party was going to be a snap and it was.  Here are some details.

Banners:

Goonies Font from dafont.com.  I cut the banner with the Silouhette using the Goonies font, then glued the letters on white cardstock and mounted on brown.  I just taped the letters to a piece of twine.

Pirate flag from Zurchers party supply.

Goonies Tags from HotTaTasFaktory on Etsy.  Super cute and made a fun additional banner.

One-Eyed Willy:
The skeleton is one I picked up last year at Costco for Halloween, he has come in really handy.  I tied a scrap of cloth on his head as a scarf.  I bought the eye patch at Zurchers and then made the jewel eye like One-Eyed Willy has in the movie with scrapbook sticky embellishments.

Cake:

I got the cake topping frosting sheet from the NM Sugar Shack on Etsy.  These printed frosting sheets are edible, store for a long time, and are easy to apply.  Be aware that it took 24 hours before the frosting sheet blended in with the cake like it was supposed to, not the "several hours" advertised.

 I bought the dynamite candles from Party Swizzle and they were my favorite purchase for this party.  They are packaged so cute, and sparkled when lit.  A couple of them kept relighting and just looked cool for this party, especially because the Goonies think the dynamite sticks they find are just candles.

 

 

The cake was a delicious White cake with Raspberry filling we ordered from Harmon's Bakery, a local here in Utah.

Goonies details:
Data's "Pinchers of Peril" were some chatter teeth I bought on Amazon.

 

Statue of David was a mini garden pick I bought on Amazon then I tied a tag around the middle that said, "That's my mom's favorite piece."  Since it was a tiny garden pick we decided to use it as an additional cake topper.

An "it's wet ain't it?  Drink it!" sign for the water.

Baby Ruth candy bars as thank you for coming favors.

Rocky Road ice cream to serve with the cake.

Pirate's Booty as a salty snack, bought at Costco.  Sign next to it that quotes "bobby traps....that's what I said, booty traps" from the movie.

"Rich Stuff" was a mix of hard candies in colorful wrappers like jewels, some shiny pirate coins and jewelry I picked up at Zurchers, and Hershy's Treasures.

Fratelli's wanted poster found via pinterest.

Goonies map I bought on ebay.

Chunk's Truffles in honor of the truffle shuffle are just oreo truffles.

Additional ideas:
Additional party food as needed that would fit the theme would be Domino's pizza and spray cans of whipped cream.

While we just watched the movie at my party some game ideas would be a matching game with a picture of a character and a quote by that character, a photo booth with One-eyed Willy and a sloth mask you can find online.  A treasure hunt of some sort.  A trivia game.

Decorations that I wanted and couldn't find for a reasonable price or had time to make was the key they find on Chester Copperpot's body.

Seahawks Superbowl Sunday...

Some quick Superbowl ideas:

Team colors popcorn from Our Best Bites.

Crockpot ribs from Your Homebased Mom.

As a Seahawks fan I had to grab some skittles and make my own Seattle Skittles mix *short story of this tradition is on the Our Best Bites link above*  I used the Wildberry Skittles since they have blue and green.  Plus the left over pink, red, and purple skittles are perfect for Valentine's Day which is rapidly approaching.  I found a 12th man logo online and embellished it with a green sticky gem from my scrapbook stash.  I used mini versions of the logos to make cupcake toppers for the green and blue cupcakes I grabbed from Costco.

Pies!

For Thanksgiving we tried a couple new pies this year (okay more than a couple but I made 2 so those recipes are below):

Cranberry Apple Pie:

1 cup sugar
2 Tbsp flour
1/4 tsp salt
4 apples (I used Fugi) peeled, cored, and thinly sliced
2 cups fresh cranberries
zest of 1 orange

Pie crust of choice (2 layers)
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

In a bowl toss apples, cranberries, zest.  In a smaller bowl mix together sugar, flour, and salt.  Toss sugar mixture with apple mixture. 

 

Prepare pie crust, lay into pie pan and prick a few hole in the bottom with a fork.  Dump in apples.  Top with additional pie crust layer.  For fun I used a leaf cookie cutter to make a bunch of pie crust leaves for my top pie crust.

