From Pennies To Yennies

I love a good soirée. Sometimes I even wish soirée was my middle name (no, not really. But it is pretty and fun to say!). Even better, I am blessed with a fiancé that also enjoys entertaining. When we were living in Seattle we often entertained and had fun playing host and hostess to our friends.

As I mentioned last Friday, we decided to have a south of the border get together! Mexican food isn’t as common here, so we visited a couple international markets and got everything we would need to stuff our guests with tacos, burritos, guacamazing and Coronas and margaritas!

Of course, I like any excuse to get some baking done. Especially when it gives me a chance to play with my awesome new hand mixer! I decided to make my first ever cupcake with a savory batter- pancake cupcakes with maple bacon frosting! I didn’t know what I was getting myself into!

I mixed up the batter and it smelled just like pancake batter. While those baked I whipped up a batch of frosting while frying some bacon. I got that chopped up and added it to the frosting, along with maple syrup. Once I got the cupcakes frosted Dan was ever so kind as to devour one- he was a fan!

After that, just in case maple bacon wasn’t every body’s taste (hey, I do have vegetarian friends!), I made a batch of dark chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting. These were amazing! I piped the frosting on with a starry tip:

Our arriving guests spoiled us with wines and bubblies and there was much chatting and laughter. We were a diverse group of about 10-12 representing America, Japan and the U.K. We had drinks and played games. Later in the evening some decided to hit the road, so the rest of us did as you would when you’re having a fun night in Tokyo- enjoyed some karaoke!

L to R Brent, Erica, Duncan, Rachel and Dan

Oh, good fun was had here! Before we knew it our guests had to catch the last train of the night, and Dan and I found ourselves wandering back home.

The rest of the weekend was good and relaxing! We did plenty of post-party clean up, some typical weekend chores, and watched The Hunger Games and The Pixar Story, a really good documentary on the formation of Pixar and their earlier work.

Today brought massive amounts of reorganization to our little apartment, in my never-ending quest to find a place for everything I insist on owning and keeping. I unearthed several notebooks today… please remind me in the future i have enough notebooks!!

Have a great week!