It's My Party

Hey, y'all, come on in the house

because you know what I'm doing today. I'm reliving my 60th surprise birthday party

First, it's scalloped burger sliders with a creamy cilantro lime mayo. Next, it's fantastic spicy chicken empanadas

Then, it's petty for so good, you won't be able to eat just one

And last but not least, y'all, the best butter poached lobster shooters ever

So, I'm putting on my party hat, y'all, because today, it's my party, and you're invited

Y'all, my last birthday, Michael surprised me with a surprise party. We had so much fun

He had rented a yacht out, hired a caterer here in town

Her name is Libby Summers. She's so very good at what she does

I remember the first thing that came out were these little scallop burger sliders

Now, we're going to start with two pounds of fresh scallops. Now, I'm using sea scallops

You can use the little base scallops, which are a tinier scallop, and they'll work out nicely

So, I'm just going to chop this up, just mince it up

I just love scallops. This is very, very rich meat. So, there we go

We'll just throw those in there with the others. So, we're going to put this together like we would a salmon croquette or a crab cake

Scallops have a smell all their own. Now I'm going to transfer these to a larger bowl

so I'll have plenty of room for mixing. Now I've got some flour and some breadcrumbs here waiting on us

and I'm going to put about three tablespoons of each in our scallops

And this is going to help bind our little cakes together so they won't come apart on us

and I'm just using a grocery store brand alright so in with a little salt

a little pepper now I'm going to toss this just around in those crumbs and flour

and now I'm gonna beat up one egg and this egg is gonna help bind our cakes

together. Libby had some wonderful things on the boat that night and it was so

wonderful I didn't have to worry about a thing. I didn't have to fix any of it. In

In fact, I've got some pictures from the party over there on the computer

That's kind of got me thinking about this surprise party because we had some good food

Okay, now to our scallops. We're going to add about a half a cup of chives

And I'll finish these up. I had started on them and didn't finish them

and then I've got about a half a cup of cilantro. We're going to toss that in

and the cilantro is just going to give a nice, nice flavor to our little sliders

All right. A little lime juice because lime juice really, really intensifies the flavor of those scallops

Okay. Now I'm going to add about a tablespoon of grated fresh ginger

I love ginger. So that's going to add a nice, you know, unexpected flavor to our scallops

Before I pat these out, the last thing I want to toss in is a Vidalia onion that I had diced up

that I had sautéed off in just a wee little bit of butter. and I've allowed these to cool

You don't want to put your hot onions in with your scallops. So do these up ahead of time and make sure they have time to cool

Looks delicious, doesn't it? All right, so I'm going to turn up our eye a little bit

A little bit of oil, just a very little bit, because this is not going to stick on us

Now we're gonna make these, you know, like into two inch cakes The main thing that you want is for them to fit the bread that you gonna pair them with So you just want to keep them both the same size So depending on the size of your bread would depend on the size of your sliders

So look at that. They're doing just great in this pan. They're sticking together

If you see that they're too loose, just simply add a little bit more flour and breadcrumbs

and they'll be fine. You just want enough so that they'll stick together

You know, it doesn't take much cooking, and you can see when the edges start turning brown on you

that they're ready to flip. Okay, these are looking just great, y'all

Those scallops are cooking up. While y'all are gone, I'm going to mix this up

a wonderful cilantro mayonnaise to put on our sliders. So I'll see y'all back here in a minute

because it's my party. Coming up, it's the perfect appetizer. Spicy chicken empanadas, y'all

And later, something sweet and something savory. Petit fours and butter poached lobster shooters

Hey, y'all. Welcome back. We're reliving my surprise 60th birthday party that Michael and the kids threw for me

While y'all were gone, I made us up a wonderful little cilantro lime mayonnaise

and it's just one cup of mayonnaise, four tablespoons of fresh lime juice

one clove of garlic that's been minced, a little hot sauce, a teaspoon of Dijon mustard

And you just mix that together. And we're just going to put a dollop on our little scallop sliders

And I'll put all of our sliders on little scallop shells. Isn't that just neat and perfectly delicious, I might add

So good. Mm-mm. Out of this world. Come on down. I want to share with y'all another recipe that she served us at the party

and this one had kind of a Mexican flair to it. It was spicy chicken empanadas

Now, I've got a frying pan here warming up because our next dish calls for some onions

one medium onion diced, one little small can of green chilies

a half a jalapeno pepper that has been seeded and minced, two cloves of minced garlic

and about half a teaspoon of cumin. While that's simmering, let's come on down here

and we'll work on our filling that we're going to use for our empanadas

Now, just take like a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store. You could even use a canned chicken or leftover chicken that you had from a previous meal

Debone it, dice it up, and you've just got it. Now, we're going to add about a fourth of a cup of cilantro

We're going to use about a tablespoon of lime juice. The lime juice is so good on top of that chicken

Okay. Now for the pastry part of this dish, we're just going to use a refrigerated pie dough that you find in the dairy section at your grocery store

And I'm going to take my largest biscuit cutter. Alright, so let's step over here and see how our onions and our chilies are doing

And we're going to add this to our chicken. So this has a little Mexican flair to it, doesn't it

And I tell you what, my family, especially the young people, could eat Mexican food at least five nights a week

All right, now I'm going to toss in two cups of shredded jack cheese

Doesn't that look delicious? All right, so we're just going to take our circles of pastry

