1970′s Theme
The 1970′s have been known as The Disco Decade, the decade of peace signs and flower power! The Vietnam War dragged on into the seventies and war protests continued. However, on April 30th, 1975, the longest war in American history ended. Inflation and unemployment soared the later part of this decade. This decade is remembered for the Watergate Scandal and Vietnam War. The nation was desperate to find a leader to give confidence back to the people. It was a decade of hope and dreams!
During this time, Billy Bush was born on October 13th, 1971. During this time Billy was living in New York. His mother cooked dinner every night, so I was inspired to do some of the classic homemade dishes, Chicken Pot Pie and Meatloaf and Mashed Potatoes, his mother served with a fun twist of making everything miniature. During the 70′s, the Creamsicle was a huge fad, so I used that to inspire the 70′s cocktail.
Mini Meatloaf and Mashed Potatoes
Meat Loaf
Ingredients:
1 ½ cup finely chopped onion
1 celery rib, chopped fine
1 carrot, chopped fine
1 tbsp. minced garlic
2 tsp. salt
1 ½ tsp. freshly ground pepper
2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
½ cup Ketchup
1 ½ pounds of ground chuck
¾ pound of ground pork or veal
1 cup breadcrumbs
2 large eggs, beaten slightly
¼ cup minced fresh parsley leaves
Directions:
- Preheat over to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
- In a large heavy skillet cook the onion, garlic, celery rib, carrot in butter over medium heat, stirring, for about 5 minutes. Cover the skillet and stir occasionally until the carrots are tender, about 5 more minutes. Stir in salt and pepper, Worcestershire sauce, and ¼ cup Ketchup. Cook for 1 more minute.
- In a large bowl, combine the meats, eggs, vegetables, breadcrumbs, and parsley. Scoop the mix into mini loaf pans, top off with Ketchup and bake for 45-60 minutes.
Mashed Potatoes
Ingredients:
2 lb. baking potatoes, peeled and quartered
2 tbsp. butter
1 cup milk
salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
- Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add potatoes and cook until tender but still firm, about 15 minutes; drain.
- In a small saucepan heat butter and milk over low heat until butter is melted. Using a potato masher or electric beater, slowly blend milk mixture into potatoes until smooth and creamy. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
To Make the Meat Loaf and Mashed Potatoes:
- Slice the mini meat loaf into halves.
- Top with a dollop of mashed potatoes
- Sprinkle with chopped chives
Mini Chicken Pot Pies
Ingredients:
3 cans Campbell’s Cream of Chicken Soup
2 packages of Grand Biscuits
2 9 inch unbaked pie crusts
Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit
- Using a mini muffin pan, fill the pans with unbaked piecrusts for 10 minutes.
- After allowing the pie crusts to cool for a few minutes, scoop the cream of chicken soup onto the baked piecrusts.
- Top with biscuit dough sealing the edges.
- Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown.
Personal Crudities
Ingredients:
Ranch Dressing
Carrots
Blanched Asparagus
Red Peppers
Directions:
- Using small votive candle holders, fill 1/3 of the way.
- Cut the carrots, blanched asparagus and red peppers into bite sized sticks.
- Fill the votive with the veggie sticks and serve.
Creamsicle Cocktail
Ingredients:
1 oz. vanilla vodka
½ oz. triple sec
orange juice
half and half
Directions:
- Pour the vodka and triple sec into a mixing glass filled with ice.
- Fill with equal parts of orange juice and half and half.
- Shake well.
Strain into a highball glass filled with fresh ice.
1970′s Inspired Playlists
Here is a great playlist to get your party guests enthralled into the 1970′s.
- Disco Inferno – The Trammps
- The Hustle – Van McCoy
- Stayin’ Alive – Bee Gees
- Shake Your Booty – The Hit Crew
- Bad Girls – Donna Summer
- Ladies Night – Kool & The Gang
- Turn the Beat Around – Vicki Sue Robinson
- Le Freak – Chick
- Don’t Leave Me This Way - Thelma Houston
- Knock on Wood –Amii Stewart
- If I Can’t Have You – Yvonne Elliman
- Hustle It – The Hit Crew
- Burn Baby Burn –Disco Inferno
- Rock Freak – GQ
- Toot Toot Beep Beep – Donna Summer
- Do the Boogie – FatBack
- Shake, Shake, Shake – KC & The Sunshine Band
1980′s Theme
The 1980′s was a decade of excitement. It was a decade of speaking out and fighting for what you believe in.
