Southern Cocktail Party

Hey y'all, I'm Paula Deen and today you're in for some good old southern hospitality

because I'm throwing a cocktail party. And before we get started, I've just got to head down to one

of my favorite shops here in Savannah called Kitchen Caboodle and I'm going to be picking

up an ice ring that I've just got to have for my punch. And what a fun surprise it was to bump into

my boys. It looked like they were planning a little party of their own. Well, I'm going to

have to hurry if I'm going to get everything on the table on time. To start, I'm going to create

my creamy onion canapes and pecan stuffed dates that are simply scrumptious. And then it's my

cedar plank salmon topped with a wasabi cream that's going to be the main attraction for today

And finally, no southern cocktail party would be complete without my perfect punch. So y'all put

on your party dress and grab your favorite friend, cause we're gonna party

Hey, y'all. I'm finally taking time out tonight to have a cocktail party for a few friends

And I've gotten everything working and underway. But I've scoured my cabinets, and I can't find my ice ring

And I can't do this party without one. So I'm going to see my friends down at Kitchen Caboodle

And I hope you'll come along with me because their shop is just adorable

What in the world? I thought I recognized those voices. We having a cocktail party tonight

We are too. You are. Doing some martinis. Great, great. We're going to grill tonight

Bobby's actually. What are you cooking? I'm going to cook tenderloin and fire roasted corn and make a tomato pie

This is what y'all ought to be buying. Nothing could be truer. My family tree is full of nuts

Or at least one big one. I'm actually making a southern comfort punch

And y'all saw me a few years making those ice rings. I cannot find my ice ring anywhere, so I knew I could run down here and find them from Janice

So that's what I'm doing. There's plenty here. Well, that's great. It's so good to see my boys

It's good to see you. Mama loves y'all so much. I love you. Hey, we love you

Hey, we love you. All right, Mama. I got to get going. All right

Okie doke. Y'all have a great night. All right. Oh, hey. Want to get that for Mom

Yeah, I think we should. Hey, how are y'all? Hey, how are you

Good. What do we got here? I hope that you have a full set of these boxes maybe in the back

Oh, sure we do. Sure we do. Okay, we'll sit back. If we want to get this for Mom, make sure and ring this up

Okay. I'm going to stick it in her bag. We'll just slide it in there. Thanks a lot. All right. Let me go look for those glasses

Okay. Thank you very much. I can't tell you. I've looked everywhere for that. Hey, Mom

Well, listen. I have got to run. I'm running so late. All right. I'll get this for you

Y'all get that for me, please. All right. And tell Amy I'm sorry I couldn't wait

Okay, Mom. But I'll see y'all later. All right, Mama. Y'all have a great party. Love you. You too

Have fun. And tell all your buddies I said hey. All right. We'll do. Love y'all

Love you too. Bye. Bye. Can't wait to see the expression on her face once she sees that now

It'll be fun. Hi, y'all like Kitchen Caboodle

Isn't it the cutest shop you've ever seen? And naturally, I can always count on them to have just what I need for my kitchen

They know that I'm just a nut over tea towels. And look at this one that they stuck in my bag

Isn't that cute? Well, I'm gonna do a little twist to our salmon

for my cocktail party tonight. So we've got our piece of cedar that has been soaking

about four or five hours. And we go all our board with a little olive oil

Now he's ready for our fish. We're just gonna transfer our fish to our piece of cedar

Just wipe a little olive oil on him. All right, now all we're gonna do is salt and peppering nicely

and he's ready to go in the oven. Now this is a great dish prepared on the grill outside over charcoal

but I've opted to just throw this in the oven and cook it. And he's gonna take probably 12 to 15 minutes total cooking time

All right so we gonna let that cook for about 10 to 12 minutes And while our fish is cooking I to come over here and make a wasabi cream sauce to serve along with it And this is really really tasty

If you like really kind of hot, hot stuff. So I have just poured my whipping cream in here

And in this dish, I'm going to make my wasabi paste. And in order to bring it from this state

to the state that you see on your plate in the restaurant, you simply add water to it

And it only takes a little bit. And get that going until I have a paste worked up

All right, so we got our wasabi going on, and I'm going to just beat this until it forms nice soft peaks

