Bargain basement whiskey,
it gets people
fucked up for cheap.
For pretty much
forever I've been
doing these
dinner parties.
Quite often they are sort
of spur of the moment.
I'll have to kind of
throw things together on
the fly, often with
very little money.
Guess how much
all of this cost?
>> A thousand dollars?
>> From about $117
we were able to
squeeze the blood from
that stone in the form
of three crostinis,
a carrot fritter,
two alcoholic punches,
chocolate and mint tarts.
Homemade potato chips and
dip.
And homemade donuts.
[SOUND].
[MUSIC]
How to Throw
a Holiday Party with
Julia Ziegler-Haynes.
So we're working off
the premise that you have
these, these basic pantry
principles so to speak.
Butter, garlic, black
pepper, sugar, olive oil,
vegetable oil,
flour, and salt.
So this would be sort
of a perfect set up for
a party that you
kinda throw together
last minute.
Say its you wake up
on Sunday morning and
you and
your boo want to invite
50 good friends over.
We're getting enough
food and booze for
about a two to three
hour cocktail party.
This is not meant to like
feed 50 homeless people.
Very cheap.
Something seemingly not
that much larger is
actually almost
twice the price so
we're gonna go with
this little guy.
Pecorino's a good
substitute.
It's often much
cheaper than
a certified Parmesan.
99 cents, cannot beat
that with a stick.
Never buy light
sour cream,
it's totally garbage.
So the concept
is sort of like,
what the average person
would normally do for
like, a cocktail party,
is probably go to like,
a cheese shop.
Or even like, your
bodega cheese section.
And just to try to like,
bulk up a table.
But really, that doesn't
get you very far.
Thank you.
The total is $84.75.
We're gonna do it for
a hundred.
So next on our list is to
hit up the liquor store
and to pick up some beer
for one of our punches.
We're doing a whiskey
based punch with
cider and
rosemary and citrus.
And then I'm gonna do
another punch that
is gonna be beer based,
which was something I
discovered years ago
where I was super broke.
It's gonna be
supa delish.
I'm going off to do
some gathering of
little decorations.
And this could be done
in your backyard, but
since we live in
the shit hole called
Greenpoint/Williamsburg,
it's gonna be done
in a [LAUGH] local park
or a highway underpass.
These are major.
These will prove
to be handy.
This makes
a quick getaway.
[SOUND] This is what
gin is made out of so
it's juniper.
This is a good start.
It'll make a little
something something.
Bodega flowers
even are like
fucking $9.99 a bouquet
so, not on my watch.
This is very simple and
the best part of it all
is, you can do all of it,
for the most part,
ahead of time.
So that by the time the
doorbell starts ringing,
you can just go and
be a host.
And then get drunk and
have fun and
kiss under the mistletoe.
We've got ricotta,
broccoli rabe,
parm, scallions,
Oreos, peppermints,
cream, sour cream,
russets, mint, parsley,
eggs, ice cream, whiskey,
cider, Coors, grapefruit,
baguette, and rosemary.
These are some
really quick
easy simple dishes that
you can throw together,
even by your lonesome.
So, we're going to get
our carrots prepped for
the fritters.
All it takes is
carrots,scallions,salt
and pepper, and egg, and
a little bit of flour.
As I said, a very,
very easy recipe with
really only like three or
four ingredients.
You don't need a ton
of volume of carrots.
You know you can take
one bag of carrot and
make enough for
40 people.
If you don't have a food
processor, it's really
easy to use just like the
old fashion box grater,
but this is,
like couldn't be simpler.
I'm going to take
a handful of salt.
These are just like any
other vegetable when
you salt them, they start
to sweat a little so
it's, it's going to get a
little moist up in here.
Then season it
with a couple of
grinds of black pepper.
An egg.
A third of
a cup of flour.
So see how we're just
folding the flour in?
Oh yeah.
These will do great
in a shallow fry.
You're looking for yeah,
like a steady stream
of bubbles to start.
Serve these plenty,
because they're really.
Like, incredibly simple.
I have a feeling these
will go with like,
the first five people
that walk in the door.
To get that awesome
golden crispiness that
we're going for,
maybe three,
three to four minutes
on either side.
They're teeny tiny.
They're really good.
They're perfect
like finger food.
And you can top them
with some nice stuff.
>> We had some
extra sour cream.
So what we did was
took a little chipotle.
That makes a really nice,
smoky crema.
It's kinda perfect
on this recipe.
If you want to make sure,
like, one little piggy
doesn't eat all of these,
this is a great one
that you could put on
like a tray and have
somebody pass around.
If you've cooked them the
day before your party.
If you're extra
prepared you
would just wrap another
paper towel on top and
wrap it in cellophane and
pop it in your fridge.
