The 'reception' we hosted for B4 and K - part 1

    I think that right off the bat I should make it clear, that NO, I have not forgotten that I promised to do more segments of the postings about their wedding. Namely, the two about her dress and about the beautiful bride. I'm still waiting for certain pictures and a certain camera so that I can do those....
    In the mean time, I had promised to try and be more consistent about doing postings, so I decided to just jump ahead and at least start the ones about the 'reception' we hosted for them.
    I 'think' I've mentioned, that for a variety of reasons, their wedding plans were changed and the guest list was shrunk way down. We then decided that we would host a reception for them and invite our family and friends to it. Kayla's parents then chose to do the same. Theirs was two weekends after the actual wedding. Ours was then two weekends after that.
   Seeings how a couple of you have strongly hinted about really wanting to know how I made a couple of the food items we served, I guess I shall do the postings about the food first. ;->.
    In part, the invitation we mailed out read,

"you are hereby warmly invited
to join us on
Sunday, the 25th of September, 2011
between 3 to 5:30 p.m.
for a light Open House Style Reception"

   We wanted people to be aware that we would not be serving a full meal. But we did include all of the basic food groups, chuckle, chuckle... more on this in a minute. o;-p

     Here is a picture of our food table.

 (do you recognize the table covering from THIS posting? ;->)

    The menu we came up with was:
    ~ Bacon Cheese ball
       accompanied by Club Crackers(R), Wheat Thins(R), and Gardetto's(R)
    ~ Veggie Pizza
    ~ Fruit Pizza
    ~ "Rugby Dip"
        accompanied by Nacho Scoop Chips (R)
    ~ Mini Sized Chocolate Cupcakes (this time I tinted the frosting black to match the wedding colors)
    ~ Brownie Cups
    ~ Coffee
    ~ Tang
    ~ Lemonade, with strawberries and their juice in it

    Now, about including all of the food groups. On September 21st (the Wed. before our 'reception') I had posted this on Facebook - "HUGE bacon cheese ball - done. Brownie bites - done. Sugar Cookies to use as base for individual fruit pizza's - baked. Time to go bake the choc. cupcakes. Sunday's reception is going to be yummy. o;-p" Brian's "sister" Terri has commented, "I'm seeing a common theme here.... junk food and sugar! yeah!" I commented back, "Terri - "JUNK food"? Your not looking at it right dear sis! The 'bacon cheese ball' contains both MEAT and DAIRY. There will be WHEAT thin crackers to eat the cheese ball with, thus covering another food group. The 'sugar cookies' are but the base for FRUIT pizza. There will also be VEGGIE pizza. And of course the chocolate cupcakes and fudge brownies cover the most basic of food groups - CHOCOLATE! o;-p"  she then replied, "I knew you would find a way to justify the junk food!! LOLOL Good job with that!"  Just gotta have the right perspective o;-p

    I found it rather comical how many people, during the reception, questioned me about how I made my this or that. I would always chuckle and state, "I put my own twist on things" before explaining what ever it was to them. Why are none of you surprised by that statement? o;-p

    I have no idea where (or I would gladly give them credit), but somewhere along the line of my blog jumping, I read something about somebody using sugar cookies as a base for their fruit pizza. I haven't done an internet search for the blog, figuring there is probably more than one which has, and I'm not sure I'd recognize the right one if I saw it. SORRY! The idea amazingly came to the surface of my brain when we started working on a menu for this, and I decided I wanted to try making up my own version of them.

    SUGAR COOKIE BASED FRUIT PIZZA
   ~ Sugar Cookie Base - I again used THIS recipe. Only instead of sticking the bowl of the dough in the fridge to refrigerate for several hours after mixing it together, I sprayed a piece of parchment paper with pan coating spray, and dumped the dough onto it. Then, after thickly coating my hands with the spray, I formed the dough into a long log.

    Then rolled the log in the parchment paper.

