Julie Ann Events: Dinner Party

Showing posts with label Dinner Party. Show all posts

Monday, October 28, 2019

Pampas Grass & Pink Pumpkins.

This year our fall centerpiece contains a mix of pink and white pumpkins, pink carnations, baby's breath, and pampas grass. We love the fullness that pampas grass provides. We started off by laying down the pampas grass for our base. Then we started layering the baby's breath at random intervals among the pampas grass.

We took the mini pumpkins that we had painted pink and the white pumpkins and placed them in the center of our arrangement. Painting orange pumpkins pink was a simple procedure of applying just a couple coats. We kept the white pumpkins their original color and I love their natural stem adding color to the centerpiece.

Pink carnations finished off the look of our centerpiece, which we tucked into the arrangement in random places. The flowers were the perfect filler for any holes to help make the arrangement fuller.

Tuesday, February 19, 2019

My New Love Of Homemade Vegan Pizza.

The hardest thing about homemade pizza is finding the patience to wait while the dough rises for the crust. But making your own pizza from scratch is so satisfying, tasty, and easy on the budget. Plus, where are you going to find gourmet vegan pizza and know exactly what went into making it? We found ourselves at home on a Saturday afternoon and with the cooler temperatures, having a make your own pizza party was the perfect activity to warm us up and bring some laughter into our household.

Since my 40th birthday, I'm been making more of an effort to eat a vegan diet so my two pizza's consisted of vegan mozzarella cheese and vegan parmesan cheese. This was the first time trying my hand at vegan pizza, and working with these two cheeses. I wasn't completely sure how the cheese would melt and end up tasting, but I was so happy with the end result. I've linked the cheeses I used at the end of this post that you can purchase on my Amazon site.

The first pizza, I kept simple with an olive oil base with crushed garlic. I added both kinds of cheese, and during the last five minutes of baking, sprinkled fresh spinach leaves on top. The second pizza I added a fig jam spread for the base, caramelized onions that I made while the pizza dough was rising, both kinds of cheeses, and finished it off with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar after it came out of the oven. Both recipes were so simple and yet so flavorful.

Vegan Mozzarella Cheese - Amazon {here} :: Vegan Parmesan Cheese - Amazon {here}

Friday, February 8, 2019

Chinese New Year Fortune Cookies DIY.

The fortune cookie is so iconic to Chinese cuisine in North America, but a completely foreign concept to the authentic Chinese diet in China. We still decided to include it on our dessert table for our Chinese New Year Party. However, we thought we would dress the common fortune cookie up a little using the colors of our party, of pink, red, and gold.

We laid out our unwrapped fortune cookies on parchment paper, melted a pack of white and pink Wilton Candy Melts in a double boiler on the stove, and had fun dipping the cookie into the chocolate. Immediately after the cookie came out the chocolate we added colored sprinkles in varying textures and set them out to dry on a clean sheet of parchment paper.

This was our first time tasting chocolate dipped fortune cookies, and like most things chocolate, you just can't go wrong with such a fun addition. This dish added such a fun pop of color to our table and helped to tie the colors of our party together. Let us know if the comment section if you decided to give this a try! We'd love to hear how it turns out!

Bamboo Steamer - Amazon {here} :: Authentic Chinese Rolling Pin - Amazon {here} :: Fortune Cookies - Amazon {here} :: Chinese Take Out Containers - Amazon {here} :: Pink & White Paper Lanterns - Amazon {here} :: Cupcake Wrappers - Amazon {here} :: Hanging Dragon Decoration - Amazon {here} :: Dragon Puppet - Amazon {here} :: Dragon Dog Costume - Amazon {here} :: Red Ribbon - Amazon {here}

Thursday, February 7, 2019

Yarn Tassels As Chinese New Year Decorations.

Fireworks are a huge part of warding off the bad spirits and keeping away evil during the Chinese New Year holiday. You will hear them all over the city and will be able to see their beauty in the sky throughout the night. For our Chinese New Year Party, we wanted to incorporate some modern decorations into the theme. We created these yarn tassels as a nod to the fireworks that play such an important role in the celebration. Our party colors were pinks with a touch of red, and so we chose our yarn colors accordingly.

Wednesday, February 6, 2019

Chinese New Year Dessert Table.

Dessert tables are one of our favorite to style for any party. This past week, our Chinese New Year dessert table was no exception. We tried to remain as authentic as possible with the theme of this event. Bamboo steamers were used to serve cupcakes and little candies from. We purchased almond cookies from World Market. Sweet rice crackers offered a gluten free option for those with special dietary needs.

