garden party

Recently, I was asked to cater an event at a beautiful home here in Nashville. The gardens were simply gorgeous and I was so happy to get a tour and be a party of this fabulous event! Here is a sampling of the bites that I prepared for this lovely afternoon soiree...

caramel fudge ball

When I was little, my grandfather was a member of the Belle Meade Country Club. My mother used to take all 6 of us - my sister and our 4 cousins - and drop us off at the club. We would swim all day and play tennis and charge stuff to granddaddy's account. My absolute favorite thing to get was a caramel fudge ball. It is rich and creamy vanilla ice cream, rolled in a ball, coated with crumbled chocolate cookies and smothered in caramel sauce. They were about the size of your fist, and just seemed like the most wonderful ball of heaven to all of us children. Now that I am all grown up, I often make these for my fiancé and his son. They love them just as much as I did! For his birthday this year, I decided to go crazy and make a gigantic one as his cake. Needless to say, it was a big hit!

spaghetti squash

Yesterday morning on the Today Show they had a segment on fall vegetables. They were saying that you can stretch spaghetti by adding spaghetti squash. Use half noodles, half squash and cut your calories and carbs in half. I just so happened to have one of these bad boys in my fridge so I thought I'd give this a try. So yummy! The squash noodles add a little bite to the dish. It was way better than I thought it would be. Next time I may go all squash and no noodles. You just never know - I'm pretty crazy like that! Just cut your squash in half, scoop out the seeds, roast it in the oven at 375º for and hour, then scoop out the noodly flesh and add it to your favorite pasta recipe.