Super Super Bowl successes!

Using ideas featured in last week’s “super Super Bowl” posts (snacks and sips), the following ideas were inspired by Megan’s Island!

Football bean dip with sour cream laces!

Football bean dip with sour cream laces!

Skittles vodkas for the whole party!

Skittles vodkas for the whole party!

A homemade football bread bowl with kale dip!

A homemade football bread bowl with kale dip!

A big thank you to my readers for a) reading and b) sharing your works of art with me!

UPDATE: The kale and artichoke dip in the football bread bowl received rave reviews! Here it is for you to enjoy!  

 

 

Super Super Bowl snacks

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Yesterday I shared some super Super Bowl sips. To help soak up some of that booze, here are my super Super Bowl snack ideas.

Chili bar

Chili bar

Chili bar

Nacho bar

Nacho bar

Nacho bar

Football bowl 

Dip in a custom football bread bowl

Dip in a custom football bread bowl

A guac football field

A guac football field

A guac football field

Team-specific candied popcorn

Everyone loves popcorn!

Everyone loves popcorn!

And on to dessert!

Chocolate-covered strawberries

Healthy, cute and delicious! The perfect combo!

Healthy, cute and delicious! The perfect combo!

Cupcakes!?

So many ideas!

So many ideas!

Chocolate peanut butter football cookies

Peanut butter + chocolate + football = Yes, please!

Peanut butter + chocolate + football = Yes, please!

Ice cream sandwich footballs!

So cute, so tasty!

So cute, so tasty!

Brownie footballs! (As featured on my Q13 segment to kick off the 2014-15 NFL season!)

Q13 tailgating segment

However you end up snacking, you know it’s going to be good! Let me know if you end up trying out any of these great ideas! Oh, and GO HAWKS!!

{Wine Wednesday} Super Super Bowl sips

WineWednesday

It’s that week! It’s a big, big weekend for Seattle (and New England) football fans! It’s also a big weekend for those of us who like to throw parties (me) and watch the best-of-the-best TV commercials (me, again).

While I won’t be throwing a party this year (I’ll be working), I love to plan them and I love sharing my tips with you. Today’s post is all about the drinks of Super Bowl. Tomorrow we’ll have appetizers and on Friday, decor! There is plenty of time to make Sunday memorable. (Even if you’re not the Seahawks re-Pete-ing!)

Enough with the puns. On to the cocktails! Cheers!

Jell-O shots

Seahawks Jell-O shots made by my friend Laurel

Seahawks Jell-O shots made by my friend Laurel

My friend Laurel made these and they’re beautiful! I’ll bet they taste amazing too!

Washington Apple Twisted Shotz

Washington Apple Twisted Shotz

Washington Apple Twisted Shotz

I can’t find these online for the life of me, but I did see them at the Downtown Seattle Cost Plus World Market. They’re blue and green whisky-flavored liqueur and sour apple shots. Doesn’t sound the most appetizing, but they fit the bill in terms of Seahawks colors!

Skittle vodkas

Skittles vodka! Given some time, these will be vibrant

Skittles vodka! Given some time, these will be vibrant

I made these Skittle vodkas for my Q13 debut at the beginning of the NFL season. They’re super easy and super quick! Literally: you open the bottle and pop in a Skittle or two! Voila!

12th Blend Wine

Seahawks 12th Blend: Red, White and Rose!

Seahawks 12th Blend: Red, White and Rose!

Now we’re talking! There are several “12th {wo}man” wine options out there. These come from the Eye of the Needle in Woodinville. It’s not one of my most favorite wineries, but I do enjoy popping by there from time to time!

Plain old beer

Beer koozies

Beer koozies

Nothing wrong with plain old beer! While the alcohol content is there, you can still step up the presentation for this super SportsBall drinking event.

Drinking wine?

AstroTurf wine tags

AstroTurf wine tags

Spice up — and identify — your glass with a football-related tag.

Water

Water!

Water!

Oh yeah, and water. You need water to live (or to sober up after the game!) These are a cute presentation to your standard plastic water bottle. Don’t forget to reuse or recycle them when you’re done!

CHEERS!

Poop emoji meringue cookies

Poop emojiYou’re familiar with the poop emoji, right? It’s everywhere. I don’t think it’s possible to not know what it is. (In case you don’t know, that’s it over there on the right!)

Over the holidays I made a lot of meringue Christmas trees.

Meringue Christmas trees

Meringue Christmas trees

As I was making them, over and over again, the swirling really resonated and a genius idea came to me: these could look like piles of poop. Add a couple of sugar eyes and voila! The poop emoji.