And we're just going to put like a tablespoon. I'd love to put a half a cup in there, but you really can't

You've got to do this kind of on the skimpy side or it'll all ooze out

There we go. All right, now I'm going to take an egg that I've beaten

and I'm just going to go around those edges, demoisten that pie crust so that we can fold them over

and it'll stick together. So there we go. We're just gonna fold these over

Now you can use the tine of a fork, or you can use your fingers and press those together You want all that chicken and cheese to stay right inside Now I got my deep fryer heated up to about 325

So, since it's my party, I can fry if I want to, can't I, y'all

So, we're going to drop these in the fryer. And the beauty of these is the center, everything's cooked in it, y'all

So all we have to cook is the pastry part of our empanadas

So that will barely take like two minutes. Now I always fry in peanut oil because it has a high resistance to burning

The main thing that you'll want to do is start turning them immediately as they pop up and start floating

Oh, and these look so good. And you see how quickly we've cooked those up

You know, sometimes I like to come home and just have almost just different bites of foods

So, you know, if you do some of these ahead, put them in the freezer. This is one of those great things that you can come in and pull out as you need them

Look at the crispiness of that crust. So, we're just going to slide these on a plate

and we have a wonderful salsa verde sauce that we're serving along with them

And it's a store-bought sauce, and I've added half a cup of orange juice

So in the serving bowl it goes. Just like that. and on the table these went

So let's take a break and let these cool, because I do want to taste them

And when we come back, it's a cake you eat with your fingers

Petty Fours, and later Butter Poached Lobster Shooters. Hey, y'all, welcome back

The theme today is It's My Party. I'm reminiscing about my 60th surprise birthday party that Michael threw for me

and I'm sharing all the recipes because we had some fabulous food

and the last dish I've prepared are these wonderful, spicy chicken empanadas

and we have a salsa verde sauce. Mmm! Oh, and the pie crust

It's flaky. The salsa verde is a little bit spicy. It's got a little bite to it, but I'm fixing to cool that down

Now, every birthday party, you have to have some sort of cake, don't you

Libby chose to serve petty fours. We're just using a frozen pound cake from your grocery store

I have cubed these up, removed any crust. I put them in the freezer because the frozen state of the pettifor is going to help our frosting cling to it, stick on it, and harden

So to start our frosting, it's so simple, y'all. Now I have a double boiler set up here

I'm going to add two-thirds a cup of cold water and one teaspoon of unflavored gelatin

this is going to give our icing the thickness and then we're going to add

one egg white so in that goes and now we're going to add

one tablespoon of white corn syrup and that's going to help with the consistency

of our icing love that white syrup Now, I've taken our two pounds of confectionate sugar, and I've run it through the sifter, because, you know, sometimes powdered sugar can clump up

You don't want any lumps for your icing. And I'm just going to add this sugar to our liquids

And we're going to cook this to 110 degrees, which is not real, real hot, y'all

You can use a candy thermometer if you want to to make sure, you know, you're right on 110

But when it feels a little warm to your fingers, it's ready

A lot of sugar. Oh, it's looking good already. It's kind of thickening up in there

Look how good that does look. I think that's about 110, y'all

We don't want it too, too thick. Now, I'm just going to divide our icing among three bowls

because I'm going to make us all different color petit fours. A few squirts of blue All right the next one we squirt the red in

I'm going to make it real deep. So there we go. A few squirts of green

I'm going to use two skewers. I'm going to stick those skewers in there and just lift that off

Oh, I love the red. This is the perfect cake for an adult cocktail party

Now to finish our petit fours off, I'm going to use some edible gold

Because after all, that's right up a girl's alley. Now I'm just going to moisten this a little bit right there in the center

because our petit fours have already dried. Let's go to the red one

Go up right in the center. And it's just beautiful. Mm

It's perfectly delicious. Coming up, the best lobster shooters in the South, honey

I want y'all to just take a look. Look at all the butter in this kitchen

I've probably got about four pounds of butter. We are going to poach our lobster tails in clarified butter

I've got our clarified butter here. I'm just going to reserve one cup of butter because we're going to use it in a few minutes

Butter is a very, very beautiful thing. I'm so glad God gave us cows

All right, I'm going to pour the rest of our butter in our pot

and I'm going to bring this to about 160 degrees. And we're going to poach our lobster tails for about 10 or 15 minutes in this butter

Now, to add just a little flavor of garlic, bust them open

so the flavor can escape and just tinge our butter with a little flavor of garlic

All right, let's come over here and take a look at our lobster tails

Now, to allow our lobster tails to cook evenly, take your scissors and just go right through that belly skin

We're going to poach them for 10 to 15 minutes. So there we go

We're just going to cover this up. I've got some in this pot

It's done. You can see the way the lobster went from a brown color to this beautiful orangey-red color

That lets us know that the lobster's done. All right, so let's come on over here by snipping the belly of that tail

It helps us remove that meat easier from the lobster. Okay. Now, I'm going to just cut these long ways. so

about to choke on my tongue y'all alright so we're just gonna drop that

lobster tail into our shot glasses just like that And you don't want to overdo it with the butter

because you don't want to make yourself sick. Now, if you want to, you can come in with just a little bit of lemon

drop in there, pass the tray around, and tell everybody to say, bottoms up

Whoa! It's a good party when I can out drink everybody there

And until next time, you know I always send y'all loving best dishes from my kitchen to yours