Party at the Park

For my daughters forth birthday tomorrow, we're having a celebration with her cute pint-sized friends at the park. For dessert, I decided to do something different and have an ice cream sundae bar.

Kids love ice cream and they'll enjoy heaping on all their favorite toppings!

Ice Cream Flavors:

Vanilla Bean
Strawberry
Loaded Cookie Dough

Toppings:
Sprinkles (by far the kid favorite)
Mini chocolate chips
Gummy Bears
Candy Bar Pieces
Fresh Berries
Chocolate Syrup
Mini Marshmallows
M&M's
Small homemade chocolate cookies
Crushed Oreo's
Homemade whipped cream

Since we're doing the ultimate sundae bar, we're not having cake. Between the toppings and the gooey chocolate cookies, there will be plenty of satisfying sweets.

For food we're having pizza and I'm going to make a big tossed salad to go on the side. We want to keep it simple, but nice. When all is said and done, we'll have spent a hundred dollars or less. That includes the food, decorations, entertainment and party favors. If you're crafty, you can make some cute birthday frippery to keep the party cost down.

For my daughters birthday we're making embellished party hats and a cute personalized party banner. She choose her favorite colors for the hat and we just used odds and ends of different crafting material I had to decorate the hats and banner. I created my own templates for both. You can find also find templates online.

You can use anything to decorate the party hats. We used paper flowers, feathers, pom pom balls, stickers, decorative yarn, etc. For the chin strap you can use a piece of yarn or coated elastic (craft stores).




For the banner, I decorated the pendant flags with various embellishments that reminded me of my daughter and the things she's into now. I also put her name and age on some and I'll include pics of her from when she was a baby until now. I print out the photos on regular paper and cut them out and paste them on. To link the flags together you can sew them, leaving an inch or two between each one or punch holes on the outer corners and use yarn...there are many ways to make one!
I'll post pics of the finished crafts and party in a few days! We're off to a good start though. Should be fun. I'm excited to see how it all turns out!

Sundae Heaven

I was making gooey chocolate cookies for a BBQ and my husband came into the kitchen. I had just pulled the chilled dough out of the refrigerator when my husband commented that the chocolate dough would be good in ice cream. Hmmm. Of course that got me thinking. We did have some vanilla bean ice cream on hand...so I got to work. I took some of the soft cookie dough and shaped it into small squares, wrapped it in plastic and stuck it in the freezer. While they were chilling, I got a batch of cookies ready and put in the oven to bake. Then I scooped some vanilla ice cream into a bowl and folded in the chilled cookie dough squares. That didn't seem like enough, but then the oven timer went off. So, I pulled the cookies out and placed a piping hot cookie on top of the ice cream and then topped it all off with chocolate sauce.

As my husband says, "It was to die for". He insisted I take I bite. I wasn't expecting anything spectacular, but after one bite, I said Wow! It was really, really good. The warm cookie mixed with the cold ice cream, cookie dough chunks and chocolate sauce was heavenly! I will be making this again soon. Delicious!

Gooey Chocolate Cookies
1 (8 oz) pkg. cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup salted butter, softened
1 egg, room temperature
1 tsp. vanilla
1 chocolate cake mix

Cream together cream cheese and butter until light and fluffy, 5 minutes. Beat in egg and vanilla. Beat in cake mix. Wrap dough in plastic and chill in refrigerator for two hours or freezer for 30 minutes. *If making cookie dough sundae, shape some of the dough into squares and freeze separately.

Roll chilled dough into balls. Roll balls in powdered sugar and place on cookie sheet two inches apart. Bake at 375 for 11 minutes. Do not over bake! Cookies will look gooey when they come out. They will set when cooling.

Cookie Dough Ice Cream Sundae
Vanilla Ice Cream
Chocolate cookie dough chunks from above recipe, chilled
1 or 2 hot gooey cookies
Chocolate sauce

Pull ice cream out of freezer and let soften briefly. Fold in chilled chocolate cookie dough chunks. Top with a hot gooey cookie or two. Drizzle with chocolate sauce and enjoy immensely.