All right, that looks good. Now we're just gonna come over here and fold in some fresh lemon juice

a little salt, and our wasabi. Now you can put as much or as little as you want

but Michael and I really like it with a lot of kick

See, I'm gonna pile this up to sit along with our salmon

Oh, it looks really, really good, doesn't it? Alright, now smell our fish and I'm ready to see if it's about ready

Oh, it's just sizzling. Smelling so good. And the aroma from the cedar coming up into the salmon is unbelievable

and it requires so little garnish. This dish really stands on its own

I'm gonna get me just a little bit. I'm gonna cut this tail very, very neatly

so nobody will know I've been there. Wow. It looks and smells like perfect salmon

And then I'm gonna come back over here and get me just a little bit of wasabi cream

It's incredible. In a few minutes, I'm going to be showing you how to make those wonderful pecan stuffed dates

wrapped in bacon and creamy onion canapes. Hi

I ran out of bacon. I had to run and get some more. This next appetizer that I want to show you

I've been making since I was a young bride in my 20s. Now, all we're going to do is start with a whole date

You may find that some of the dates have seeds in them and you'll just have to remove the seed

but these have already been removed. And I'm going to take a pecan and just tuck right in that fat, rich date

And then I'm going to come over here and I'm going to get my bacon and I'm going to cut this into fourths

I'm going to cut it right down the middle first and then go to my other two pieces

and cut those right down the middle, giving me four equal pieces. And I'm going to take my date

and just wrap my bacon and toothpick it, holding that bacon on

and onto the tray they go. All right, we've got enough to go ahead and cook

And the great thing about these is we can cook them early in the day

because these don't have to be served hot. I have to tell you, though, they are good warm

So you'll just need to watch your oven and bring the bacon to the degree that you like it

We're gonna put these in a 400-degree oven, and I'm gonna bake them about 10 to 12 minutes

So while those are making, we're gonna start our caramelized onion canapes

Now I've got my pan nice and hot, and I'm gonna put a couple of tablespoons of olive oil

and we are gonna use just a regular onion and we're gonna slice it into onion rings just like that

You can hear our pan sizzling and we wanna cook these over like a medium heat

because we don't want them to burn. We just wanna caramelize them. In fact, I've already got some that I caramelized

Now, I did up my bread earlier and toasted it, and I chose to use a very thin slice of bread

The thin works very nicely, because it kind of gets like a cracker

And just choose the biscuit cutter of your choice, and I kind of rather like the small

ones for this appetizer. I can actually almost get two rings out of there, and then I'm going to throw those to

and I'll use those scraps as croutons later on. So you just wanna put these on a cookie sheet

and put these in the oven and dry them out The main thing about these is you want them crispy Now we going to go in for the good stuff that makes it rich and a little sinful

And we're going to do that by mixing up an 8-ounce package of cream cheese

with a little seasoning salt, a teaspoon of Worcestershire, and you can use your imagination on this

You can kind of put this together any way you like. I'm gonna put some cracked pepper

and for a little heat, I'm gonna put in just a little cayenne pepper

and just mix that together. And I've got my cream cheese at such a soft state

that you don't even have to use a mixer. You can just do it right up with a spoon

All right, I'm gonna turn these off and move them out of our way, and I'll finish those off in a little while

But I want to go ahead and put these together and get these in the oven

Now I'm going to take our bread and just smear a little of the cream cheese on it

I just love making appetizers with breads. They're hearty and filling, and everybody loves good bread

So I'm going to move this out of our way and bring our onions up here

All right, now we're going to take our caramelized onion, and we're going to place a little bit on those bread round

And aren't they pretty? They're kind of interesting on those little rounds of bread

Now, I'm still not quite finished with these, but I smell this bacon, so I've got to check these dates and see if they're ready

Oh, and they are. I knew I smelled them. Look how yummy those look

All right, now we're going to finish these off quickly by just putting a little dab of one of my favorite condiments, mayonnaise

All right, right now I'm going to sprinkle them with paprika because the paprika is going to give them a nice brown look

And these truly don't take but just a couple of minutes in the oven

And that's it, just that simple. All right, I'm just going to loosen these from the pan and put these right up here

And by the time I get through doing this, our creamy onion canapé should be ready

All right, let's see if the mayonnaise is kind of melted down. Oh, yeah, they look good

All right, these look so good. And you see those truly don't take but just a minute

