PARTY party parTY!

We had a little end of the summer party and decided to make it a Swedish affair... Well in that I mean that I ran down to Ikea and got all the food for our End of Summer BaSH! My mom has taught me well and I feel as though I may be a professional (well, not as good as SHE is) at the Ikea food section! (and yes, she's STILL mad at them for taking out all the Swedish name brands and replacing them with Ikea brand!)

IKEA SHOPPING LIST:

:: matjes herring
:: smoked salmon with dill
:: herring caviar (the orange one)
:: swedish anchovies
:: tunnbröd
:: wheel of farmers cheese (and a NY friend just happened to bring a beautiful Balthazar bread!)
:: swedish meatballs

with the above we made:
:: Mor Mor Specialty - layer: sour cream (about a 1/4 layer in the bottom of a small flat pan), matjes herring (drain liquid and cut into small pieces), chopped hard boiled egg, garnish w/dill and pepper - you can spread this on thin cut bread, crackers or tunnbröd
:: smoked salmon we put out with the bread and cheese
:: herring caviar - serve creme fraiche, chopped fine red onion & caviar
:: Janssons frästelse - cut 5-8 potatoes (depending on the size of your pan) in matchsticks, cut fine one yellow onion and saute in butter until soft, and toss with one container swedish anchovies, a bit of olive oil and salt and pepper - put in pan and pour 1- 1.5 cups of cream into buttered pan and bake for approx. 45 minutes covered and take of cover and let top brown for 15 mintues (350-375 degree oven) (click here for full blog recipe!)

deserts
:: organic ginger snaps
:: damnsuggare (vacuum cleaners)
:: princess cakes
:: chocolate cake

drink
plum sparkler (we never came up with a better name for this darn drink but it was delicious!)
aquavit - for toasting! a LOT!

I know it looks like no one came but I took these photos early!

We brought our living room outside and borrowed our neighbors fire pit (NEED to get ourselves one of these).  It was a lot of fun and delightful evening, somehow there were NO bugs and we just had a great time! I think its a good idea to do a theme and completely change your house around for FUN! It's fun for you AND your friends (and trust me your kids will LOVE it!)

okay so MOST people were outside!

 The food was a HUGE hit! and it helps to run around with trays of Aquavit (reminds me of my mom) for shots... and tips or shopping at Ikea (napkins, cups, table cloths, etc... there are SOME people who just don't know how to do it!! :) - I hope you know I'm kidding!

party people!

(we ended up letting the kids hang out.. they had a great time pretending they were adults - THATS the kid on the left! ha!)

just trying to give you party ideas!!