A baby shower, Aldi-style
One of my dear friends (who happens to be a fellow diehard Aldi shopper!) is due to have her first baby in a few weeks. Our church always throws a shower for expectant moms, and I got to host this time.
I've never hosted a baby shower before, but fortunately two other friends volunteered to take on the decorations part of things (not my strong suit!) and I mostly handled the food.
Cooking? I can do that.
Garland-making? Not so much.
After I'd made plans to host the shower, Aldi emailed me to ask if I could host a summer party, serve food made with Aldi products, and blog about it.
I was already planning on shopping at Aldi for the shower food ingredients because, hello, that is just what I do.
So, everything worked out kind of serendipitously.
The shower was mid-afternoon, so I did a combo of appetizers and small desserts rather than an actual meal.
Zee Food
Of course, I did a cheese and cracker plate. Yay for easy!
The pesto jack cheese is especially tasty, you guys! Go pick some up if you've got an Aldi near you.
And the crackers? Just as good as the veddy expensive sort from a regular grocery store.
I made the shrimp-cucumber bites I blogged about last summer. These are very simple to make, but they look kind of fancy and they're so delicious.
I didn't manage to get a picture of these by themselves, but I made a plate of caprese bites (you can see 'em in the middle of the table.) So delicious!
They're just grape tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and basil leaves (you can't get those at Aldi, but I have a basil plant on my deck), drizzled with a balsamic vinegar/olive oil combo.
I also made a gigantic fruit salad.
My Aldi's berry selection varies, but luckily, the week I hosted the shower, they had raspberries, blackberries, strawberries and blueberries!
Plus I included grapes and fresh pineapple.
For one of my desserts, I made my brownie recipe, but I cut them into little bite-sized pieces.
My friend is having a boy, so at first I was going to try making mustache cookies. But as I poked around online, it seemed like you had to be pretty good at frosting cookies to make the mustaches recognizable.
So I ordered a necktie cookie cutter instead.
I used the cut-out sugar cookie recipe we make for Christmas cookies and I just frosted them with buttercream. There are some awfully impressive tie-cookie frosting jobs out there, involving royal icing and such, but I decided not to let that bother me.
Mine aren't Pinterest-worthy, but I did not have to spend hours frosting them, so there's that. 😉
Oh, and I made chocolate covered strawberries too. So easy, and so lovely.
I cannot take any credit for the crock-pot of meatballs on the table...a friend brought those.
It's a good thing too, because my jade-green, vine-covered 1997 Crockpot would have looked sort of awful on the table. 😉
Doesn't the table look so beautiful with the flowers? My decorating friends brought the mason jars and filled them with hydrangeas. Simple, but lovely.
I only own one tablecloth (I'm fancy like that.), but fortunately it's a fairly plain white one, so it works for pretty much any occasion where a tablecloth is necessary.
Since I don't entertain large groups much, I don't have a matching set of serving platters. Which meant that I had sort of a random thing happening....there's glass, silver, white and black.
And the caprese bites and chocolate-covered strawberries are hanging out on regular old dinner plates.
But hey, it doesn't have to be perfect to bless someone else. And I'm pretty sure no cared that my serving plates weren't matching. 😉
Disclosure: Aldi sent me some gift certificates to help cover the cost of the food, but this post was not sponsored in any other way. And I'd have shopped at Aldi for the party food either way because Aldi does a fantastic job of making party-throwing affordable.
I love how you layered the fruit salad like that! I might try that next time I take a fruit salad somewhere.
Yea for Aldi's & yea for good friends! Your friend must have felt very blessed to have dear ones organizing & attending her shower. Thanks for sharing.
Love it! Loved the simplicity, the using what you had. Those cookies probably tasted better than the "Pinterest worthy" ones.
Your post pinged through just as I was heading out the door to... yep you guessed it... Aldi. Although we are talking Aldi UK - quite a way from yours.
I love the posts where you show the food you Guys can buy. We have those crackers (well very similar) over here.
And I also have a tie-cookie-cutter! haha! My frosting was a bit hit and miss. I actually used white chocolate and sprayed it silver (edible of course). they weren't for a baby shower. It was to represent a certain book for a fundraiser I was helping with. (How strange is that? The tie-biscuits made their appearance on my blog as the first post I hosted for Food Waste Friday! http://simplybeingmum.com/2012/09/14/food-waste-friday-the-1st-host-post/ )
Hope you had fun!
That phrase - "It doesn't have to be perfect to bless someone" - was resonating with me the last time I made burritos for some new parents. At least the cookies were definitely good - and I hope that even if the burritos weren't the best thing ever, they were healthy and filling and helped new parents take a night off from cooking.
