Hosting a Mad Men Party

Today’s post is dedicated to our good friend and original “Mad-Men-Watchin’-Buddy” Karin 🙂

Caption Contest! Write what you think Don is thinking in the comments below!

If you are like us and love AMC’s Mad Men then you already know that this Sunday night is the season finale. We could probably write an entire post on our thoughts about this season but alas we are a food blog. Now, if you are like us and love Mad Men enough to throw a Mad Men viewing party, this post is for you!

Back when we were getting our friends caught up with the first four seasons of Mad Men, we would usually have someone bring/make a specialty drink. However, now that we are stuck watching this season at 10pm on Sunday nights, we’re all a little tired by then so our viewing “parties” have been a little lack luster. But not this week!

Luckily for us we found this awesome guide provided by AMC which has everything you need to plan a Mad Men party. Luckily for you we picked out the good stuff!

Food

If you want to serve authentic time-appropriate food, check out this menu to see some great options.

Of course, we already have some great options so try some of ours too!

• Corn Cake
• Fried Pickle Chips
• Pasta Salad
• Goat Cheese Dip

Drinks

We’ve posted a few cocktails, and they’re all easy and yummy! Now remember, you must be at least 21 to make/consume these!

• Berry Blue Moon
• Key Lime Pie Cocktail
• Pineapple Upside Down Cake Martini

Or if you want a true 60’s inspired drink menu, try out some of these:

• Old-fashioned (Don Draper’s go-to!)
• Dirty Martini (Want to be witty like Roger Sterling?)
• Whiskey Sour (Actually one of Erica’s favorite drinks)

And don’t forget to dress in your best Mad Men chic!

There you have it folks, everything you need to host your very own Mad Men party! Have fun on Sunday and let us know what you thought about the finale!  Be safe and don’t over do it with the drinks!

But first, a quote from one of our favorite characters. Any thoughts?

“My generation, we drink because it’s good, because it feels better than unbuttoning your collar, because we deserve it. We drink, because it’s what men do.” — Roger Sterling

-D&E

Fried Goat Cheese

Oh man it’s already Wednesday and we haven’t posted anything this week! We were down in Maryland again this past weekend for wedding stuff and we were both really busy! Trust us you guys – once we are married, we will have more time to devote to you!

Also, we picked out our wedding song! We chose “In My Life” by The Beatles:

The wedding is getting closer and closer!

Print this recipe!

Crusty on the outside, warm and creamy on the inside! Adapted from this recipe.

• Servings – About 8 coins
• Prep time – 15 minutes
• Cook time – 5 minutes

Ingredients

• 8 ounces goat cheese log
• 1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
• 1 teaspoon dried parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• pinch of kosher salt
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/4 cup of flour
• olive oil

Protocol

1. Place your goat cheese log into the freezer for 15 minutes. This will help to firm it up which will make it easier to cut.

2. In a small bowl, mix together the panko bread crumbs, parsley, thyme, garlic powder, pepper, and salt.

3. Remove the cheese from the freezer, cut with a sharp knife into about 1/2 inch size slices. This should yield about 6 to 8. If slices fall apart, simply reform them with your hands.

4. Align in order the following: shallow plate of flour, bowl of beaten egg, and bowl of bread crumbs from step 2. Taking one slice at a time, coat in the flour, dip into the egg, and then coat with the bread crumbs. Set aside each slices on wax paper.

5. In a nonstick pan, pour in enough olive oil to coat the bottom. Heat over medium-high heat and wait for the oil to shimmer. Place the cheese slices into the pan and fry for about a minute a side or until golden brown. Flip gently with a spatula. Don’t crowd the pan!

6. Serve over a salad or on their own and enjoy!

-D&E

Gazpacho (kinda like cold tomato soup)

Okay, so you’ve probably already seen this commercial by now (in no way are we endorsing Apple or iPhones by including this is our post (Declan actually hates Apple)):

Declan had a difficult time understanding the “hot-zpacho” joke (he also had a difficult time recognizing Samuel Jackson in this commercial) until Erica explained that gazpacho is basically a cold soup. Declan loves soups so he had to look up a recipe. Luckily, we found a recipe in one of our cookbooks. We gave it a shot and we’re really happy with the results.