It was also an age where people found interest in debates, and solving problems.
During the 1980′s, Billy Bush was going to St George’s Academy in Newport, RI where he played Lacrosse and Hockey for his school. I was inspired to take a few of America’s favorite foods found in the cafeteria of any school and turned them into miniature snack bites with a 80′s inspired signature cocktail from the icon candy, The Astro Pop.
Pac Man and Cheese
Ingredients:
4 cups cooked elbow macaroni, drained
2 cups grated cheddar cheese
3 eggs, beaten
½ cup sour cream
4 tbsp. butter, cut into pieces
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
peanut oil
flour
1 egg
plain bread crumbs
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 35o degrees Fahrenheit.
- Once you have the macaroni cooked and drained, place in a large bowl and while still hot and add the cheddar.
- In a separate bowl, combine the remaining ingredients and add to the macaroni mixture.
- Pour macaroni mixture into a casserole dish and bake for 30 to 45 minutes.
- Top with additional cheese if desired.
- Chill macaroni and cheese in the refrigerator overnight.
- Cut into pieces using a round cookie cutter.
- Heat 2 inches of oil in a large heavy duty Dutch over to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Dredge each circle in flour then egg, and then coat with bread crumbs.
- Fry for about 1 minute on each side until golden brown.
- Drain on paper towels before serving.
Truffle Tater Tots
Ingredients:
1 large bag frozen tater tots
truffle salt
Directions:
- Follow the instructions on the back of the package to bake the tater tots.
- Sprinkle with truffle salt.
Mini Pizzas
Ingredients:
Frozen Pizzas
Directions:
- Heat the oven to the temperature as instructed on the frozen pizza.
- Using fun shaped cookie cutters, cut the frozen pizza into small pieces.
- Bake as instructed.
Astro Pop Cocktail
Ingredients:
1 oz. Absolut ® Raspberri vodka
1 oz. sweet and sour mix
½ oz. grenadine syrup
½ oz. Blue Curacao liqueur
Directions:
1. Add vodka and sour mix into a tumbler with ice to chill.
2. Shake ingredients and pour in a large shot glass.
3. Use Grenadine and allow to sink to the bottom of the glass (pour slowly
down the inside of the glass)
4. Allow Blue Curacao to sink to the middle of the glass (it will sit on top of the
grenadine if poured slowly down inside of the glass)
5. The finished product will be red, blue, then white from the bottom to top.
1980′s Inspired Playlist
Here is a great playlist to immerse your guests in the 80′s theme.
1. Rick Springfield – Jesse’s Girl
2. The Bangles Walk – Like an Egyptian
3. Belinda Carlisle – Heaven Is a Place on Earth
4. UB40 – Red Red Wine
5. Starship – Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now
6. Daryl Hall – Kiss on My List
7. Steve Winwood – Higher Love
8. Cyndi Lauper – Time After Time
9. Kool & the Gang – Celebration
10. Boston – Amanda
11. Eurythmics – Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)
12. David Bowie – Let’s Dance
13. Simple Minds – Don’t You (Forget About Me)
14. Escape Club – Wild, Wild West
15. INXS – Need You Tonight
16. Olivia Newton-John – Physical
17. Phil Collins – Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)
18. Lionel Richie – Truly
“Electric Shock” — Recommended by Uncle Fester
Uncle Fester
Uncle Fester, Gomez’s brother has an explosive personality and is in love with the moon. Fester runs on electrical current and can power electrical devices all on his own.
Cocktail:
Electric Shock
8 oz Highball
Ingredients:
4 oz Mountain Dew
1 oz Smirnoff Vodka
½ oz Chambord
1 pack Strawberry Pop Rocks
Lime Wedge
To garnish the rim of the highball, moisten the edge using lime juice and dredge in Pop Rocks. Fill the glass with ice. Fill a shaker with ice, Mountain Dew, Chambord and Vodka, shake until mixed and chilled. Pour into glass.
** To make non-alcoholic, replace Chambord with cherry juice and omit the vodka.
Food Pairings:
Bat Chips and Bloody Dip
Bat Shaped Pita Chips and red pepper oil drizzled hummus
Ingredients:
Hummus
Pimento Peppers
Pita Bread
Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper
To make Bat Chips: Using a bat shaped cookie cutter, cut the pieces of Pita Bread into the desired shapes, you may use any cookie cutter for the desired shape. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Brush the pita chips with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown.
