Oscars Party w/ Nerald

I miss having parties. We haven't been able to have anyone over at the house because currently, the guest bathrooms are not functioning and who wants to have a house party with no potty? We could offer our master bath but, I personally don't like using other people's master bath and I'm sure our guest would feel the same {maybe not, but that's just my opinion}.

With the inspiration from my instagram feed and reading blogs, I thought it would be fun to throw Gerald and I an Oscars Party! An excuse to eat and drink, and do something cute, sure why not? Out of the 9 movies nominated for Best Picture, we've only seen 2: "Captain Phillips" and "The Wolf of Wall Street." With that said, trying to choose the winner from each category was tough as we didn't know much about any of them! I printed out this ballot from Living Locurto, and Gerald and I took our guesses before the show; the winner would get a prize.

For appetizers, the Pioneer Woman was featuring these two recipes so I gave it a try using my own little twist..

Puff Pastry Pizza - Because I couldn't find puff pastry at Trader Joe's, I kept it simple and bought some garlic naan bread to use as the dough instead. I used mini portabella mushrooms and a mix of mozzarella and parmesan cheese. So easy and tasty!

Cream Cheese Wontons - I was too lazy to go to the Asian market to get wonton wrappers so I used some spring roll wrappers that I already had in the fridge. I added chopped fresh jalapenos to the mix since we had a lot on hand. Instead of the soy base dipping sauce, I just used a store bought sweet chili sauce that we typically use for eggrolls. This was a hit with Mr. Pena!

*I also made little shrimp rolls since I already had some shrimp thawed and was frying anyways!

Popcorn Cupcakes - I saw this blog post from A Beautiful Mess and thought, how cute! However, I wasn't in the mood to spend time baking, so I made my own version of popcorn cupcakes using Ghirardelli's brownie mix and Trader Joe's caramel popcorn. I made the batter as instructed and scooped it into gold foil cupcake liners. Halfway through the baking, I topped a few off with some of the caramel popcorn! It was an easy, yet cute way to incorporate the popcorn to our Oscars Party.

Last, but not least, you can't have a party without the booze! We decided to use La Marca Prosecco for tonight's event. I lined the rim of our champagne glasses with non-toxic glitter and topped it off with a gray and white paper straw. Lucky for me, I already had these things on hand =)

Well, there you have it, our first Oscars Party! I would like to call it a success; maybe next year, we can have some friends over. Oh and in case you are wondering, Gerald won the Oscars ballot with 8 categories correct. His prize - dinner at Red Lobster! I refuse to eat at Red Lobster with him so since he won, I agreed to go. I will let ya'll know how it is...haha! Hope you guys had a great Oscars Night!