Sandra, I toast ya, put fear in your heart/ Fuck up the party before it even start . . .

(Can anyone name that tune, puddings?)

On Saturday night, I invited some of my peeps out to my hood for a special little gathering that happens only once a year. "What makes this night different from all other nights?" I asked them.

And their answers came back: "Indigestion;" "Epic Bowel Movements;" "Assaulted Taste Buds;" "Unprecedented Amounts of Liver Damage."

That's right, y'all. while it was a little bit later than usual (it's like Easter. The date changes from year to year) this weekend was the third annual Semi-Homemade party.

Say hello to my stalwart cohostess, Sandra Lee Barbie:

Sandra Lee Barbie says "Hello!" Or maybe "Sieg Heil!"

The color scheme for the year was green, which naturally meant that I had to find a green cocktail to grace my beverage fountain. After reviewing a few, I selected the Lush Lagoon. . .

. . .or, as one guest took to calling it "The Ecto-Cooler." The ingredients are kiwi, simple syrup, vodka, midori, and jalapeno juice--or, as Sandy pronounces it, JOOS.

What's jalapeno JOOS, you ask? Well, in the normal world, one might it assume that it's the juice you extract from jalapenos. But in Sandra's world, it's the brine jarred jalapenos come packed in.

The result of this bizarre combination is that in addition to being a color not found in nature, the cocktail has a flavor that should not be found, period. It hit you in odd phases--first there was a smooth, sweet taste where you thought "hm, this might not be bad." This was quickly followed by "holy jebus, that's a LOT of booze." And closely after that, you choked and went "The JOOS! The JOOS! It BURNS!!!!!"

Our other Sandra-approved cocktail was a Rose Sangria, provided, appropriately, by Cracklin' Rosie and her hubs (they're married; they have to share everything. Including the blame for the sangria and the grapebortion. But more on that later). The great benefit of the Rose Sangria is that one sip of it made the Lush Lagoon seem like a virgin daquiri. Hell, you didn't even really ned to sip it for that to happen--you could get drunk just from letting your face hover near an open glass. And I'm pretty much convinced that if the jug of Sangria had been any closer to the votive candles, my entire apartment would've gone up like an oversized Molotov.

You can see a picture of the Sangria later, with the grapebortion. Let's just sum up the official cocktail section by saying: a lot of people drank beer or wine. Some of us nursed a couple of glasses of the Lush Lagoon. And one lady, who shall for discretion's sake remain nameless, may have requested a straw to put in the jug of Sangria.

Moving on to the appetizer portion of events, let's kick things off with a little Goat Cheese and Guava Jelly Quesadilla action. I made these babies, and I should just begin honestly by saying that I chose it because I loved the reviews so much. It's one of the ones that people seem to only find palatable after making odd adjustments. Like substituting Velveeta for the goat cheese, or strawberry jelly for the guava jelly. Or cream cheese for the goat cheese, strawberry jelly for the guava jelly, and English Muffins for the tortillas.
But I love goat cheese, and after sticking a finger into the guava jelly, I thought it wasn't too bad. Then I mixed them together, and suddenly they became awful. I'm one of those people who compulsively licks her spatula/finger, and every time I did, I got the unpleasant surprise of the flavor all over again--it was kind of like what I imagine earwax must taste like. And the appearance of the mixture was even more dreadful. . .

. . .I can't even write about it. The only analogies I can think of making are gynecological and seriously crude. It was a lot of white clumps floating in pinkish jelly. Draw your own conclusions.

Further, making them was an absolute ordeal. The mixture was so runny that it oozed out all over the grill every time I flipped them, and I think that also had something to do with the texture on the tortillas coming out as weirdly as they did. They were strangely crepe like, which, while not pleasant on the pallate, was nice in that it meant we could call them "crepesadillas. . .

. . .which, after we ate them, quickly became "crapsadillas." I have to defer the description on this one to my guests/commenters, because a weird phenomenon happened: those of us who ate them right off the stove hated them. Ulgh, god were they awful. But those who got them after they'd sat out for a couple of hours thought they were pretty good.

