Showtime!

The dinner brought back up to heat in the oven.

Tony selecting the next episode to view.  Yvonne selected the Valentine's Day episode from "Modern Family" last year.  Tony selected an episode from this season's "Bones" that took place on the Jersey Shore.  Edward selected the World of Warcraft from "Southpark" and I ended up choosing "Flight of the Conchords" over "Arrested Development".

Enjoying the episodes in Tony and Edward's media room.

TV Dinners

Ron made fantastic veggie pot pies with acorn squash, portabella mushrooms, potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, peas, and corn in a vegetable gravy.  We rolled out the premade pie crust in cornmeal instead of flour which added taste and texture.  He also grilled asparagus and  I made apple brown betty.  I looked for divided metal trays but could not find any.  I remember sitting in from of the TV at my grandparents house with my very own TV dinner.  Usually it was chicken and mashed potatoes with some apple dessert that seemed like it had it own film covered compartment.  Very nostalgic.  But I had to go with small and large pie plates.

The meals all packed and ready to go.

Tune in tomorrow for episode selection and more pictures.

Arrested Development vs. Flight of the Conchords: Deathmatch

I am having a hard time deciding what to show for my favorite episode.  Candidate #1:  the Arrested Development episode "Pier Pressure" with the one armed man.  Solid, solid episode.  Best line, "Well now it's my nausea."

Candidate #2:  the Flight of the Conchords "Tough Brets" episode where Bret forms a gang to protect him just in case the rappers he dissed decide to chop off his body.  Best line, "Dude, they chopped off his body."

 

Oh, decision, decisions.  I know that Yvonne has selected a Modern Family episode.  I suspect Tony will select a Golden Girls.  I am not sure about Edward.  Hey, I would love to hear people weigh in with their all time favoriteTV episode.

Favorite Episode

This weekend we are doing a Favorite Episode Party.  The idea is that everyone brings their favorite TV episode of all time to share with friends.  Generally, you are going to encourage your friends to bring a half hour episode and hopefully a comedy.  And common sense would dictate you wouldn't want to bring the last episode of "Lost" or "Twin Peaks" or anything that would require a genogram or story chart.  I made these little TVs a while ago.  I do not know if I will use them to label the (wait for it) homemade TV dinners or to write the episodes on to draw out of a hat for viewing order.

As requested here is an approximation of Ron's Smoked Beef and Vegetable Soup.  Ron does not generally follow recipes or measure much so, you know, close counts:

Smoked Beef and Vegetable Soup

4 lb. Bottom Roast (or any roast you like), diced

2 cans stewed tomatoes

3/4 cup chopped onion

3/4 cup chopped carrots

3/4 cup chopped celery

5 boiled and peeled potatoes, chopped

1 lb. bag of mixed frozen vegetables (lima and green beans, carrots, corn, peas)

2 cans of asparagus, chopped

1/2 head shredded cabbage

1 small can of tomato paste

1 cup tomato juice

6 cloves garlic, minced

6 cups beef broth (or enough to cover meat and veggies)

3 bay leaves

1 teaspoon thyme, crushed

1 teaspoon rosemary, crushed

Black pepper to taste

Smoke beef on grill or in smoker at 250-300 degrees until internal temperature is medium rare.  This will take about 4 hours.  Ron likes to use mesquite wood.  Combine all ingredients in a roaster and cook approximately 5 hours at 250 degrees.  Or something like that.   

The Table

Tomorrow is the Fantastic Mr. Fox luncheon.  I have started to set up the table.  As I mentioned the color scheme will be red and yellow.  I used a flowering dogwood arrangement.  I am not sure it will make it until tomorrow.  I may have to do a new one in the morning.

My foster brother made this bird in wood shop in high school.  It is hanging directly over the dogwood arrangement.  It is one of my favorite things.

The fox cookies are decorated.  It turns out it is harder to make red-brown frosting than I thought.  Especially if the black food coloring you believed you had is actually teal.  So they are sort of hot orangey-pink.  I'm not mad at them though.  I think next time I will just buy some brown paste food coloring. 

Foxy Decorations

My friend Tony bought me a really great cookie cutter set from Ikea.  It has a fox, a squirrel, a snail, a moose, a bear, and a hedgehog.  I have used them many times already.  For Valentine's Day I made "Woodland Creatures in Love" for work.  They were all frosted with white royal icing and sprinkled then I added a heart decoration where their tickers would be.  I am confident that any biology student worth his or her salt could challenge the placement of my snail heart, but I digress.  I have made some fox cookies that I will decorate with colored royal icing.  I always use the meringue powder because salmonella is about as far from the party spirit as one can get.  If I am making just a few cookies I will just purchase a refrigerated roll of sugar cookie dough. I have found that it rolls out better than most homemade sugar cookie doughs.

      I really wanted to do buckets of fish as a nod to the character Kylie the opossum.  He offers to share his minnows with friends.  I found these buckets at a dollar store, three buckets for a dollar.  I had originally thought Swedish fish but decided on goldfish crackers.  Don't worry I poured them back into the bag so they do not get stale. 
                                                   

What the Cuss?

Mr. Bean, one of the shows three villains, creates a special apple hybrid.  Mine are made out of fake, dollar store apples.  I kind of admired Mr. Bean, despite his rottenness, because of his ingenuity.  I am planning a simple menu loosely based on food from the film.  There will be chicken salad sandwiches, apples (not as fancy as those above), gold fish crackers, fox cookies, and juice boxes.  It would be fun to do this as a sophisticated adult dinner as well and base your menu on the extravagant dinner the animals plan after robbing the farmers. 

A Fantastic Feast

The napkins for this party were one of the first things I made when I committed to the Shindig Spree project:

The color scheme for the party is inspired by Felicity Fox's (Meryl Streep) dress. 

My favorite parties are the ones where you take in the scene and are satisfied, but then keep noticing little details you missed on the first pass.  Nice details one could add for a Fantastic Mr. Fox party would include: little thunderstorm paintings, tiny buckets of minnows (Swedish fish), or even little fox silhouettes.

Fantastic!

My favorite movie from last year was "Fantastic Mr. Fox" by Wes Anderson.  I will warn you, when it comes to Wes Anderson movies, I tend to gush.  I have seen this movie numerous times.  Twice in a theater.  I received two copies of the DVD for my birthday this year.  It is that good.  It stars George Clooney and Meryl Streep plus the rest of the usual Anderson ilk.  I am having a Fantastic Feast this Sunday with some family friends who have not seen the movie.  I will do foods inspired by the movie (as the whole plot centers around food theft).  The styling of the film, and nobody does styling like Wes Anderson, will inspire the decorations for the party. 

Live From New York....

Thanks to my friend Jeremy who had the idea for a party to celebrate Betty White hosting Saturday Night Live! Here is what I have so far: people need to come dressed as a Saturday Night Live character and there will be SNL themed food and drinks. Stay tuned!