So, I went about trying to make them. All meringue recipes are very similar: egg whites, sugar, vanilla, cream of tarter and color or flavoring. I followed this recipe for my poop emoji meringues. As opposed to coloring them brown, I used cocoa powder, so while they look like poop, they don’t taste like it.

I used a standard pastry bag and a #12 tip from Wilton for my emoji cookies. (I used a mid-sized star tip for the Christmas trees.) The raw meringue ‘dough’ is VERY sticky and you want to work fast, because once it warms up it falls flat. Carefully spoon the meringue into the bag and start swirling!

Swirl, swirl, swirl!

Swirl, swirl, swirl!

The base of the cookies are a little larger than a quarter. This is important to note, as this is where I my first batch of Christmas tree cookies faltered. If you want to do larger cookies, you’ll need a larger pastry tip.

More poop emoji cookies

More poop emoji cookies

Pipe the dough while swirling in a circle, on top of itself, leaving a little point at the top. There were a couple of cookies that weren’t perfect, but with the look I was going for, imperfect was perfect. The recipe makes about four dozen cookies, so if there are a couple of mess ups, it’s no big deal. Plus no matter how they look, they all taste the same, which is lightweight and delicious.

Poop emoji cookies

Poop emoji cookies

I added Wilton’s sugar eyes on about half of my meringues and that went over only so-so. The meringues cook for a long time at a low temperature. The sugar eyes aren’t supposed to be cooked at all, so they get a little wonky. If you want the perfect look, I would recommend adding the eyes after the meringues are cooked. I bought a white Wilton Sugar Sheet to use for the mouth, but my cookies were too small, as the eyes collapsed the base a bit during baking.

More cookies!

More cookies!

Adding the eyes makes them look a lot like emojis!

Adding the eyes makes them look a lot like emojis!

Big eyes for these little poops

Big eyes for these little poops

I hope this inspires you to make your own meringue emoji poop cookies. Once you do, share your experience here in comments!

 

 

Christmas food wrap-up

We had a wonderful Christmas holiday and hope that you did too! We celebrated with Brandon’s family in Idaho the weekend before Christmas, cooking and bringing nothing but a few bottles of wine.

Our Christmas Eve feast

Our Christmas Eve feast

We celebrated with my family on Christmas eve and brought several varieties of sweets. They look really nice plated together, don’t they?!

Christmas 2014 desserts

Christmas 2014 desserts (not pictured: raw chocolate macaroons)

All of my sweets were gluten-free and while none of the recipes were my own, I put my own creative flare on each of them. Here are the recipes for you to use as you see fit:

  • Polar bear peanut butter cups (So cute! However, these are crazy sweet! You’ve been warned! )
  • Raw chocolate macaroons (So good and so easy!)
  • Christmas tree meringues (We made several batches of these and while I would follow the instructions again, I would advise you to work quickly — the meringue liquefies if too warm — and don’t get too ambitious with the size of these trees. We found that keeping the base the size of a silver dollar worked best.

On Christmas day, Brandon and I had a leisurely morning and then hosted a brunch with my parents and Grandma. We cooked a feast and it was delicious! The frittata especially drew rave reviews.

Here was the menu:

  • Kale frittata
  • Aebleskivers with jam (a Danish Christmas specialty!)
  • Perfectly crispy hashbrowns
  • Turkey breakfast sausage
  • Assorted fruits
  • Orange juice

I started with this recipe for the frittata and then changed it… again.

  • Using the same technique, I made the following alterations:
  • I swapped the pepperoni for thin-sliced honey ham from the deli
  • I also swapped the Parmesan for reduced-fat smoked gouda from Trader Joe’s
  • I halved the onion, using only 1/2 a medium size onion
  • I added 1 c. of diced mushrooms. I cooked these and the onion down for about 10 minutes, prior to adding the other ingredients
  • I added a couple of pinches of the Pasta & Co. House Herbs (similar to Italian Seasoning)
  • Finally, I used too large of a frying pan, so I added 2 more eggs to even things out. It turned out great!
My off-the-cuff kale frittata

My off-the-cuff kale, ham and Gouda frittata

Abelskivers and sausage

Aebleskivers and sausage

Our Christmas morning spread!

Our Christmas morning spread!

After we went for a nice long walk, we also made tamales (from scratch!) on Christmas evening. I’m still working on that post and will share it soon!

I hope you’re enjoying your holidays and I’ll see you here {and on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter} soon!