To make Hummus: Using a blender, puree the pimento peppers. Drizzle the puree on top of hummus and serve.
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Uncommon Uses for Salt
I didn’t know salt could do that…!
I consider myself a gourmet salt connoisseur, an now I have copious amounts of ordinary table salt laying around. I’m going to start putting it to other uses aside from using it to boiling water. (Factoid: This does not make the water boil faster, but rather at a higher temperature. Surprised? So was I…)
Beside cooking with salt and making the food and beverages you enjoy that much more delicious, it is believed that there are more than 14,000 uses for salt in and out of the kitchen. Your grandmothers and their mothers were probably familiar with them, but with the advent of modern chemicals and cleaners, these age old uses have gone out with the bathwater. Many of the uses are valid today to clean, protect and serve around the house.
I thought I would share some of these salt tricks with you that go beyond the kitchen, but I hold no guarantee to the results. Seeing as salts have been around since the dawn of time, I believe it’s safe to say there is something solid to them. But don’t fret – if they don’t work for you, then you’re probably doing it wrong anyway…
Salt as a cleaning agent, by itself or in combination with other substances, restores, scours, protects and disinfects. A solution of salt and turpentine restores the whiteness to yellowed enameled bathtubs and lavatories. A paste of salt and vinegar cleans tarnished brass or copper. A strong brine (very salty water) poured down the kitchen sink prevents grease from collecting and eliminates odors.
Salt helps destroy moths and drives away ants. A dash of salt in laundry starch keeps the iron from sticking and gives linen and fine cottons a glossy, like-new finish. Wash your new denim in salt water to set the color and stay bluer longer. A thin paste of salt and salad oil removes white marks caused by hot dishes or water from wooden tables, but don’t over do it.
A box of salt is an important item in many bathrooms as well. In mild, well-dissolved solutions, it makes an excellent mouthwash, throat gargle or eye-wash; it is an effective dentifrice (toothpaste); it is an effective antiseptic; it can also be extremely helpful as a body scrub to improve complexion and rejuvenate dry skin.
So, as you see, salt can do much, much more than boil water.
Here are a few helpful unconventional kitchen uses
- Cleaning coffee pots – Remove bitterness from coffee pots by filling with water, adding four tablespoons of salt and boiling as usual.
- Removing onion odors from hands – Rub fingers with salt moistened with vinegar.
- Brightening cutting boards – After washing them with soap and water, rub bread and cutting boards with a damp cloth dipped in salt; the boards will be lighter and brighter.
Try these clever cleaning uses for salt:
- Removing wine stains – If wine is spilled on a tablecloth or rug, blot up as much as possible and immediately cover the wine with salt, which will absorb the remaining wine. Later rinse the tablecloth with cold water; scrape up the salt from the rug and then vacuum the spot.
- Restoring sponges – Give sponges new life by soaking them in cold saltwater after they are washed.
- Brightening colors – Wash colored clothes or washable fiber rugs and curtains in a saltwater solution to brighten the colors. Brighten faded rugs and carpets by rubbing them briskly with a cloth that has been dipped in a strong saltwater solution and wrung out.
Hygiene, Health & Beauty tips with salt:
- Gargling – Stir 1/2 teaspoon salt in an 8-ounce glass of warm water for use as a gargle for sore throats.
- Reducing eye puffiness – Mix one teaspoon of salt in a pint of hot water and apply pads soaked in the solution on the puffy areas.
- Removing dry skin – After bathing and while still wet give yourself a massage with dry salt. It removes dead skin particles and aids the circulation.
…Even more uses for salt:
- Drip-proofing candles – Soak new candles in a strong salt solution for a few hours, then dry them well. When burned they will not drip.
- Keeping cut flowers fresh – A dash of salt added to the water in a flower vase will keep cut flowers fresh longer.
- Deodorizing shoes – Sprinkling a little salt in canvas shoes occasionally will take up the moisture and help remove odors.
And my favorite…
- Removing tattoos -CAUTION- This is a medical procedure that can be done only by a physician. It is called salabrasion and requires several treatments by rubbing salt on the tattoo. Healing is required between treatments, but there is virtually no scarring.
Phew! That is a long list of uses… not quite 14,000 but quite a few. If you’re still with me (…and still interested), there are many more uses for salt in the kitchen and on the dining table that I will outline in my upcoming post “Salt in Foods” and in my Culinary Curiosity™ book, “An Entertaining Guide to Salt & Pepper™”