Now you might be thinking, “why would a college student ever need to make gazpacho?” You’re right, an average college student probably doesn’t make (or even eat) gazpacho; but if you haven’t already noticed, we’re not your average college students, and neither are you by reading this blog! Just give it a shot, if it worked for Jules Winnfield (Pulp Fiction anyone?) on his date night, it’ll work for you.  Also, if you don’t have AC like us, this is a great dinner to cool down with!

Gazpacho

Just try it! ← Psst, this is a Mad Men reference from what episode?

Print this recipe!

• Servings – 4
• Prep time – 10 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 small cucumber, peeled and chopped
• 2 red bell peppers, chopped
• 2 green bell peppers, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 tablespoons cilantro, roughly chopped
• 2 cups strained tomatoes (we just used one big can of plum tomatoes)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• 1 1/4 cups vegetable stock
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• Salt and pepper

Protocol

1. Either with a blender, immersion blender, or food processor, blend together the cucumber, bell peppers, garlic and cilantro for 1 1/2 minutes.

2. Add in the tomatoes, olive oil, and both types of vinegar and continue to blend until smooth.

3. Pour in the vegetable stock and lemon juice and stir together.

4. Transfer to a large bowl and season with salt and pepper.

5. Cover in plastic wrap and let chill in the fridge.

6. Serve cold with some pepper, cucumber and cilantro garnish and enjoy!

-D&E

Goat Cheese Dip

Today is the last day of Pitt’s spring semester. Next week is finals week. We’re both really excited for the summer. Declan will be going back to his internship (for a hint of where that may be, check out Declan’s twitter page) for a third rotation and Erica will be working at Pitt on a tissue engineering summer camp for youths. Also, today marks the halfway point of our engagement! We’re halfway to the wedding!

Okay moving on, one of Erica’s favorite foods is goat cheese, so when she found this simple recipe in her Martha Stewart’s Living magazine (we don’t know where this comes from; Erica never paid for it but it gets delivered to her every month!), we had to try it for our party. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Print this recipe!

The easiest thing we’ve posted yet.

• Servings – Enough for about 12 people
• Prep time – 5 minutes
• Cook time – 20 minutes

Ingredients

• 8 oz log of goat cheese
• Marinara Sauce (try using our homemade recipe!)

Protocol

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.

2. Crumble half the goat cheese in the bottom of a small baking dish.

3. Pour enough marinara to just cover the top of all the cheese. You’ll use a different amount depending on what size dish you have.

4. Crumble the rest of the goat cheese on top of the sauce.

5. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until bubble and slightly browned.

6. Let cool for about 5 minutes and serve with bread!

7. Let your guests enjoy!

-D&E

Cinnamon Sugar Tortilla Chips

We had a little impromptu cocktail party this weekend for our birthdays with a few of our friends. It was a really great time for everyone and especially for us, we love hosting mature gatherings. “I feel like a real adult!” some people exclaimed.

This week we decided to post two appetizers and two martini recipes we made for the party! That’s right, this week is going to be a four post week! Today we’ll kick it off with this way too easy recipe for cinnamon sugar tortilla chips. They are great for a cocktail party or for snacking on during the week.

Print this recipe!

Way better than Taco Bell’s cinnamon things, we PROMISE.

• Servings – enough for about 10 people
• Prep Time – 10 minutes
• Cook Time – 10 minutes

Ingredients

• 10 flour tortillas
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 tablespoon cinnamon

Protocol

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.

2. Using a pizza cutter, slice the tortillas into eight wedges. Spread them out in one layer on cookie sheets. We had to bake these in two batches because we didn’t have enough cookie sheets.

3. Melt the butter in the microwave.  Brush on a light layer on each tortilla piece.

4. Mix the cinnamon and sugar and sprinkle on top of the tortillas.

5. Bake in the oven for 8-10 minutes or until lightly golden and crispy.

6. Enjoy! If you want a dip, try using a food processor to mix up some fruit, a little vanilla, and some sugar!

-D&E

Calzones (and Happy Birthday Erica!)

Woo today is Erica’s 22nd birthday! Yes in case you missed it, yesterday was Declan’s 22nd birthday. We were born only 15 hours apart. Declan had an interesting start to his day. Since he commutes into campus everyday, the car’s radiator-fluid-tube-thingamagiggy was cracked and sprayed radiator fluid all over the engine. Luckily he was able to turn back around and get the car towed to a mechanic to get it fixed. Needless to say, he couldn’t have done it with out the help of his aunt who let him borrow her car to get to campus!