 

Happy Thanksgiving {2014}

Hello and happy Thanksgiving from Megan’s Island! We’re thankful for YOU!

We’ve already feasted and now we’re relaxing and cheering on the Seahawks.

I took last year’s turkey-shaped vegetable tray to a whole new level with this beauty:

Our turkey-shaped antipasti plate

Our turkey-shaped antipasti plate

It contains:

  • The lemon/carrot/broccoli/sugar-eyed head
  • Cubes of triple-cream brie
  • Reduced-fat smoked gouda “feathers”
  • Marinated artichokes
  • Three types of cured meats
  • Black olives
  • Marinated mushrooms with garlic
  • Whole baby corn
  • Extra-long asparagus

And a couple more photos, since I love this thing and there isn’t too much left to look at– it got devoured!

Thanksgiving appetizer platter

Thanksgiving appetizer platter

I used tacky glue to attach the head features this year. I'd recommend the super glue we used last year, but the tacky glue worked.

I used tacky glue to attach the head features this year. I’d recommend the super glue we used last year, but the tacky glue worked

I love this thing! So cute AND delicious!

I love this thing! So cute AND delicious!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Thanksgiving appetizers

Sorry for the lack of posts this past week– I caught the crud that seems to be going around and it settled in for awhile. I hope I start feeling better soon! I’d like to be close to 100% for Thanksgiving and my annual Black Friday shop-a-thon.

My Thanksgiving vegetable tray turned out so well last year, my parents have asked me to bring an appetizer again this year for our festivities.

Thanksgiving vegetable tray | Megan's Island Blog

Thanksgiving vegetable tray | Megan’s Island Blog

I’ve scoured the internet (twist my arm!) and found some great new ideas. I won’t have a photo until Thursday, when I actually build the thing, but I’ve decided to take last year’s veggie tray and add olives, cheeses, and cured meats and make it a full-on antipasti platter, shaped as a turkey! Genius, right? And surprisingly, it doesn’t really exist on the internet. There is a first time for everything!

If turkey-shaped veggie and antipasti platters aren’t your thing, here are some other great ideas for Thanksgiving appetizers. I hope you have a great {short!} week!

Turkey cheese and cracker platter

Turkey cheese and cracker platter

Prosciutto cups 

Prosciutto cups with pear

Baked brie with cranberries and pistachios

Baked brie with cranberries and pistachios

Cranberry baked brie bites

Cranberry baked brie bites

Happy Thanksgiving week!

Happy birthday to me!

I’ve been celebrating my birthday month and over the weekend celebrated the actual day of my birth. We had friends over for a pizza party on Saturday to watch the Huskies win (yeah!), spent some quality time relaxing on Sunday, along with brunch at Roux (I wasn’t as impressed as I had hoped to be) and my annual family birthday dinner at Voila.

Here are some photos of my (first) weekend of birthday fun. I’m looking forward to continuing the celebrations this week and into next weekend!

Beer ping for the Husky game

Beer ping for the Husky game

My personal pizza chef hard at work

My personal pizza chef hard at work

Cupcakes from Stephanie & Parker

Cupcakes from Stephanie & Parker: Delicious!

Birthday cupcakes!

Birthday cupcakes!

Homemade focaccia

Homemade focaccia

Our first skillet cookie: so good!

Our first skillet cookie: so good!

Scallops and beet risotto from Voila! Seattle

Scallops and beet risotto from Voila! Seattle

More desserts for this happy 32 year old!

More desserts for this happy 32 year old!

My Q13 debut with tailgating treats and crafts!

I woke up early on Friday and made my way to the Q13 studio for my debut. It went really well and hopefully I’ll be back for future segments!

In case you missed it Friday morning, here is the segment:

Q13 tailgating segment

Find more information, including recipes, templates, and step-by-step instructions on the blog!

Here are some photos from my big morning. A very special thank you to my friend, and regular blog reader, Megan, for her help with the prep and execution of the segment. I couldn’t have done it without you!!

All set up on the weather deck

All set up on the weather deck

Watch out! Live microphone! Thanks, Walker.

Watch out! Live microphone! Thanks, Walker.

Cracking up Kaci -- maybe we were talking about frosting laces?

Cracking up Kaci — maybe we were talking about frosting laces?

Photo of the spread by Travis

Photo of the spread by Travis

My first "tease"

My first “tease”

Looked good on TV!

Looked good on TV!

And we're live in 3...2...1!

And we’re live in 3…2…1!

Thank you for reading! Have a wonderful week!!