I don't know if it was that they'd had the chance to set up a little and the texture had improved, or if time allowed the flavors of the goat cheese and guava jelly to ripen a bit. I do know that I really can't be trusted to assess the damned things impartially. Look what they did to my grill pan:

As of March 2009, my association with Sandra has cost me one blender; one grill pan; and one scale (don't ask). All I've gotten in return is an autograph. She owes me.

Our next appetizer was Red Pepper and Tapenade Slices made by mysterygirl!
Because nothing says Sandra Lee party like a dish made with Crescent Rolls.

Mysterygirl! subsituted goat cheese for the blue cheese in the original recipe, because blue cheese is horrible and tastes like fungusy gym socks, and I would've chased her out of my home with a 2 x 4 if she'd tried to get it across the threshhold. Making that substitution probably saved the flavor of the slices, as they didn't taste too bad--a little sweet for my taste, but I pretty much always find jarred pasta sauce a bit sweet. However, the texture was another matter altogether. You'd think by looking at them that they'd be nice and crisp, like a thin crust pizza (mmmm. . . thin crust pizza. . . ). And they were, around the edges. But in the middle, where the toppings were, it was super soggy. The weight of all the toppings and cheeses and everything was just too damn much, and the puffiness of the crescent rolls couldn't hold up.

Here's a better use of crescent rolls: the Armadillo Eggs made by the food network addict
Maybe it's because I'm a sucker for anything involving sausage and jalapenos (or even jalapeno JOOS!), but these were pretty nommable. AND they were vegetarian, because the food network addict made them with Morning Star Farms sausage rather than Jimmy Dean.

I mean, I'm not going to say that they're haute cuisine or anything, or that they're any more inventive or spectacular than you'd find at your average midwestern church picnic. But hells bells, folks. It's sausage, jalapenos, and dough. That's good shit, no matter who writes the recipe. In fact, it would pretty much be impossible to fuck that combination up.

Maybe if you added some goat cheese and guava jelly to it. But probably not even then. Sausage always wins in the end.

Continuing on this theme of "even Sandra can't ruin sausage," we have my second entry. Depending on the version of the recipe you have, they're either called "Oriental Pork Wrappers" or "Oriental Pork Purses."
I call them "Jimmy Dean Shumai." Because that's essentially what they are--pork shumai made with Jimmy Dean sausage.

Caveat: I was unable to adhere to the 70/30 philosophy on this one because my regular groshery store didn't have wonton wrappers (though I swear to god, they had them every week before this. It's like they knew I was going to use them for evil ends, and swept them off the International Foods aisle when they saw me coming). So I made my own using this recipe, which was pretty easy. It was a pain in the ass to roll out, and it took way longer than I expected to fill and pinch all the pockets/purses. But the end result?

They were goooooooooood. It kills me to say that. KILLS me. But I have to look at the evidence, and the evidence is that I made 24 of those things, and there were no leftovers. And I scorfed 3 of them myself.

Our main course, which for some reason I didn't take a picture of, was m.a.'s Slow Cooker Chicken in Tagine. Mysteriously, this doesn't appear to be on the Food Network website, but it can be found in the Semi-Homemade Slow Cooker cook book, which is helpfully online here.

Again, I have to defer to the tasting committee on this one, because there seemed to be a split decision. Basically, people who've actually had legit Chicken in Tagine thought it was a vile abomination. However, those of us (like me) who haven't thought it was ok. It was chicken. It didn't knock your socks off, but it wasn't hideous.

Moving along to the side dishes, we had FreckledK's Texas Mashed Potato Salad. Gaze upon it, my loves. But don't look it directly in the eye--it will devour your soul before you get a chance to devour it. . .

So let's start with appearance: it looks fucking awful, right? But how good does potato salad ever really look? The lightly dressed rustic kinds made with big chunks of real potatoes can look good, yes, but the yellow pureed kinds? There's almost no way to make them NOT look like infected vomit.