So lets all hope Erica’s birthday starts off a little bit better than Declan’s did! Also if you haven’t checked out College & Cook’s Spring 2012 edition you really should! It is a completely student run online publication for students who love food and cooking! We wrote a piece for the magazine so check it out! “We’re famous now!” exclaimed roommate Mike.

Today’s recipe is something we’ve been wanting to try for awhile now, calzones. We made them before using pizza dough but it was too much of a hassle. So we decided to go with croissant dough with is easier to handle. These turned out pretty well and were almost like a hot pocket, but actually good. Speaking of hot pockets…

Fun Fact – We saw Jim Gaffigan live a few years ago!

Calzones

Feel free to add any filling you want to the calzones. Also, notice we didn’t write any measurements for the ingredients, it’s up to you!

• Prep time – 10 minutes
• Cook time – 12 minutes
• Servings – 2 calzones

Ingredients

• 1 tube of croissant dough that makes 8 croissants (you’ll use 4 croissant triangles for each calzone)

Filling ideas:

• Ricotta cheese
• Fresh Basil
• Pepper
• Ham or bacon

or

• Pizza sauce
• Mozzarella cheese
• Pepperoni

Protocol

1. Spray your baking sheet with a non-stick spray. Preheat your oven to 350ºF.

2. Roll out your dough from the package. It comes in perforated triangles, so take two of the triangles to make one rectangle. Lay down two of these rectangles onto the pan and pinch the perforated seam together.

3. Load up any filling you want on top of these rectangles leaving about 1 to 1/2 inch space around the edge (this one was ricotta, mozzarella, some black pepper and fresh basil; the other one we made was ham and cheese and a little mustard!).

4. Unroll your second package of dough and lay down another rectangle of dough on top of the filling. Around the edge, press down gently with a fork to seal.

5. Bake in the oven for about 12 minutes or until the crust is golden brown.

6. Serve and enjoy!

-D&E

Potato Latkes

We went out to dinner on Sunday night at one of our favorite places to eat in Shadyside, PA – Shady Grove Restaurant. We usually order the spinach artichoke dip for the appetizer but felt a little adventurous and ordered the potato latkes (a sort of potato pancake) instead! Boy, did we make the right decision.

After dinner, we drove to Trader Joes, picked up some Yukon Gold potatoes, and quickly scoured the interwebs for a simple latke recipe to try. We found a couple recipes and combined a few of them together to get…

Latkes

 We are so glad we found a new potato recipe and hope you feel the same after trying this!

• Servings – 8 to 10 small latkes
• Prep time – 20 minutes
• Cook time – 15 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 Yukon Gold potatoes
• 1 small onion
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1/4 cup of flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

Protocol

1. Wash your potatoes thoroughly, peel them, and shred them with a cheese grater (with the biggest setting). If you don’t have a grater you can always buy frozen shredded potatoes but make sure they are completely thawed first.

2. Place the potato shreds into a bowl of cold water to soak for 5 minutes. This allows the starch to come of the potatoes.

3. While the potatoes soak, shred the onion with the grater. It won’t look as nice as the potatoes but it’ll do the job. You can also finely mince the onions.

4. Drain the water and spread the potatoes on two layers of paper towels and pat dry as best as you can.

5. In a large mixing bowl, combine the potatoes, onions, eggs, salt, garlic powder, and flour. Mix until even consistency.

6. Fill a pan with a 1/4 – 1/2 inch of cooking oil (peanut, veggie, or canola oil) and heat over medium-high heat.

7. Once oil is hot enough (use this nifty trick), dollop out 1/4 cup of the potato mixture onto a slotted spoon and gently lower into the oil. Also, gently pat to flatten into a cake. If some water starts to collect in your batter bowl, don’t worry; just use the slotted spoon so you don’t get excess moisture in your cakes.

8. Depending on the size of your pan, fit as many dollops as you can without overcrowding. Leave about an inch of space between each.

9. Cook each side for 3 to 4 minutes or until golden brown. Remember to use a slotted spoon or spatula to flip the cakes.

10. Once done, set cakes aside onto a paper towel and sprinkle a pinch of salt over them.

11. Serve with sour cream and green onions and enjoy!

-D&E