Category Party Dishes

I made my first custard cake in March 2012. I’m quite impressed that it is almost a year before I’d make it again. I actually planned on making a chocolate version but I saw the box of caramel cake mix and I thought, hmm, a layer of caramel base, custard, and caramel cake sounds interesting. So at the last minute I decided on Custard Caramel Cake instead. Yes, you’ve read it right, a caramel cake box mix. Guilty as charged.

It was chicken wings night in our family the other night. When I make hot chicken wings, I usually make another kind for the kids or just to try another flavor. These are either Honey-Mustard wings or just leave the breaded wings as is. When I’m on my experimenting mode, I’ve come up with new recipes namely Hot-Key Lime-Pepper Chicken Wings, and Garlic-Parmesan Chicken Wings.

This time around I made sweet chili chicken wings to go along with the hot wings. These are sooooooooooo good. I mean “finger-lickin’ I wish there were more, I need to make these again soon and more often” good. You’d be surprised how easy it is to make it. All you need is a really good kind of sweet chili sauce which you could purchase from any Asian store or at the Asian aisle of your grocery store. I actually bought mine at Wal-Mart.

Here’s the bottle of sweet chili s...

Everyone is posting holiday stuff on Facebook everyday and I’m just loving each and everyone of them. Christmas trees, children’s pictures, family gathering pictures, lovely messages, holiday recipes, etc. One of the pictures I LIKED recently is the one my sister-in-law posted where they’re playing poker. It made me think about the year my husband was deployed in Korea so we spent the holidays without him, and he spent his without us. My in-laws celebrated that Christmas with us so  my son and I weren’t that lonely. Then days after that was my birthday (Dec 31st). My friends in that small Army community made sure I spent my birthday with some kind of party. It was a small gathering with drinks, food, and Texas Hold ‘Em Poker. It was actually that year when I learned how to play that card game. It was fun learning the history of card games along with tips on how to bluff. I became so good at doing the latter actually. It was fun listening to my friends teasing me how I’ve  managed to bluff them all. Our poker nights continued when my husband got back from Korea. I really miss those days.

Get together with friends of course always involves food. I remember making lumpias and wings during our poker nights. Those 2, plus chips with  dips are definitely the best finger food to serve during Poker night. If and when my husband and I get to play a round of poker sometime in the future I’d definitely serve these baked lumpias.

The process of making baked lumpias is not that different from making any kind of lumpias or egg rolls. The only thing that’s changed is how to cook them. Instead of frying ‘em up in oil, you bake them in the oven. That means healthier, and no greasy splatters everywhere. I reckon’ that’s a welcome thing for any of us who are trying to live healthy but still would love to enjoy the food we love. Hey, guilty as charged!