Recipes for a Fun and Festive Fat Tuesday

With winter's chill still in the air now is a great time to grab friends and family for an impromptu Mardi Gras party. Laissez le bon temps rouler, Cajun for "Let the good times roll!"

Mardi Gras means Fat Tuesday and is the final day of the season between Christmas and Lent. Mardi Gras is the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday - the first day of Lent a period that many cultures traditionally give up favorite foods and alcohol in preparation for Easter. Fat Tuesday is a last chance party excuse before a six-week period of abstinence.

Recipes:

New Orleans Spicy Sausage and Shrimp Gumbo

New Orleans Shrimp Po Boys

New Orleans Style Remoulade Sauce

House of Blues Voodoo Shrimp

Bloody Mary Shrimp Pasta

Plan the Party

Recipes for Valentine's Day or other special occasions

Valentine's Day Recipes Celebrate life & love with a romantic meal with your special someone. There are certain foods that just conjure up images of romance - lobster, chocolate and champagne. This year forget dining in a restaurant instead dine at your favorite romantic spot - whether that be your dining room, a local park or a campsite far from the crowds. The key to romance is to keep it simple, focus on your love and relax.

Read on for simple make ahead recipes that are sure to impress and only you need to know how simple and easy the really are.

see recipes

An Irish Feast

Keep Irish eyes a-smiling with this three-course Irish meal that features the finest flavors of the old country. Start things off with Bubble and Squeak, an oddly-titled dish that includes potatoes, cabbage, and savory fried bacon. Sop up the juices with Irish Soda Bread, and finish off your meal with an exquisite sherry trifle.

Menu

Corned Beef and Cabbage
A favorite Irish tradition made super easy with the use of a slow cooker.

Bubble and Squeak
This traditional Irish dish serves four and is perfect on a chilly winter evening. Be sure to discard the outer leaves of your cabbage head as well as the core.

Irish Soda Bread

Irish Sherry Trifle
Finish off your meal with a nip of fine Irish whisky or a little Bailey's and you'll have one happy clan and maybe a new St Paddy's Day tradition.

The Great Super Bowl Chili Cook-off

Grab your chili pot, pull out your secret recipe and gather your friends for a festive Super Bowl party featuring a Chili Cook-off.

Seems like everyone has a secret chili recipe and everyone believes their's is the best. This is a great time to gather family and friends for you own Chili cook-off and put each recipe to the test.

The rules are simple - invite everyone to bring enough Chili to taste and share. Keep Chili warm in crock pots labeled with your own secret code (A, B, C or 1, 2, 3 etc...) to insure the chili cooks identity remains a secret. Provide ballots and ask each guest to taste and vote. Make a #1 Chili Cook award using your computer for the winner. This has become such a favorite activity that it is now a semi-annual event at our home.

For the side dishes and snacks you can either whip them up yourself or ask gets to participate with a potluck.

see recipes

Themed Parties

Terrific themed parties are hard to forget. We all remember the fantastic Halloween parties where people went all out with their costumes, or the Easter Egg Hunt when all the kids dressed as rabbits. Themed parties are memorable because they’re so much fun!
They’re also easy to plan. If you give your party a theme, suddenly all of the decisions become simple, from the menu to the decorations. If you let your guests know the theme in advance, they might help you out by dressing accordingly or bringing drinks or dishes that fit the theme.

Potlucks with a Theme
Themed parties also make terrific potlucks. You can suggest dishes that fit the theme (such as enchiladas, tacos, and Spanish rice for a Fiesta party) or assign your guests to a broad category such as “main dishes” or “desserts” and let them choose their dish for themselves. Another fun variation is to come up with a letter of the alphabet, and ask people to only bring things that start with that letter. In that case, the meal itself becomes the theme.

Some Theme Ideas
The next time you’re putting together an RV park party or a family reunion get-together, consider trying out one of these fun themes. You can even let your guests vote!

Luau
Baseball or another sport
1950s, bobby-soxers, and Elvis
Western
Fiesta
Casino
Hollywood
Mardi Gras
4th of July in December or January
Christmas in the summer
Batman or other super hero
1920s and flappers
1960s and summer of love

Seasonal Parties
It’s also fun to eat by the seasons, letting the food on the table reflect what’s naturally available. A spring party might feature new potatoes, spring greens, fresh flowers, eggs, and honey. A summertime party would celebrate the bounty of the garden, maybe with a BBQ or grilled kabobs. In the Fall, you could serve traditional foods like pumpkins, butternut squash soup, yams, potatoes, and hearty breads. Winter is a time for spice. Bring out the homemade chili, zesty soups and stews, and baked fruit pies and cobblers.

Family Reunions

A camping trip is a great way to hold a family reunion. Many extended families take annual camping trips, letting the cousins play together in the great outdoors while the aunts and uncles enjoy hikes and time around the campfire with grandma and grandpa.

Whether your family reunion involves five people or fifty, you’re going to need a plan for feeding them all. Every family is different, so be sure to consult yours before you decide on a plan. For instance, you might find that some of your campers like to sleep in and would prefer to handle their own breakfast instead of having a mandatory 8 a.m. scrambled-egg feast. Or your group might like to do all of its cooking communally. Here are a few ideas for ways to handle the meals on a multi-family trip:

See Reunion Ideas

More Articles...