Easy, Elegant Entertaining

One of my ultimate favorite things to do is to celebrate life by entertaining. To most entertaining is a daunting, stressful idea...I am here to clear the air and help you realize that entertaining can be easy and elegant. The first thing you want to do is come up with your theme, this is what you'll usually center your food and decor around. Being creative with serverware is another tidbit I love to focus on, the details will truly pull in all your guests and having them saying, "Wow!" all event long.

The first thing I love to do is have a beautiful arrangement of flowers, candles, glasses as a tablescape for my guests to see. With the help of my fabulous friend, Amanda Kordes, we found some wild sunflowers that I picked, which looked lovely for our Southern Ladies Cooking Club. We then surrounded the sunflowers with beautiful glasses, antique pieces and some chocolate-berry compote cupcakes.

Chocolate Berry-Compote Cupcakes

2 cups organic unbleached flour
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 Tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
pinch salt
1 cup organic skim milk
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
3 oz semi-sweet chocolate

Combine soft butter and sugar until creamed. Add dry ingredients, mix until blended. Add milk and vanilla, blend well. Melt chocolate and add with eggs, slowly. Pour into greased cupcake pan and bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes.

While the cupcakes are baking put blueberries, blackberries and raspberries into a sauce pan with sugar on medium heat.

Berry Chocolate Icing

1/2 cup butter
2 Tbsp light corn syrup
4 cups powdered sugar
2 oz semi-sweet chocolate

Add soft butter into mixer, mix until creamy. Add corn syrup, mix on high til creamy. Slowly add in powdered sugar. Melt chocolate in a double boiler (if you don't have one put a metal  bowl on top of a sauce pan with a bit of water, make sure the bottom of the bowl cannot touch the water, bring the water to boil, once boiling turn heat down, chocolate will melt, stir constantly to avoid burning). Add in chocolate, put in a piping bag or ziploc bag to ice cupcakes.

Meanwhile, stir berries until the sugar has reduced the fruit into a jelly-like compote. Remove from heat to cool. Once cooled put into a piping bag or ziploc for cupcake filling.

When cupcakes are down, let them cool, then poke little holes in each cupcake, fill with berry compote and ice with piping bag. Ta da!

The next thing I like to have out when my guests arrive is a few things to snack on, when I was registering for my wedding I found this tri-bowl serving set that I just loved, it was perfect to put a few snacks in when entertaining. You could put in almonds, cubes of cheese, cherry tomatoes, dark chocolate, granola, berries, etc.

After my wedding I received some really fun serverware plates from Martha Stewart's Living collection. They are all different pattens of various leaves, this one in particular I used for some cajun jalapeno poppers that delighted any palate!

Cajun Jalapeno Poppers

My husband and I decided to make two different kinds, one had a batter on it and one was left simple. We took 1/2 package of cream cheese, cajun seasoning, fresh jalapenos (completely de-seeded and cleaned), bacon, 2 Tbs flour, 1/4 cup milk. For the battered poppers we first mixed the cajun seasoning into the soft cream cheese (and in the flour), filled each half jalapeno, wrapped in bacon then dipped into the cajun spice flour, dip into milk then back into cajun spice flour mix.

For the un-battered jalapeno poppers we mixed the cajun spices into the soft cream cheese, wrapped in bacon. We baked all of the jalapeno poppers into 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Cream cheese should be bubbly and bacon should be crisp.

Enjoy all these lovely recipes and ideas for your next girl's night in, birthday party, dinner for the in-laws or for your special someone.

xo Lo

Ay Mamacita! Chicken Enchiladas Suizas

Yesterday was my husband's mother's birthday, she passed away 10 years ago and would've been 57 years old. We decided we wanted to celebrate her birthday and memory by eating what she would've eaten. My husband tells me she loved hamburgers, Dr. Pepper and Mexican food...so he put me up to the challenge to make some homemade enchiladas.

After stopping by the grocery store for our necessities I got to work, if you have a dutch oven or large sauce pan grab it and follow the recipe below.

Ingredient List

3 cups water
2 cups chicken stock (always better than chicken broth)
2-3 lbs of roma tomatoes
2 jalapeno peppers
1 yellow onion
3 bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts
1/3 cup of Mexican crema (or sour cream...but Mexican crema is miles better)
1/3 cup Queso Fresca (white Mexican crumbly cheese)
12 white, corn tortillas (try to get the "homemade" kind)
2 bay leaves
3 cloves garlic
1/2 cup vegetable, canola or olive oil (for frying)
2 Tbs olive oil
1 can of black beans
salt & pepper

The first thing you want to do is put 3 cups of water, 2 cups of chicken stock, chicken breasts, bay leaves, 2 cloves of garlic (whole) , salt and pepper into your dutch oven or large sauce pan, turn it up on medium-high heat. Once the pot comes to a boil, turn down to medium to simmer and set your timer for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, turn your broiler on high, place tomatoes and jalapenos on baking sheet with aluminum foil underneath- put tomatoes and jalapenos in broiler for 12 minutes.

Start dicing up 3/4 of your onion, turn chicken, tomatoes and jalapeno to make sure all side are being cooked. After 12 minutes put tomatoes into a blender, slice jalapeno in half, de-seed and peel off the skin. Pour remaining juices from the pan into the blender, take out garlic cloves from the chicken pot and put into blender. Place additional garlic clove into blender as well. Puree the tomato-jalapeno mixture until smooth.

Once chicken is done take out of pot and place on a plate to cool. Discard the bay leaves and pour the chicken liquid into a bowl for later use. Drizzle olive oil into the same dutch oven or sauce pan and saute the diced onions for about three minutes, or until they are golden- on medium heat. After the onions are golden, pour in the tomato-jalapeno puree. Change heat to medium-high and bring to a simmer. Add in 3 cups of chicken stock liquid and let the sauce cook down- about 20 minutes.

After the chicken has cooled, shred chicken and discard skin, bones and icky stuff. Add in Mexican crema and half of the queso fresca, let sit until sauce is ready.

Get oil ready for frying in a skillet or saute pan. When tomato-jalapeno sauce is ready pour 1 1/2 cups onto the bottom of a 13x9 deep, baking dish. Save extra chicken stock and tomato-jalapeno sauce for later use, think soups, rice, pasta or chicken!

Fry tortillas 20 seconds per side, immediately stuff about 2 Tbs of chicken mixture into each tortilla roll up, seam down. (This is easier as a two person job.) Once all tortillas are stuffed, sprinkle any extra chicken on top then pour another cup of the sauce on the enchiladas. Sprinkle with remaining queso fresca and remaining sliced yellow onion.

Bake at 375 for about 20 minutes or until hot and cheese has melted throughout. While enchiladas are baking put can of black beans into a sauce pan with olive oil and heat up. To plate pour beans on the plate then pile enchiladas on top with additional queso fresca. If this doesn't make you want to drink a margarita, I don't know what will!

xo Lo