For extra looks I brushed top crust with egg white wash (One egg white beat with a tablespoon of water) and sprinkled with Sugar in the raw (large sugar crystals).

Bake for 20 minutes at 425 degrees, then reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for 40-50 more minutes.  After 20 minutes at 350 degrees my pie rim was browning so I covered the edges with aluminum foil to prevent burning.  Bake until apples soft when poked with a fork and crust baked and browned.

Mini Peach Pies:

These pies are total cheater pies.  I used Pillsbury premade pie crust and canned peach pie filling.  1 box of crust and 1 large can of filling makes 12 cupcake sized pies.

I rolled the crust out a bit and used a cup mouth to cut the bottom crust.  Then I pressed that crust into the cupcake tin and filled with peach pie filling.  I used a round biscuit cutter for the top crust and used a small heart cookie cutter to cut out the bottom.  for a few top crusts I used four of the cut out hearts to form a little flower on top instead of a round crust.  I layered the top crust on, brush with egg white wash, and sprinkled with sugar in the raw.  Baked at 350 degrees for 30-50 minutes, just watched for browning. These are super good warmed with some vanilla ice cream.

 



Catching Fire.

We had a Victor's feast before going to see the Catching Fire Premier.  It was fun to eat delicious food and visit with friends.  For our feast we had soup in breadbowls, bacon green bean bundles, some amazing brie, a puff pastry apple caramel pie, firey cupcakes, Nightlock berry fruit salad, a veggie rosette pie, and  various other delights.

The bacon wrapped green bean bundles are from our best bites. They were easy and a really good veggie side-dish.

The Veggie tart is from a European magazine I found online, pg 67.  I just used a premade pie crust instead.  Used a peeler to peel the veggies and for a 9 inch pie it took 4 medium zucchini and I believe around 8 carrots.  We peeled all of the veggies first.  then we made the rosettes and swirled them around.  We decided to make some small rosettes too and I liked the effect a lot.  After the veggies are done, I drizzled with Olive Oil, and sprinkled with thyme, pepper, and salt.  Baked at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes.

The puff pastry apple caramel pie came about by accident.  I was attempting to make apple rosettes from a recipe in the same magazine pg 65 as the veggie tart and it suddenly went a bit Sweeny Todd in the kitchen as I almost chopped off a nail.  So I scrapped that idea and made my own.  I thawed a box of puff pastry according to box instructions.  I made caramel in a can, using the boiling method by Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk.  Basically you boil a whole unopened can of sweetened condensed milk for 2-3 hours.  Every 30 minutes I would check it and pour about 2 cups more water in the pan, as the can needs to remain completely covered during the boiling process.  Allow can to cool and then open.  Inside is sticky-sweet caramel.  I spread the caramel over one rolled out layer of puff pastry (about 2/3 of the can) and then sliced 3 apples and laid out sliced apples over the caramel.  I sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, topped with other puff pastry and sealed the edges, pressing with a fork.  I egg wash brushed the top (beat one egg with some water and brush over top) I cut some slits in the top crust and then sprinkled with some sugar-in-the-raw I had on hand.  I baked it for 20 minutes at 400 degrees.  Sliced when cooled a bit with a pizza cutter.

For the fiery cupcakes I simply bought premade red-velvet cupcakes and used Wilton's frosting spray colors in yellow and orange to make the frosting look like fire.  To make the mockingjay picks I used my stamp from my last party and just punched them out and taped them to toothpicks.

The brie is a top secret recipe by my friend Toni, if I get it I will post it! :)  And as for the berry salad I just made a traditional cottage cheese fruit jello salad (1 large container cottage cheese, 1 large container coolwhip, 1 box raspberry jello, mixed frozen blueberries and raspberries all mixed together when thawed).

 

We also enjoyed some photo-booth fun.  For the banners I used my Silhouette to cut the title "75th Hunger Games" using the Hunger Games font.  I made the various banners using district logos and pictures I found through tumblr and pinterest.  Props included Katniss' bow and arrows, and various colorful Capitol accessories (the skeleton and turkey hat were pure irony).

