Other People's Food!

I'm a member of our very small church's women's group, which is called The Agape Women's Group. We have lots of fun together at our monthly meetings where we fellowship, work on service projects, and EAT. We have a "Secret Sisters" program in our group, where each woman is a "Secret Sister" to another. We provide encouragement and prayer for our "Secret Sister," and we try to give little gifts during the year for important events (Christmas, Easter, birthdays, etc.). In June, we have our Birthday Party, where we reveal our identities to our "Secret Sister", play games, and EAT. Our annual birthday party was last night, and while we had a small turnout, we had a lot of fun. Each member brought some food for our festivities, and I thought I'd let you take a look at what we had. Maybe if I can persuade everyone to give me the recipes, I'll include those in upcoming entries!

First, I'll show you what I brought:

They got a little mangled before I got to take a picture, but these are mini-turkey and cheese rolls (I also brought mini-ham and cheese rolls). I got the recipe from The Big Red Kitchen. Robin Sue has a ton of great recipes. The only thing I did differently was use different seeds. I used a mixture of caraway seeds and celery seeds, where Robin Sue calls for poppy seeds. I actually made these for May's Agape meeting, and they were so well-received that they were requested for this meeting, too! Luckily for me, I made too many in May, so I popped two pans in the freezer (pre-bake), so all I had to do was defrost them and bake them. It was a lifesaver, as this is the busiest week I've had in a LOOOOOONG time.

This is Midge's Seafood Pasta Salad. She is a South Beach Diet devotee, so she usually brings something "Beachy" to our events. This was GREAT! I'll have to get the recipe from her. Also, can you believe that after eating this salad, my cousin Brenda (our hostess) said she'd never eaten crab?! Geeze, Louise! We've got to get Brenda out more!
Devona brought this delightful Cucumber-Tomato salad. There's a good chance some of this came from her garden, but I never did hear for sure. Devona is a fabulous cook, and she's the leader of our food committee. She makes sure that we never go hungry!

These tasty little appetizers came courtesty of my Aunt Betty. She took green onions, covered the bottom half with cream cheese, then wrapped them in ham. So simple...so TASTY! I've got to remember this for future gatherings! They look so elegant!

Devona also put together this cheese/grape tray. Red grapes, delicious flatbreads, and Boursin cheese. Boursin cheese is becoming a pattern in my life. A couple of weeks ago, Earl and Shirley had some Boursin cheese at their house. Now, Devona brings it to the Agape meeting. I had NEVER had Boursin cheese before these two occasions, but I know it's been around for ages. I told Earl and Shirley that you can make your own Boursin cheese, and I have all the ingredients...I planned to fix some for them to have with their houseguests earlier this week, but life interfered with my plans. Now, after last night, I've got to make the homemade Boursin cheese to see how it stacks up. Keep your eyes out for that later in the week.

Did you notice anything about our spread? What was noticeably absent? DESSERT. You know why? Because that's WHAT I DO. I do dessert. Always. But this week has been crazy-busy for me, and I slacked off and didn't get it done. Therefore, we didn't get anything chocolatey, peanut buttery, cakey, custardy, flaky, or gooey. I'll have to plan better next year!