{Party Food} Sweet & Sour Meatballs

I hope you're all enjoying your holiday week. We've been mostly homebound due to a sick little one. Doing lots of jigsaw puzzles and watching many movies!

Before this all happened, it was Christmas Eve. Wow, that seems like so long ago already! December is really busy in our home since we celebrate both Chanukah and Christmas. We do Christmas Eve in our house with my family and Christmas Day is always spent with the hubbs' family in Staten Island.

This Christmas Eve, I took some advice from Ina Garten (Barefoot Contessa) and decided NOT to make everything myself. It was so freeing! We made 3 things and assembled 3 things. Don't you just love party food? The best part was that I purposely made so much and had leftovers that lasted for a few days after.

One of my favorite party foods is Sweet & Sour Meatballs.

They're always a hit and as you'll see, so easy to make. I wanted to give you this recipe now in case you needed something for New Year's Eve.

I think you'll be surprised at the secret ingredient!!

Yes, the sauce is made from 2 things - salsa and GRAPE JELLY!!!

No one will ever know it's grape jelly, they'll just think it's delicious!!

Start out with equal parts of your favorite salsa and grape jelly. Since there were kids involved, I used Mild salsa. If it was an adult only party I would have gone with the Medium. For 2 pounds of ground meat, I used approximately 32 ounces each of the salsa and jelly.

Open them both up and put it in a pot.

As this mixture heats up, the jelly starts to liquify and it becomes more like a sauce. This is the same pot you'll be cooking the meatballs in.

You can use your favorite meatball recipe or try mine.

Like I mentioned, I started with 2 pounds organic ground beef, (use whatever you like), 2 eggs, seasoned breadcrumbs, dash of Worcestershire Sauce, dry oregano, garlic and onion powder and salt and pepper to taste.

Mix all ingredients together and form into small meatballs - try to get them smaller than a golf ball. They should be about a 2-bite size ball. I think I got about 40 to 50 meatballs or so out of this mixture.

By the time you finish forming the meatballs, the sauce should be simmering away. Give it a good mix and start to gently place the meatballs in the sauce. Try not to make the mistake I made, and think about the size of your pot BEFORE you start cooking!!

After I put the meatballs in, I realized the pot was too small and had to transfer everything to a larger pot. This pot was actually too big but I didn't have anything in between.

Ooops! There I am in the reflection with my pink snowflake 'jamas on!

Put the lid on and cook the meatballs for about an hour. In the last 15 minutes if you think the sauce looks too thin, take the cover off and the sauce will start to reduce and thicken. This is actually a great dish to make the night before because the sauce definitely thickens up overnight.

Once the meatballs are done, place them in a serving bowl along with your other party food goodies and you're ready to go!

Hope everyone has a great New Year's Eve!

Let me know if you try this recipe.

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Sweet & Sour Meatballs (makes about 40 - 50 meatballs)

For the sauce:

• equal parts salsa annd grape jelly (32 ounces each)

For the meatballs:

• 2 pounds ground beef
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup seasoned breadcrumbs
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 Tablespoon each garlic powder & onion powder
• splash of worcestershire sauce
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper

1 - place salsa and grape jelly in a pot on medium heat

2 - mix together all of the ingredients for the meatballs. If the mixture seems too tight, add a little water.

3 - form small meatballs in about a 2-bite size

4 - carefully place the meatballs into the simmering sauce and cook covered for an hour

5 - check the sauce in the last 15 minutes - if too thin, remove cover

6 - place in a serving bowl and enjoy!

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Do you have a favorite recipe that you whip out at parties? Would love to hear about them.

{Party} Justin Bieber / Lady Gaga - Part 2

Yesterday I told you about the food and decorations at the Justin Bieber / Lady Gaga party so today I thought I'd finish up with the rest of the details - activities and goodie bags!

I have to admit, planning the activities for a party is my least favorite part of an event. I absolutely LOVE the design details like food, decorations and party favors, but when it comes to activities, it completely stresses me out.

So, I did some research online and came up with some ideas.

First off we had a "Gaga Glam Shop" set up with eye shadow, lip gloss, nail polish, hair ties, face painting pencils and of course dress up clothes.

Some of the girls REALLY got into this activity!

Of course I have to have a craft activity! I got plain white masks and a bunch of enhancements like feathers and sequins so the girls could really express their personalities. Some were pretty conservative while others really went all out!

This took care of the Lady Gaga side of things. For Justin, we played a version of "pin the tail on the donkey" but instead "Plant A Kiss On Justin" Each girl had to put lipstick on and was blindfolded, then had to kiss a poster of Justin that was hanging on the wall. Whoever got closest to his lips won! This was hysterical because the girls were screaming with giddiness after each kiss.

