A Festive Friday Shindig

I decided I wanted to entertain and connect with my dance friends one more time before Thanksgiving. So on Friday I hosted a casual post-show, post-engagement get together! I had a ton of fun planning and preparing food for my friends, and we all ended up having a really nice time!

First things first: I decided to tackle and apple pie. It was one of the final things on my fall to-do list and I figured this would be a perfect time to make it! I used a Paula Deen recipe and made the crust from scratch. It ended up being a pretty simple process; even rolling it out wasn't very labor-intensive, thank goodness!

When I sliced up the apples and poured the sugar-and-spice coated filling into the pie crust, I could not believe how much filling there was for this one pie! I stepped back and looked at the towering pile of apples and couldn't help but laugh out loud. I took the picture below to send to Ben with the message, "You sure? Whatever you say, Paula."

Thankfully the filing didn't seem quite as disproportionate once I took a few moments to arrange the apples properly. Got it to a slightly more manageable size and sealed the "lid!"

While the pie was baking I went outside and collected a few freshly-fallen leaves from our maple tree. I grabbed my gold calligraphy ink and whipped up a few small place cards for each of the dishes. I popped up some popcorn and started slicing and oiling up some corn tortillas to make some baked tortilla chips ...And all the while the scent of cinnamon, nutmeg, sweet apples, and butter started to seep out of the oven and perfume the whole house!

Thank goodness for that egg wash!

I'm pretty proud of the result. Almost looks like it's straight out of a cartoon!

My very good friend is vegan, so I started brewing up some vegan pumpkin chili! I prepped all of the ingredients the night before, so it was a quick and easy dump n' stir process! I baked up several pans of tortillas and packed a basket full of tortilla chips. The house was really smelling sexy at this point.

Last but definitely not least I simmered up some mulled wine using bottle of merlot, an orange, honey, spices, and cider. I've never made mulled wine before but I am absolutely sold on having it be a autumn/winter tradition every month! So cozy and scrumptious! To finish it off, I peeled off a strip of orange rind for each mug of wine!

The last step was to put it all together! I grabbed my favorite crate tabletop-prop, a bunch of mugs, the new serving utensils my parents gifted me, and the leaves I'd gathered and arranged everything in its place...

Tah-Dah!! 

My friends and I ended up having a really lovely time together. I was very grateful to get to spend some time with them again before the holiday. Feeling lots of gratitude moving into this holiday season!