Restaurant Review

Where: Market Street Grill University (260 South 1300 East)

Website: http://www.gastronomyinc.com/broiler/

Market Street Sabayon

What's Good /

My favorite is the Crab & Avocado Sandwich. Thick slices of buttery grilled sourdough bread are filled with a generous amount of Dungeness Crab, Jarlsberg Cheese and a special sauce. 14.99

Fresh Wild Salmon, broiled with their yummy Margarita Butter 21.99

Their famous Clam Chowder served with warm bread straight from the oven and butter for dipping. Soup recipe below.

Juicy Hamburger. Lettuce, Tomato, Pickle, Choice of Cheese 10.99

Market Street Salad. Mixed Greens, Gulf Shrimp, Dungeness Crab, tossed at your table with your choice of dressing. 17.99

And save room for dessert because they are a must!

Midnight Chocolate Cake

Fresh Fruit Tart

Raspberry Almond Cake

Market Street Sabayon

You can get any of these yummy desserts to go. They are big, gorgeous and damn good.

Tips: If their lot is full, parking is available in the Einstein's Bagel lot located directly north of the Market Street.

They also feature their Take Home Market where you can pick up any of their entrees, fresh seafood (flown in daily), fresh deli salads, Market Street Clam Chowder, baby back ribs, a variety of their fresh sauces and salad dressings, fresh produce, and of course their baked desserts.

Lunch: Mon-Sat 11 a.m. - 3 p.m.

Dinner: Mon-Thurs 3-10 pm / Fri & Sat 3-10:30 pm / Sun 4-9 pm

Fish Market: Daily 10 a.m. - closing

Market Streets Clam Chowder
This thick and hearty soup is so buttery and delicious.

http://www.gastronomyinc.com/recipes/clam_chowder.html

Market Streets Sabayon

Vanilla Bean Ice Cream is topped with a white wine sauce and sprinkled with fresh berries. This dessert is unique and very refreshing. the wine sauce make this.

You have to be really careful if you want the sauce to turn out. I called the chef before hand and he gave me the exact recipe they use down to the kind of wine (which is a boxed wine, kind of funny). Anyway, you have to watch this constantly, don't walk away and let it sit in the double broiler without stirring it or it won't turn out. Be prepared to stir it for 10 minutes until it thickens and the alcohol burns off. Otherwise you get a bitter, runny, puddle. Not too elegant.

Sabayon Sauce:

Ingredients
4 egg yolks

½ C. Triple Sec

1 C. Chablis (Franzia boxed white wine)

¼ C. powdered sugar

Directions
Mix ingredients together in the top of a double boiler and cook over medium heat, stirring continuously, for 20 minutes, or until the mixture becomes the consistency of a light custard.

Serve this delicious sauce in a pretty champagne glass over a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream and with fresh fruit on top. Fresh whipped cream makes it extra yummy.

Ice Cream Makeover

So again, I was desperate for something sweet. And again, my baking cupboard was pretty sparse. I didn't have enough basic ingredients to make anything, not even simple vanilla short bread. So, I turned to my freezer and pulled out a gallon of french vanilla ice cream. Now, I wasn't craving just plain ice cream, so I had to get inventive. One thing I did have in my cupboard, was various flavored extracts.

First concoction on the menu...

Coconut Ice Cream
I blended 1 cup french vanilla ice cream with,
1/4 cup shredded coconut and,
1 tsp coconut extract *

The second time around, I added an additional 1/4 tsp almond extract to the mix. Both tasted pretty similar, with the almond version being slightly sweeter. I also like nuts in my ice cream, so if I had them I would have added chopped almonds as well. If you like coconut, these were both very good and very satisfying.

Second

Coffee Smoothie
I blended 1 cup french vanilla with,
1/4-1/2 cup, chilled strong brewed coffee and
1 Tbs. espresso, dissolved in extra coffee

My husband really liked this smoothie and asked for me to blend some shredded coconut in for texture, which I did, and then he drank it down, and wanted more.

Other versions I thought of, but didn't have the ingredients to try.

Berry Ice Cream
Vanilla ice cream blended with
fresh or frozen fruit and
1 tsp vanilla extract or almond

Lemon Ice cream
Vanilla ice cream with the,
zest and juice of one lemon, plus
lemon extract

White Mint and Chocolate
Vanilla ice cream with
mint extract and
mini chocolate chips

There are many combination you can do with a few extracts and some ice cream and I would have tried them, if only I hadn't run out of ice cream!

*You may have to add a few teaspoons of milk to the blender to get the ice cream and ingredients going.