anna cooks - muddy buddies

Are you excited for the Super Bowl? I am - perhaps more for the food than the game, but that's all part of the fun. I'm heading to a Super Bowl watching party and I offered to bring a dessert I hadn't had in years: Muddy Buddies. Here's how I did it:

Muddy Buddies: A Photo Recipe

Get the full recipe here. 

anna diys - veep debate party signs

Last night my roommate and I had a few friends over to watch the Vice Presidential Debate. In preparation, I made some DIY veep face signs for guests to cheer with.

Here's how I did it - Materials:

• Half-a-page cut outs of veep candidates (I used their official portraits)
• Red and blue straws
• Tape

1. Cut out the heads, 2. Tape the straws to the back 3. Voila! VPOTUS face signs!

The Biden signs got much more use since Biden dominated, but we enjoyed cheering for Ryan when he tried to incorporate weird anecdotes...

We also played TIME’s Vice Presidential Debate Drinking Game, which was fun. 

anna parties - birthday cake

Yesterday was my birthday! I turned 25. I had a little after dinner party of cake and prosecco on our roofdeck. Despite generous offers from others, I decided I wanted to make my own birthday cake. For me, birthdays are all about the cake. I chose Ina Garten's Beatty's Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting.

I had never made it before, but it turned out wonderful. It was an easy cake to make, and the buttermilk in it made it very moist and delicious. The frosting was good, but definitely on the sweet side. I might make something less sweet next time.

Here's to my first quarter century!

PS: For more info on the dress I'm wearing, click here. 

anna parties - welcome back diy

Today my boyfriend comes back from Brussels, where he has been doing an internship for the past two months. To celebrate his arrival, I made a quick Welcome Back banner and cookies. I like the homemade look of the banner, and the rainbow sprinkles on the cookies match nicely.

I cut the letters out free form from construction paper, and then punched holes in the letters. I strung ribbon through the letters to hang them. I didn't have enough ribbon to make a second row, so I tapped the next row of letters to the first row.

Welcome back, Jake!

anna cooks - going vegan and not

My roommate and I had some friends over for dinner last Sunday. One of our guests was Yifan Luo, the author of the vegan food/ fitness blog, vegandurance. As you may have guessed from her blog, Yifan is a practicing vegan.

As a host cooking for a mixed crowd of vegans, vegetarians, and meat-eaters, deciding what to cook was even harder than usual. I ended up going with a vegetarian main-course that could be served vegan or not, depending on if you added cheese.

Since I had been craving pasta, I turned to an old Giada De Laurentiis family favorite: Rigatoni with Eggplant Puree. The recipe is available on the Food Network website, and is very easy to follow. 

I paired the pasta with a coleslaw I made using a light dressing of (vegan version) white wine vinegar, apple cider vinegar, dijon mustard, sugar, salt, pepper, olive oil, and (added only to not vegan version) a little mayonnaise.

The dinner was lots of fun, and I'm excited to try out some new vegan recipes in the future! I might start with Yifan's recipe for Raw Kale Fuel Bars (did I mention she is a triathlete!) on the blog Yum Universe.

anna parties, etc. - 4th of July s'mores

Happy fourth of July! I made a batch of s'mores of a stick for a fireworks watching party I'm hosting. See how I did it here. I got the patriotic tooth picks from iparty.

dessert, etc. - summer sweets

The fourth of July is a little over a week away, which means it is time to start brainstorming party ideas. My first thought for a party always goes to the food - by which I mean the dessert - and so I was happy to find a  bunch of fun America-themed dessert ideas on pinterest. Here are some of my favorites.

I love these American themed fruit skewers from Party City. It is clever without being overly complicated. 

Another cool way to serve fruit on the fourth is this cookie cutter fruit salad from the blog Wit & Whistle. The author mentions the possibility of adding white rasberries, which I think would be awesome.

Moving away from fruit, I think I might bring back the S'mores on a Stick I made a few weeks ago. They were easy to make, easy to serve, and delicious. Fine the recipe here. You could always replace the pinwheels with mini-American flag toothpicks.

This is not particularly fourth of July themed, but I had to add a few pictures from the Oh Happy Day blog post Giant Banana Split. Now that's my kind of sundae.

Do you have any cool fourth of July dessert ideas? Share them in the comments!

anna cooks - dessert

My friend, Mara, invited me to a picnic in the North End. I volunteered to make a dessert after seeing an intriguing recipe for S'mores on a Stick on Pinterest. The recipe came from the site babble, and after reading the instructions (which include some wonderful pictures), I decided to give it a try.

I found these cute pinwheel toothpicks from iparty, which added some color and whimsy to the presentation. Overall, S'mores on a Stick were super easy to make and tasted delicious. I will definitely be making this again!

S'mores on a Stick - A Photo Recipe.

What you need:

What you do:

I added some heavy cream to my semi-sweet chocolate to make it extra decadent.

What you eat:

Yum.

See a more detailed recipe from the babble blogger JULIEVR here. 

anna gifts - birthday party in a box

Finding the perfect gift is both a talent and an art. In this blog post I wanted to share a birthday gift I recently made: A Birthday Party in a Box. I got the idea from the blog You Are My Fav. It is a great present to send to a long-distance friend. You can customize the contents with whatever party items you think s/he will enjoy. Here is the one I made:

I bought all of the party contents at iParty, except for the box itself, which is an old lettuce container I washed out. The sign reads: Birthday Party in a Box! Just add friends. The total cost for the party contents was under $15. 

Content includes:

- Blank business card that I turned into a mini invitation

- Blue crate paper

- Noise makers

- Confetti popper

- Solo cups

- Electronic candles

- Balloons

- Happy Birthday banner

- Beaded necklaces

I packaged it with a homemade card and the real gift (custom stationary from the Etsy shop Honizukle Press, which turned out wonderful!) on top.

Thank you You Are My Fav for this great idea. I look forward to putting together some other themed boxes.