Another JB inspired game we played was a modified version of Hot Potato but in this version we passed around a play microphone and whenever the music stopped, the person holding the mic had to finish singing part of the JB song that was playing during the game.

For the goodie bags I got solid color gift bags matching the color scheme of the party and designed Lady Gaga gift tags with each girl's name on it.

We had tattoos, candy lipsticks, lip gloss rings, funky glittery diva sunglasses, acrylic light up microphones and glow sticks.

At the end of the party, each girl got a pink Chinese takeout box and was able to load up on whatever was left on the candy table. These girls went to town! There was nothing left - not even a single jelly bean!

This is a great way to get all that candy out of your house!

My little one's birthday isn't until April so I still have plenty of time to think of that one!

What's your favorite part of party planning?

{Party} Justin Bieber / Lady Gaga - Part 1

Just realized I never posted the rest of the details from my daughter's Justin Bieber / Lady Gaga party. I left you off with the cake wreck.

This year I let my daughter get involved in the planning. Usually I like to do it all (it's a control thing) but this time she was so excited about it, we did it together. This turned out to be a bit difficult because her ideas were a bit all over the place. Kept trying to reel her back in which wasn't always working.

Her main requests were that the colors were pink, violet and turquoise, had to have Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Hello Kitty, gum and candy. See what I mean about all over the place?

So this is what I came up with...

Streamers, balloons, and partyware incorporated the colors she wanted.

The birthday banner is one I made years ago but it has become a tradition to hang it up every year.

For more decorations, I bought magazines and cut out pictures of Justin and Lady Gaga and decorated the walls with them.

I designed personalized chocolate bars and water bottle labels with both JB and LG.

We had lots of candy and gum (from Economy Candy) - all with the pink, violet and turquoise color scheme.

Here's a good tip to save money - either use smaller containers or if they are larger, fill the containers half way with paper and then fill the rest with your candy so it looks like it's overflowing.

This is a trick gift basket designers use when filling their baskets to make them look so full. (I should know - I was one of them!)

Besides the Hello Kitty cake, I made cupcakes with turquoise frosting, pink and purple liners and created custom JB and LG cupcake toppers.

I rounded out the food with little finger foods like pizza rolls, mini quiches and mini pigs in the blanket.

Tomorrow I'll be back with details on the activities and goodie bags!

Hello Kitty Cake Wreck

A few weeks ago was my daughter's 7th birthday and her big birthday bash. This year she wanted a Justin Bieber / Lady Gaga theme. You may be asking at this point,

"What does Hello Kitty have to do with Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga?

In normal situations, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!!

At some point during our party planning, my daughter threw in "I want a Justin Bieber / Lady Gaga party but there also has to be Hello Kitty"

WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?

As time went on, I continued to ignore this request and just focused on JB & LG It wasn't until the 11th hour that I finally had an idea of how to tie it in.

We were planning on having cupcakes for the party but she also wanted a small cake so she can blow out the candles. I had so many things going on that the cake was more of an afterthought and I left it for the last minute.

Cake decorating is normally the part I plan and spend most time on but this time I was pretty much winging it, trying to take shortcuts here and there.

Lessons learned:

A - Shortcuts usually turn into long cuts
B - Don't try new techniques hours before the event

This is what will happen...

I baked a small 6 inch cake and made a deep turquoise buttercream icing because it was the same color I was using for the cupcakes.

Now normally I do know that if you're covering a cake with white fondant, you shouldn't use dark buttercream. I had a plan though!! At least I thought I did.

The first thing I wanted to try was this new imprint mat that I bought for another cake but never ended up using it.

It just didn't work. At least not for me.

The imprint didn't come out evenly and in some areas not at all

That was mistake number 1.

Number 2 is up next.

Since the imprint didn't work, I had to cover it somehow. I bought food color spray and thought I could just spray on some color and it may look better. I never used this technique either. When I sprayed the color on, it just started dripping everywhere! I had purple and pink and they were just blending into each other.

Now I had to cover that up!!

I ended up cutting out fondant flowers, large dots and the number 7 for the centers.

It looked way too young and cutesy - nothing like you would expect for a JB / LG party.

Ding Ding!!! This is when the lights went on!! Hello Kitty!!!

I designed a Hello Kitty cake topper, tied a ribbon and placed it on top.

When my daughter woke up and saw the cake she actually LOVED it and said "how did you make a tie dyed cake Mama?"

Genius!!

Fast forward a few hours later to "Happy Birthday" and candle blowing

More party details coming up in a future post. (this will explain the pink wig)

After the candles were blown, the kids were like vultures attacking that poor little cake.

Now it's all just a memory.