On the taste, I can't really be impartial. The one thing I hate more in this world than yellowy pureed potato salad is egg salad, and this was a potato salad that tasted like egg salad. I managed to take one bite without puking, but that's really all we can say.

I have a similar problem judging the Sweet and Spicy Slaw that Carol took time off from her Alinea-ing to produce for us. Slaw is not my friend. We can probably date both these aversions back to the second grade school picnic, when I gorged myself before going on the tire swing, and promptly threw up in front of grade school hottie, Timmy B.

That said, to me, the slaw wasn't any better or too much worse than your average slaw. Again, I didn't eat a whole lot of it. I'll have to let other people who are more well versed in slaw-y ways make the final judgement.

Our final side dish was Cheesy Potatoes by Kris. Kris texted me the morning of the party and described the dish as "Bacon Tater Tot Casserole." I was immediately concerned, because to me that sounds like a combination that can't possibly go awry.

I was right. It was good. Again, as with any of Sandra's food, it's not blow you away, never before seen good, but it was plain-old good. It was "I would like to eat this on my couch in the morning when I'm really hungover" good. It was she took her pan home clean good, which is not something a lot of people can say.

You totally don't have room for any more food, do you? Well how do you think we felt, eating all of this? Buck up, little campers--it's time for DESSERT!

We open the dessert course with a sort of dessert amuse bouche--Carol's Sensuous Chocolate Truffles.
I don't want to lie. I was amoosed. I was so amoosed, in fact, that I could barely get the things to my mouth because I was laughing so hard. In fact, this dish wins the "laughing to the point of tears" award that was first bestowed on last year's Kwanzaa cake.

The truffles are basically blobs of frosting. They're chilled, and you think that would firm them up enough to mean you could pick them up and pop them in your mouth. But no. No, not at all. They're soft, unresistant, blobs of frosting that you have to scoop off of the plate on a spoon or fork and eat that way.

So there are two ways they qualify as sensuous: a) they're sensuous because you're feeding them to your lovaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah off of the end of that spoon. b) you have a scat fettish.

Continuing his cake streak, RetroDragon made us a Single Layer Birthday Cake.

It would be more honestly named "dry ass birthday cake that makes your children cry." It's supposed to have a soda bottle stuck in it for no apparent reason, but he decided that as long as we were sticking bottles in things for no apparent reason, a mini-Kaluha bottle was probably a more fitting tribute to Sandra.

I can't even begin to explain how dry the dry ass cake was. At one point he said it was called an "Old Fashioned Birthday Cake," and I said "from when, the Depression?" Because only in the dust bowls of the 1930's can I see anyone being pleased with this dry ass birthday cake.

Which means: wait two years, and we'll all count ourselves lucky to get some dry ass birthday cake.

Ok, folks. You've heard about it for like ninety pages now: are you ready to see the horrifying truth of Cracklin' Rosie's Grapebortion? (you can see the sangria to the right of it)
The official name for it is apparently "Grape and Ricotta Crostata," but it will never be anything but a Grapebortion to me.

Oh, it was not good. It's hard to describe how not good it was, actually. It tasted like you were eating a lot of grape jelly with an undertone of funky, grainy, undercooked dough to add to the texture.

Maybe the best way to explain it is that when they arrived, the first thing GSR said--before "hello" or "where's the beer" or anything else--was "I am so. Sorry." And when someone has to apologize for their food at a Sandra Lee party. . .you know it's bad. It's not just bad. It's Grapebortion.

To end on a more positive note, the Food Network Addict also brought a modified Pear and Cherry Buckle. You can read his post about cooking it here.

I know, I know. It looks like a bio hazzard. But the flavor. . .ok, maybe I was easy to impress because the other desserts had just been SO BAD, but the flavor was fine. It was a little sweet, and a little wet, and I kept getting almond slivers stuck between my teeth, but it didn't make me want to kill myself.

In fact--and prepare for some damning with faint praise here--it might be the only one of the desserts I'd be willing to eat again.

Unless I was being fed the sensuous truffles by my lovaaaaaaaaah. Who has a scat fettish.