WIAW: Baby Shower Edition

Have you entered my Popchips giveaway?  You have until tonight!

For this WIAW, I figured I’d highlight all the delicious food we had at my Baby Shower on Saturday.  Head over to Jenn at Peas and Crayons to join the party in the way you see fit!

Speaking of parties, who doesn’t love one that’s all about them?

Um, this girl.

I have to say, I had some trepidation about the shower, mainly because I always hear that people think they are boring and also because I don’t like to be the center of attention.  It’s one thing to be in the limelight for a moment at a dinner party or be the focus at the front of the room while giving a technical presentation.  It’s quite another when the whole party is about you, and opening up presents.  I’m glad I only had a Bachelorette party and not a Bridal Shower on top of that.  Too much attention!

That being said, the day went wonderfully and I do think everyone had a really nice time (yay!).  I also think alcohol helped   Mimosas anyone?

Because the shower started at 1p, we weren’t serving a formal lunch, but certainly plenty of snacks along with some more substantial foods like Butternut Squash Cranberry Quinoa.  We loosely followed this recipe and made adjustments here and there: Added 2 cups dried cranberries, roasted squash in olive oil and s&P (vs lemon), used green onions instead of shallots, and omitted the chives, and upped the thyme to taste.  So um yeah,  I guess a lot of changes.

This is a great Fall quinoa salad, but is more on the subtle blander side.  This was probably best for a big group, but if I were to make it again, I’d probably use yellow onions, some rosemary, and tons more ground peppa

My MIL also whipped up some Palmiers (using puff pastry).  She made two kinds: Ham, Gruyere, and Rosemary; and Pesto, Roasted red pepper.  I only had the veggie and thought they were fab. They were a big hit at the shower too.

Of course we had tons of cheese (WI Sharp cheddar, Havarti Dill, and, Gouda) and TJ’s crackers.  Served alongside veggies (peppers, carrots, and cucumbers) with TJ’s spicy hummus. 

What’s a shower without the treats!?!

Since I spent a good deal of money on the custom favors (through Etsy Lori’s Place – she was fab, btw).  We really wanted to keep the angel theme going and worked to develop this design in a tasty shortbread cookie:

Cupcakes also make such a great shower treat, but I didn’t want to spend too much money on anything fancy, so I brushed up (err, learned) my decorating skills and came up with these:

Maple cupcakes!  Yum, yum, and yum.  I followed the recipe to a “T” except for using extra large eggs to add more moisture (previous reviewers said there’s were dry); I doubled the recipe and tripled the icing recipe.  Well, though the icing was beyond delicious, I had to nix it at the end because it was way too runny to use with a frosting tip.  Fail.  Luckily I was prepared and had plain vanilla frosting on hand to which I added 1+ tsp of maple extract before using my decorating bag/tip.  They turned out great!

And being Fall and also pumpkin obsessed, I whipped together pumpkin spice cookies (1 box spice cake, 1 15oz can pumpkin, and 1+ cups chocolate chips; bake at 350 deg for 12 minutes), which also went over extremely well.

Of course there was present opening:

And games:

It was such a lovely time and I am so grateful for my friends and family that attended (I had a couple people from LA, FL, VA, and MA!!!) – such love

What foods do you like to see at parties (and yes, dessert items are considered food)?

Edible favors or usable favors?

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