For take home goodies I made chocolate peanut-butter and white chocolate peppermint mockingjays.  I found the mold online on ecreater, but it is also carried at various baking shops.  I bought tiny boxes of matches and just printed little labels that say, "Every Revolution Begins With A Spark."  I found these silly bright mustache magnets at target.

Pumpkin Cupcakes

Wilton had this adorable Turkey Cupcake Kit so I whipped up some Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting.  An easy and fun treat for Thanksgiving.

Pumpkin Cupcakes:

1 box yellow cake mix
1/2 cup oil
3 eggs
2 cups canned pumpkin
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Mix up all ingredients until smooth, beating for about 2 minutes.  Pour into cupcake liners and bake at 350 degrees for 15-18 minutes until toothpick comes out clean.

Cream Cheese Frosting:

2 (8oz) packages of cream cheese softened
1 stick of butter
1 tsp vanilla
2-3 cups powered sugar

Soften butter and cream cheese and beat together until smooth.  Add vanilla.  Mix in 2 cups powered sugar.  Add additional cup until desired consistency.

Taco Soup and other game day treats

Big football game yesterday...  The Holy War for Utah and my Aggies playing a big game as well.  Something easy and delicious for this time of year that can feed a crowd is, Taco Soup!

2 lb ground beef sautéed with onion (if onion desired)
2 cans corn (do not drain)
2 cans kidney beans (do not drain)
1 BIG can tomato juice (46 oz...which is a little over 1 quart)
1 pint Salsa
1 pkg Taco seasoning

Brown beef and then add other ingredients.  Mix and heat in a large pot on the stove. Top with Fritos, sour cream, and shredded cheddar. Also great to make in a crockpot after browning beef.  This is a large recipe but I would imagine it would be easy to freeze for later as well.

Another treat we made was Pumpkin Spice Chex Mix.  Pumpkin is all the rage and so Chex came out with a little spice packet to make the chex mix.  It was fine as is after following the directions on the packet but I would change it up a bit for next time.  Chex has a similar recipe not using the new spice packet that can be found here.

My version for next time...

3 cups cinnamon chex
2 cups corn or rice chex
1 cup honey teddy grahams
 mini chocolate chips
chopped pecans
1/4 cup butter
spice packet

In a large bowl toss chex, teddy grahams, chocolate chips, and pecans. Melt butter and mix with spice packet.  Stir over chex mix, until coated.

At this point the direction called for microwaving chex mix for 3 minutes, stirring every minute, to glaze...my bowl was too big so I spread onto baking sheet and baked at 350 for a few minutes until glazed, stirring it around.  This process takes a bit longer.

For an extra pumpkin kick I would melt some of Hershey Kisses, pumpkin spice kisses and drizzle over mix.  Allow to cool then break apart and enjoy!

Garden Brushetta

My mom's garden is growing like crazy! She planted a wide variety of tomatoes this year including Roma tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, Cherokee Purples, and a variety that is black. I had some amazing Bruschetta in Pisa, Italy last January and since it is one of the 3 ways I will eat tomatoes I thought I would try to recreate it. The recipe I decided to try was from Our Best Bites. It was stellar!

Everything I used was purchased at the farmers market or from my mom's garden, except the olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Bruschetta by Our Best Bites:
2 C diced tomatoes, seeds removed... I used Cherokee purple tomatoes, an heirloom, and a roma.
1/3 C diced red onion
1/2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
1/4 tsp kosher salt
a few cracks black pepper
1/4 C chopped fresh basil leaves
1 french baguette
additional olive oil
1 large garlic clove

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine tomatoes, onions, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, and 1 tsp olive oil in a bowl and mix to combine. Add basil and gently toss to distribute. Give it a taste and add additional salt and pepper if necessary. Cover and chill. Slice baguette into half inch slices and place on a baking sheet. Drizzle or brush some olive oil on top. Place in oven for 8-10 minutes until just lightly toasted. Remove pan from oven. Slice garlic clove in half and rub cut side down on each piece of bread. Top with about a tablespoon of the tomato mixture.