Also, just got back from Aldi - have you noticed that some of the produce is now NOT in packaging?? I bought 1 cucumber, 3 nectarines, 2 lemons, 1 mango, 1 avocado. How great!
Yes! I always try to faithfully buy the unpackaged stuff to create plenty of demand for it.
If you read any decorating websites or magazines, you will find that you are on-trend with your non-matching serving plates! You unified it with the matching jars with white flowers (or your decorating friends did). And even if you did bring your vine-covered crockpot, I'm pretty sure everyone would have been more interested in the contents of the crockpot than the outer decoration. Personally, I'm salivating over your food. 🙂 Thanks for the recommendation of pesto jack cheese. I'll have to see if they sell it here. I agree with you, Aldi's higher-end crackers are tasty and lovely enough for a party.
Oh, really? I had no idea it was hip to mismatch serving platters. Phew.
I'm inadvertently stylish.
I'm not a big fan of 100% matched serving plates either. Usually it just looks monotonous. There's a happy medium of coordinated without being lockstep.
Apparently, a lot of people use caulk paint on their crock pots to disguise old designs and allow them to write the contents on the side for parties. Perfect solution if you ever want to take your crock pot on the road 😉
Oh my gosh! What a great idea...chalk paint.
I am so going to give that a try.
There is a brand of paint called chalk paint--are you referring to chalkboard paint or chalk paint (like Annie Sloan chalk paint)? Just curious.
I was also thinking that you could cut burlap or muslin or some other inexpensive material, and tie it around the crockpot (except for the dial) with twine or ribbon, to "pretty it up". I threatened to knit my niece a cozy for her crockpot (her grandmother-in-law gave her one in a zebra print, which is NOT her idea of high fashion! Although a knitted cozy might not be, either ...). 😉
I bet it's chalkboard paint, because she mentioned being able to write on it to label what's in the crockpot.
Love Aldi. Great store. I save at least 50 on my groceries over the 'other' stores.
I posted about it here:
http://thriftyat60.blogspot.com/2014/08/inflation-its-official-its-here.html
Your party table looks fantastic and I know the food was delicious.
Good job!
I wish I got to go to that party! Some baby shower treats (seem on Pinterest and so forth) seem like they're putting style over tastiness, which is a no-go in my book.
I checked out the brownie recipe and can't wait to try it! I've had trouble finding a cocoa powder brownie recipe that wasn't meant to have icing on top, and I don't care for iced brownies.
Me neither. Iced brownies seem a little too sweet to me, usually.
You did a GREAT job! I never would noticed your serving pieces didn't match unless you pointed it out. The garland is great, too!
Nice variety, sharp, cold, smooth, sweet.
I especially like the small bouquets just spread around, rather than one big "magnificent" piece in the center. And the mason jars are charming (and stable!).
I do too...the smaller bouquets worked out so nicely for a buffet table.
Lovely!
How do you cut your brownies so evenly? Mine always crumble around the edges. (Ymmm, brownies. I haven't made brownies in quite a while...)
Try using a plastic knife! Works like a charm.
I wish we had Aldi here! We have a Grocery Outlet store so I should check that out to see if it's similar.
I love Aldi! I wish we had one nearby. I'm a huge Trader Joe's fan, and they own Aldi too. Both stores are amazing! Isn't it fun to see how easy it is to host a party without breaking the budget?
Our Aldi just started carrying lactose free milk, I had been asking them and and they came thru w/flying colors and the price is really good. I will buying some soon. I just bought some recently at the other store I have to get it at kind of expensive, but has really good price kudos to Aldi thank you!!!!
You're such a good party host and I like your fruit salad,so creative!
I so miss Aldi. I keep telling myself that now Denver has Trader Joe's, Aldi cannot be far behind. We'll see.
And I agree. They're not mismatched, they're eclectic.
I think a table looks much better when platters and serving pieces *don't* match. That's part of the fun of inheriting/collecting the pieces.
My favorite market (Market Basket) is not stocked due to labor issues with the new CEO. I may have to try Aldi again. The problem is that it is in the opposite direction of where I normally shop. Old habits are hard to break. I love the prices at Aldi and they have most of what I need. Maybe this week.
Thank you for all of these lovely ideas! I am putting together a little baby shower for one of my friends next week, and I plan to use a few of your recipes! Thanks, Kristen!
I love this. You don't have to spend a lot of money to host. It's not about impressing, it's about loving people well! This is so encouraging!
That's very impressive! I've tried to host a baby shower before, but it turned out quite nice though everyone in the event is having a good time, but I swear to myself that it's going to be the first and last baby shower that I will handle. Well, this baby shower that you've organized is really great and everything seems so perfect. Good Job!
Well, yes, I'm late to the party but I still love everything in here!
The expectant mother is very blessed to have a caring friend like you. It looks absolutely beautiful!