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Presidents' Day Party...food

Are you throwing a Presidents' Day party with me? We've sent out the invitations, now we're deciding the food.

You could go with recipes that Presidents and their wives actually used. Here's a link to a few of those. There's even a cookbook you can get for some more.

But I've decided to go a bit wackier. Here's my menu:

Buchanan Bourguignon
Theodore Rollsevelts
Washington Redskins
Lincoln Logs
FDROs
Bushmeat
Millard Filberts
Chestnuts A. Arthur
LBJ PBJs
Calvin Coolwhip Cake
Ford Model Tea

Although I want the food to be fun and definitely tasty, I've tried to choose things I can either purchase pre-made, make ahead, or just aren't too labor intensive.

For the Buchanon Bourguignon, you can use any Beef Bourguignon or beef stew recipe and throw it in the slow cooker. Here's an example on Food.com.

For the Theodore Rollsevelts, go easy by purchasing some nice bakery rolls, or get crazy ambitious with something off the King Arthur Flour site, like these.

For Washington Redskins, these from Domestic Fits sound delicious, but you could just as easily top boiled baby red potatoes with a store-bought sour cream dip.

Lincoln Logs? Go easy with store-bought cheese logs. Or try this one from Martha Stewart.

FDROs You could go way simple and just get a bag of Funyuns or make something like this Cheerios snack from food.com

Bushmeat? Think deli tray. I'm getting some delicious sausage from our local Lithuanian bakery.

Filberts are another name for hazelnuts. Here's a great-sounding recipe for spiced hazelnuts from Oregonlive.com

For Chestnuts A. Arthur, I'll have to find a place to buy chestnuts so I can make this from bonappetit.com. If not, there's no shortage of recipes on line for bacon-wrapped water chestnuts.

LBJ PBJs will be peanut butter and jelly cookies. Foodnetwork.com offers this chocolaty one with blackberry jam or here's a more classic one from Martha Stewart.

Your Calvin Coolwhip Cake could easily be a whipped cream cake from the store, or one of the many recipes on-line. Or try something more subtle (with no apparent whipped cream!) like this Martha one.

Ford Model Tea can come in many colors, as long it's black. To keep it caffeine-free, think blackberry. Make your own, go easy with teabags, or spice it up a bit, ala the mayo clinic!

Lots of ideas there. And soon I'll post some fun labels you can print out and put next to each of these items. I'll also post some decoration ideas.

Happy party planning!
Wren

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