Finally I am hosting my first party at my crib aka party pad. You see, I don't really live at my new house although I have done it up so nicely simply because I am staying in my parents' house which is just 2 doors away. Then one day, my colleagues asked me to host the new year's eve party at my crib and I thought it was a great idea too since I haven't really invited anyone to my new house. And I'm also glad that Emily was able to join the party as she came back for a few weeks before returning to Sydney.
I set a theme for the party. One would have to come in any green or yellow attire with a head piece. It can be anything from headbands to bunny ears. Failing to do so is a penalty of 1 bottle of single malt. And true enough, everyone turned up following the theme and because everyone wears green, it looked like we are having a "perhimpunan hijau" right at my home! Lucky no one was caught for obvious reasons.
And the night before the party, I prepared some marinated chicken wings to be barbequed. I marinated the chicken wings in 2 type of sauces - Honey & Soy Sauce chicken wings and the other a Buffalo Wings version. Then, I made my own Teriyaki sauce following the Wagamama cookbook and it turned out to be very nice and thus I used it to marinate the pork.
This is the wonderful present that my colleagues and friends bought for my party. Err.. are you guys expecting me to host more BBQ parties now?!! I don't mind hosting the party but the cleaning up takes away the fun everytime...
Most of these dishes are cooked and prepared by me with the help of Hue Gee and Lauren before the party. After having tasted a Watermelon salad at Kim's Xmas party, I searched for the recipe in Nigella Lawson's "Nigella Fresh" cookbook and I found the Watermelon with feta cheese, olives, mint & parsley recipe. It's my 1st attempt preparing this salad and it turned out to be really good! It's really an interesting salad and I also make another salad using lots of greens with a Japanese mayo and mashed egg sauce with lemon juice, truffle balsamic and olive oil.
The "Hasselback Potatoes" was awesome and I followed the recipe found in the same Nigella Lawson cookbook. The secret lies in cutting the potatoes and I shall share the tip the next time when I write about my cooking experiments. It was so nice that the potatoes were all snapped up within minutes. I roasted the buffalo wings instead because I expect many guests to be hungry by the time the BBQ pit has been set up and true enough the wings were all finished even before the fire starts. I think I did a good job there with the food! heheh....
A party isn't complete without drinks and by drinks I meant alcoholic drinks. Ziling made a pot of grapefruit, lemon, cucumber, mint leaves and lemonade punch which is non-alcoholic and I made a coconut vodka after trying some made by Michael during the last Xmas party at Kim's place. I love the coconut vodka as it was refreshing and it tasted just like normal coconut juice to my unassuming guests. Later did they know...
Since I was so busy, I only managed to prepare the "welcome" drink for all my guests in the middle of the party. In one glass I filled it with green tea and in the other glass, I had it filled with 1 shot of limoncello. Nobody knows what is in the glass and they had to pick a card from the 3 cards I have. There will be 2 aces and 1 joker. The joker gets the green tea and the aces will have to drink the limoncello. Of course the motive was to get everyone to take the limoncello. To my surprise, no one could guess that it was a limoncello and nobody likes it either! Haha... looking at their expressions after drinking the limoncello was just fun!
After that, it was time for the gifts exchange time. I like the concept of gift exchange that we played every year at KY's Xmas Eve party and thus I made all my guests play it. The rules are simple:
- every participant contribute a gift worth RM 20, and then draw a number
- smallest number start by picking and unwrapping a gift
- next number can snatch the opened gift, whereby the person who lost it gets to open another gift, or snatch another's opened gift
- only 3 snatchings per round
This was so funny. Marcus brought a big air-con box which was so darn heavy and made everyone so curious what was in that box. Calvin has the smallest number and he starts by choosing a present which he chose to open Marcus' gift. OMG it was a box filled with 20 coconuts! After that, we all had a coconut juice party!
The most sought after present was 3 boxes of Sweet Delice cookie with chocolate and Hue Gee was the luckiest as she had the last number which she snatched Janelle's prized Korean instant noodles gift from Lih Yeng. The gift that I bought was a packet of Lays, Ruffles, Wise Cottage Fries and a can of Pringles!
I was also lucky to have a big number which I managed to snatch the RM20 worth of bacon from Kee Chin who opened Yiling's gift. Then Lauren had 2 packets of Tong Garden nuts and some other presents include candies, chocolates and Famous Amos cookies.
After the funny gift exchange, we proceeded to some drinking games and then more drinks and more food until wee hours in the morning. The aftermath is lots and lots of cleaning! I was so tired that I only woke up at 1pm the next day...
I'm happy that everyone had fun!
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