Oranges are considered one of the lucky fruits to eat during the new year celebration. The round orange symbolize fullness and wealth. In Chinese, the sound of the word orange sounds very similar to the word success, and even has a symbol in the word orange that also has the word luck in it. These golden fruits are synonymous with the holiday.

It is very traditional to pass out red packets with money inside to children or to employees during this season. The red packet is to bring good luck and well wishes to the person it is being given to. For our dessert table, we added a bowl of chocolate coins in homage to the hongbao tradition. The final element to our dessert table was chocolate covered fortune cookies that we decorated with sprinkles. The fortune cookie is iconic in North America with Chinese food, but it is such a foreign concept in China.

Tuesday, February 5, 2019

Year Of The Pig Chinese Cupcakes.

Using our {Amazon Influencer List}, we purchased these adorable cupcake holders for our party. The holders were perfect with year and the animal stamped on the side of each holder. We made white cupcakes and a vanilla buttercream icing. A red fondant emblem was cut and we wrote out different messages on top with an edible ink gold pen. Messages that say Happy New Year, Peace, and Love on the top.

Monday, February 4, 2019

Chinese New Year 2019 - Year Of The Pig.

Xīn Nián Kuài Lè! Happy Lunar New Year! It's the year of the pig and we celebrated it with a small dumpling making party in our home for friends and family. After having learned several times from several different home cooks back in China, how to make dumplings from scratch, Mister Julie Ann Events and I tried to pass our knowledge on to our friends. We had a fun evening rolling out dough and pleating the little packets into dumplings that would taste good and hopefully stay together once we cooked them!

For our menu, we offered a variety of authentic Chinese dishes for our guests. After a successful trip to the Asian food market in Wilmington, North Carolina and the Hong Kong Supermarket in Myrtle Beach, we had fresh vegetables, herbs, snack food, and spices that are all authentic to China. We offered a variety of vegan, vegetarian, and gluten free menu item as well as food items for the meat eaters in our party. The one glaringly inauthentic menu item was in our appetizers of hummus and kalamata olives. We served tiny cherry tomatoes which is a food item that provides the lucky red color important in Chinese culture.

For a fun touch, we had passed our take out containers and chopsticks for people to eat their meal with. The meal consisted of bok choy, sesame mushrooms, steamed rice, tomato & egg, Chinese pancakes, and pork spring rolls. Since it is the year of the pig, we all made pork dumplings. The vegan option was a pumpkin, mushroom, and brussel sprout medley.

Thursday, November 23, 2017

American Thanksgiving In China.

I'm all about celebrating holidays even if the holidays are from another country other than the one we are living in. After-all, it's all about the traditions you're familiar with. We ordered our full turkey meal in from a chef in Beijing, which worked out beautifully after having worked a full day. There was no need to stand over a stove, I simply dressed the table with a simple place setting and invited our Hong Kong/Beijing family over for our weekly family dinner night.

Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Hosting A Whole30 Dinner Party.

A friend of mine that loves to entertain put together a small group of couples to host monthly dinner parties. We each took one month and chose a theme for the dinner. The sky was the limit for each of us and as a lover for all things entertaining, this group was right up my alley.

For our evening, I chose to do a full on Whole 30 dinner menu. I raided the Whole30 Instagram account for meal ideas, and settled on roasting individual Cornish hens, mashed potatoes, pumpkin soup, an arugula bacon salad, and green beans for the main course. For appetizers we enjoyed prawn and avocado bites, pear and prosciutto wraps, and finally chili and rosemary roasted nuts.

A trip to Ikea for a couple yards of fabric that I had them hem on the spot and turn into a tablecloth for me. I loved the simple black and white color scheme with a bold pattern. Another trip to the flower market to visit my favorite flower vendors for some greenery and white roses helped pull the look all together.

I made sure to print off the evening menu with everyone's name at the top as not only a place setting, but to also inform the guests of what to expect for the dinner for the evening. For a take home party favor, I placed a dish towel with a Chinese print made by another expat artist living in Beijing.

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Just Add Glitter.

Just add glitter. That seems to be my mantra lately, much to the chagrin of my family. A couple weeks before we celebrated American Thanksgiving I found myself in the toy shop with my two children. Although they knew they were not going to be purchasing anything that day, I decided that the bag of plastic animals needed to come home with me so I could cover them in gold glitter and add them to my Thanksgiving tablescape.

To cover the animals in glitter, we simply painted glue on to the animal and then sprinkled glitter all over them until they were completely drench in the shimmery stuff. We let them dry, and it was a quick, simple, and cost effective decoration.