But, for us we're going
to use it tonight so
we're going to
put it aside.
For our cookie tart we've
got starlight mints and
we're going to chop these
up in the food processor.
2 tubs of
vanilla ice cream that
we've been keeping in
the refrigerator to let
them get nice and melted.
So, we're going to
whip some cream to
add to those guys.
And, then the Oreo's
we're going to
pulverize the cookie.
In the meantime,
we're gonna
melt about half
a stick of butter.
These are just to top
a bunch of tarts, so
let's do like one,
two, three,
four, five, probably
ten to start with.
And this'll really
grind them up good.
Yeah, get that
super cute pink.
So this is our little
peppermint snow,
which is also a porn
star's name [LAUGH].
So for our dough we
have the cookie.
I've never made
this before, so
this is an experiment.
[SOUND] Slowly going to
add the melted butter.
I think the cream is
gonna help a lot to
make the right
consistency.
Add like a splash.
Just to get it kind of
like, wet, wet dirt.
Perfect.
Next up would be to
whip this cream.
Doing it this
way I think,
is miles better than
the store bought.
Usually, I make
a friend do it.
[LAUGH] [SOUND] Okay,
I think we're there.
Thank fucking God.
Dumping the vanilla
ice cream in there.
It's all kind of like,
ice box cake, set it and
forget it kind
of ingredients.
If you've ever
experienced this as
a child, it's gonna put
a big smile on your face.
I'm gonna test it
out by putting,
sprinkling some of our
little peppermints now,
and if it sits on top,
yay.
Look how cute.
Really, who's gonna
turn this down.
Alright and then into
the freezer immediately.
Boop, so next up is
the broccoli rabe for
our crostini.
This is another
sort of like three
ingredient dish which is
garlic, ricotta, toasted
baguette, and then maybe
shave a little orange or
lemon, depends how
we are feeling.
When you buy the head
in the grocery store,
it's gonna have like
a tail end that's no good
that you wanna cut.
It's a little stalky.
So, I would say,
it existed like this,
had the rubber
band around it.
[NOISE] It's really
thinly sliced garlic.
We're gonna be
very generous with
the olive oil here.
[MUSIC]
[INAUDIBLE] We're keeping
this a little bit low and
slow, to sort of lure
the sweetness out of
the garlic.
And then, on the,
add a fair amount
of chili flake.
You can be pretty
generous with this.
You can cook that for
about, I would say,
five minutes,
till it starts to,
looks kinda translucent.
This looks pretty good.
[SOUND] It does
start to spit.
Gonna let that wilt
a little bit, and
then we'll add
another layer.
This could be really
any vegetable, but, or
any dark green,
collards, I love to do.
[MUSIC]
Pulling this.
This is like a very
good workhorse as
broccoli rabe.
[MUSIC]
Kind of broil the
baguette in the oven with
a little olive oil.
Get a good amount
of ricotta.
Delicious.
I'm not a very
organized chef,
but there's, like
a method to the madness.
So we have our
punches waiting in
the wings up until the
last minute, right before
the guests arrive
I'll assemble those.
In the meantime,
I'm hand cutting
some potato chips.
I've got.
the artichoke crostini
cooking in the oven and
a white bean crostini.
We've got all of
our desert ends of
things taken care of and
we're in very good shape.
All the other recipes
that are going to be on
our menu, you can follow
along on the blog.
So people are starting
to arrive so I'm just
gonna throw the punches
together very quickly.
Quickly.
We've got an orange ice
cube here.
This is rosemary.
You can read about how to
make these on
the website.
We're gonna take
our whiskey.
Punches are great for
parties because they
utilize really
cheap liquor.
This is the cider,
orange, and rosemary.
And then this punch,
grapefruit.
We'll do that first.
This is gonna
go in no time.
Good old Coors banquet.
We're calling this
the banquet ballyhoo.
Don't be shy.
Lemon slices.
And mint.
So festive.
The trick about punch is,
is you wanna make it
somewhere between
soccer mom and
hardcore alcoholic.
>> dirt.
[LAUGH] [NOISE] So
the idea is to take
that money that you
would normally put into
some like waxy thing of
brie and put it towards
colorful, tasty.
Multi textured items for
your spread.
[MUSIC]
So this is to prove.
A room full of
happy people.
And what did we spend?
What, $117.
17.
One one seven.
[MUSIC]
The Gemini Taurus
cusp in me.
This is the Gemini Taurus
cusp talking again.
[LAUGH] Martha Stewart
has had a couple cans
of Red Bull.
Spruce up, pun intended.
There weren't too
many perps out.
I was the perp, but
you know what I mean,
perp catchers.