   Turned out it was longer than my pan,

  so cut it in half

  Refrigerated it all evening and overnight.  Next morning,

  sliced it, panned it,

     and baked them

   I had made 3 times the recipe. I remembered to measure it (the log) for reference sake (:-D) It measured 2 1/2 inches side to side, and 2 inches top to bottom. After cutting the log into individual cookies, my count was exactly six dozen.

    ~ Cookie topping. I used my favorite recipe for Fruit Dip as the topping.
         (I had found this recipe in Redbook Magazine (TM) back in June of '81, didn't subscribe... who knows how I found it...)
     1 - 8 oz. pkg. Philadelphia brand cream cheese(TM) (I used GFS brand)
     1 - 7oz. jar Kraft Marshmallow Creme(TM) (I again used GFS brand)
     (alternative - add a couple of Tablespoons Cherry Juice for different taste - pinkish color)
    Mix together and serve with fresh fruit.

    My tip, it helps greatly to microwave the cream cheese just a bit to get it soft enough to blend smoothly.

    I had tripled the sugar cookie dough recipe, so we did the same with the fruit dip recipe. Have a lot left over. But I have an idea what to use it on... o;-p

    I had made the cookies up days ahead of time, let them completely cool for several hours (still on their pans), then stacked them all on one pan, put it in a huge bag (the ones you put two loafs of bread in at Sam's Club(R) ), sealed it closed, and set it aside. Before the party, Benson was assigned the task of spreading the dip on the cookies, while others cut up the fresh fruit. We all then helped put the fruit on the cookies.

    When choosing which types of fruit to use, I was looking for a variety of colors; which fruits can be cut up ahead of time and not get discolored (BONUS TIP --> You can cut fresh fruit up a day ahead, put it in a plastic(!) colander with a bowl underneath, wrap the entire thing in plastic wrap, and store it in your fridge. The fruit will NOT get mushy using this method :-D); which fruits my family likes, and which fruits would go the farthest when cut into small pieces.
    The fruits I ended up using were - Muskmelon, Red Grapes (cut in half), Kiwi, and fresh pineapple (which none of my guys like, but all of my girls do, so we did some with and some with out. ;->).
    I had thought about using blue berries, but the current price took them off the list. And I had planned on picking up strawberries Sunday morning (not wise to buy them ahead of time!), but then spent the money on cans of whipped cream instead for the brownie cups.

     Somebody (whom shall remain nameless, so that her kids won't catch on ;-p) told me later, that she can hardly get her kids to eat fresh fruit, yet they were scarfing down my version of fruit pizzas. :-D

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I 'plan' on linking this particular posting up to:
  ~  "Kitchen Tip Tuesday('s)", hosted by Tammy, at 'Tammy's Recipes'  (http://www.tammysrecipes.com/).
 ~ "Tuesday's Tasty Tidbits", hosted by Susan, at 'Permanent Posies / Creative Chaos' (http://permanentposies.com/)
 ~ "Totally Tasty Tuesdays", are hosted by Mandy, at 'Mandy's Recipe Box' (http://www.mandysrecipebox.blogspot.com/).
  ~ "Tempt My Tummy Tuesday('s)", are hosted by Lisa, at 'Blessed with Grace'  (http://www.blessedwithgrace.net/).
   ~ "Foodie Wednesday('s)", are hosted by Bibi, at 'Daily Organized Chaos' (http://www.dailyorganizedchaos.com/).  
 ~ "Full Plate Thursday('s)", are hosted by Miz Helen, at 'Miz Helen's Country Cottage' (http://mizhelenscountrycottage.blogspot.com/).  
~ "Foodie Friday('s)" (shall we say # 1?), are hosted by "Gollum" (aka: Michael), at 'Designs by Gollum'  (http://designsbygollum.blogspot.com/)
~ "Bake With Bizzy", hosted at 'Bizzy B Bakes' (http://bizzybakesb.blogspot.com/).
 ~ "Sweets For A Saturday", are hosted by Lisa, at 'Sweet As Sugar Cookies' (http://sweet-as-sugar-cookies.blogspot.com/).