Bday Festivities Part 1: DIY Pasta Party
Hi friends!
When it came to deciding how I wanted to spend my birthday this year, all that really mattered to me was being able to spend time with my friends. Every year, I love to come up with a theme for my parties. Since I love all things DIY, I decided to host a pasta making party.
Step 1: The Menu
To go along with my Italian theme, I wanted to make a comprehensive menu featuring my favorite Italian dishes. Since the first year of the pandemic, I’ve been obsessed with baking and out of all the recipes I’ve made so far, my favorite thing to make is decorative focaccia bread. For dessert, I decided to make tiramisu. It’s such a simple dish but it’s by far one of my favorites. Here is my full menu:
Starters:
Charcuterie board with salami, prosciutto, and assorted cheeses
Caprese salad
Fresh berries
Honeydew slices
Garlic bread topped with marinated artichoke hearts
Homemade Focaccia bread
Main Entree:
Handmade pasta with your sauce of homemade choice:
Beef Bolognese (Alessia’s family recipe)
Dessert:
Homemade Tiramisu
Overall, I wanted to try to make as many dishes as I could from scratch. Sharing a homemade meal is one of the most special ways to celebrate the people you love most so even though cooking for twelve people is a lot of work, it’s truly a labor of love.
Step 2: The Prep
Trying to go through recipes, sort through ingredients, and figure out how much of everything I needed to buy was the trickiest part of my party prepping process. After reviewing everything I needed to buy for the party, I finally came up with a six page google doc with my grocery list, party supplies, and completed menu.
On Friday night, the eve of my party, I prepped the focaccia dough and tiramisu so that everything could set overnight.
Step 3: The Outfit
With all the running around I had to do for the party prepping, I left shopping for my outfit to the last minute. Luckily, I was able to thrift this white one shoulder cut out dress at Uptown Cheapskate. I tried to tell myself that I wouldn’t buy another white dress but honestly, what’s more fitting for a spring birthday party than a modern white dress?
I also just wanted to be comfortable. Between all the running around and dough making, I needed to make sure that whatever I wore I could move around in.
Step 4: Hosting
The best part! After weeks of prep work, I was so excited to host my friends for an afternoon of pasta making. Every person was set up with their own pasta making station complete with olive oil and herbs to decorate with if one so chooses. I bought wooden hangers off of Amazon to hang our pasta to dry and to ensure that no one’s pasta got mistaken for someone else’s everyone picked a colorful ribbon to tie to their hanger.
Personally, I’ve only made pasta from scratch once. I was planning on practicing but I didn’t have enough time, so I learned a few things while we were all forming our pasta dough at the party.
If it’s hot outside, pasta dough can quickly dry up. Keep it moist with olive oil or water but make sure not to use too much otherwise the pasta will be too soft to shoot out of the machine.
The thicker the pasta, the longer it takes to cook. Originally, the pasta was only supposed to take a minute or two to cook but since I wasn’t able to press each batch of pasta super thin, most of our pasta took closer to five minutes to cook.
GF flour doesn’t work for pasta dough. I’m sure there are other gluten free flour alternatives for pasta making but the flour I had on hand unfortunately did not work.
After we all cooked our pasta, we sat down to enjoy a homemade meal together. Everyone was welcome to have a spoon full of sauce or two and share a bite of tiramisu. I now realize how risky it is to have prepared so many new recipes for the first time on the fly but everything turned out delicious. The party was all a lot of work but I wouldn’t have wanted to spend my birthday any other way.
Pasta making is such a simple and inexpensive activity. It’s a great way to bond with friends and embrace trying someone new together. I am so grateful to have so many kind and loyal people in my life, so to me, my birthday isn’t about celebrating me but rather celebrating those which whom I’m blessed to spend my life with.
Feel free to ask me questions about the recipes I used or my party prepping process in the comments section down below or send me a DM on IG. As always, thank you so much for taking the time to read my latest blog post and I can’t wait to share Bday Festivities Part 2 with you going live next week.
xx
Kiana
