This weekend Jess and I hosted a baby shower for some good friends of ours. It was a relatively simple affair with a surprisingly large crowd of individuals and couples. I don’t know if Jess and I are missing a memo but it seems as though everyone we know is having a baby this year. I guess we are just getting to be the age where most people begin to feel the need to expand their families and begin this new chapter in their lives.

Everyone at the party seemed to be having a good time. Our friend Shanna wanted this to be a couples shower which to me was something I hadn’t heard of before. I was a bit apprehensive at first as not all of the guys who were invited were with someone but think that in the end it was a pretty neat idea. Even the single guys had fun especially when we broke out the string to guess how big her waist had gotten. While most people made a guess from their own waist however, these enterprising individuals thought the measurement of a bust line from one of our particularly busty single female guests was a better guess. Interestingly enough, they were the ones who came closest. Maybe they were onto something and I should have paid more attention?!

Since the shower we were hosting was for some really close friends of ours we wanted to make a cake for them that would be really special. We made this two tiered cake and separated each layer with a layer with vanilla buttercream frosting and strawberries. It was fantastically delicious! I also think that for amateur cake decorators we did a pretty darn good job with the fondant. It was a homemade fondant recipe that tasted way better then the stuff you pick up at the store! Tons cheaper too! I plan on sharing the recipe with yall once we master the art of decorating which I hope will be soon. The only thing that really disappointed me about the cake was that we didn’t make the royal icing stiff enough for the dirty icing, or we filled the layers with too much frosting which allowed the split layers to sag a little bit when the cake warmed up causing a little indentation. Other than that we were really pleased with how it turned out. But that’s one of the things I really enjoy about baking, sometimes you make mistakes and you learn from those mistakes allowing you to do better on the next one.

We also had the pleasure of making quite a few of the appetizers for this event as well. While all of the other appetizers we made were delicious I was particularly surprised and pleased with the recipe we used from the Taste of Home magazine that we had picked up the other month. I really love this magazine as they do a great job of putting together beautiful mouth watering pictures coupled with recipes that really taste great! Their recipe for Potato Salad Bites was fantastic. Submitted by Stephanie Sheridan, of Plainfield, Vermont, the potato salad bites were quick and easy to make and packed some really great flavor that basically made these reminiscent of deviled eggs only with baby red potatoes. This has definitely been cataloged for future reference!

Potato Salad Bites
Taste of Home Magazine
Stephanie Sheridan, Plainfield, Vermont

Ingredients:
10 small red potatoes
¼ cup chopped pimiento-stuffed olives
2 teaspoons minced fresh parsley
1 teaspoon finely chopped onion
½ cup mayonnaise
1 ¾ teaspoons Dijon mustard
1/8 teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
Paprika
Parsley sprigs, optional

Directions:

1.Place potatoes in a large saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and cook for 12-15 minutes or until tender. Drain and immediately place potatoes in ice water; drain and pat dry.
2. Peel two potatoes; finely dice and place in a small bowl. Cut the remaining potatoes in half. With a melon baller, scoop out the pulp, leaving a 3/8 in. shell; set shells aside. Dice pulp and add to the bowl. Stir in the olives, parsley and onion,. Combine the mayonnaise, mustard and pepper; gently stir into potato mixture.
3. Sprinkle potato shells with salt; stuff with potato salad. Sprinkle with paprika. Chill for at least 1 hour before serving. Garnish with parsley in desired.