I think they're just going to love these two dishes. Just got to try one

The onions and the mayonnaise and the cream, too, is so, so good

But this is people food, Rennie. You don't like dates. Mmm. After all these years, these are truly still one of my favorite little appetizer bites

Y'all stick around because we're fixing to whip up the life of this cocktail party

Hi. You know, every time I make something like this, I can't help but think of my mama and daddy

they used to make what they called a sledgehammer punch. And I asked them one time, I said

well, why do you call it a sledgehammer punch? And they laughed and said, because when it hits you

it feels like a sledgehammer hitting you upside the head. So I can't help but think of them

Now, the first thing I'm going to do is take my mold that I found from Kitchen Caboodle

and I'm going to put a few rings of oranges in the bottom

just a few. and I'm gonna stick a cherry down there. I'm not gonna put too much

because this is actually gonna float a little bit on us. And I'm gonna pour just a little bit of lemonade

just a little. And we'll move that cherry back up there. And now I'm gonna put this into the freezer

and I'm gonna freeze just this little bit. And I have one here that I've already frozen

and I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna put another layer of fruit

and I'm just gonna kind of mix things up. I'm gonna put some lemon slices and some lime slices

because when we unmold this onto our punch, we just want to see lots of layers of colors

I gonna put a little mint and I actually gonna slip that mint inside the orange so it won float I going to finish putting some cherries around it and a little bit more mint over here

And you can kind of shake this up any way you want to. I'm going to pour another layer of lemonade

and then this will go back into the freezer and we'll freeze this top layer. Isn't that pretty

I'm gonna stick, I think, just a few more slices around. And you wanna use a lemonade or even a ginger ale

You don't wanna necessarily use water. As your ice ring melts, the water will weaken your punch

and you don't wanna be serving a weak punch at your party. So this is ready to go into the freezer

Isn't that pretty? It's gonna look luscious on top of our punch

And speaking of punch, I'm going to start this particular punch with an orange concentrate

and some banana daiquiri mix and some fresh lemon juice. All right, so we're going to add some ginger ale

I'm going to start with a two liter and maybe add half of another one

All right, and I've got to wait for that fizz to go down to see where we are

All right, and I'm going to put a little bit of this bottle in there

And now for the Southern Comfort. Look, that's going to kill those bubbles

Now, on your Southern Comfort, you can make this as strong or as light as you like

I've used about a half a bottle. All right, now I'm going to come in and taste that and see if it's strong enough

Actually, I don't believe that's strong enough for the men, so I'm going to go a little bit more

Oh, my goodness. That little bit turned into the whole stinking bottle, didn't it

All right, that foam, you can see since I put the alcohol in, it's really starting to disappear on us

And it's ready for our ice ring. Oh, and it's pretty

Pretty, pretty, pretty. And this should come out very, very easily. And it did

We're just going to slip our ring right down into our punch, and you can see how pretty

that is. And I think the cook needs to have a glass, don't y'all

Get that juice that's been right around the ice ring. Looks good, and so quick and simple to make

Here's to ya. Oh, it's delicious. I'll see y'all in a few minutes

I'm going to give you some tips on how to make your cocktail party go smooth as silk

All right, for a few quick tips that's going to make your party go smoother, you can actually

take your bacon wrap dates and pop them in the microwave and get your cooking time down

to about two minutes. And on your creamy caramelized onion canapes, if you don't have time to fool with the bread

you can actually do this on a cracker. But while we're talking about bread, I want to show you the set of biscuit cutters

They actually come in a little canister, and they range in little to big

and these are a wonderful investment that would last you a lifetime. And on your salmon on cedar, check with your grocery stores or the fish market

because you want to be careful where you get your cedar because you certainly don't want to get any that's got any chemicals in it

that can actually harm someone. I'm getting so excited about my cocktail party tonight

I stay so busy that sometimes I don't get to do this as often as I'd like to

but I'm looking so forward to having a few friends in tonight, And I hope that they're going to just love the cedar salmon with the wasabi sauce and the creamy onion canapes

And one of my favorites, the bacon wrapped pecan stuffed dates. And I know they are going to love this Southern Comfort Punch with that pretty ice ring in it

I hope that y'all have a great time at your own cocktail party

And I'll use a few of these things. And until then, America, I wish you best dishes and love from my cocktail party to yours