posted by Jennifer on a day in the life of me!

Over the weekend, I had the pleasure of helping a 12 year old girl Sophie have her dream birthday party – a kind of a cooking throwdown with her friends. Her favorite shows are chopped and Cake Boss!

She wanted to have an appetizer, a main entree and dessert. So her Mom and I e-mailed back and forth and I gave her some ideas about what we could do, made a list of ingredients and made a recipe card for her friends to take home.

I belong to a Mom mail group in my town and a Mom had asked for help because her daughter wanted a cooking party, but she had no idea how to make it happen. I e-mailed her right away and said “I can help!” Then I called my twin sister Biz and asked if she would join in the fun – and she jumped at the chance.

When we got to the party, the birthday girl Sophie had set the tables so fancy!

The kitchen was gorgeous – Biz and I were drooling over the kitchen island with a sink in it, the 6 burner stove, gorgeous lighting – it was deluxe!

On the menu? Pot stickers for an appetizer, thin crust and deep dish pizza for the main meal, and crepes for dessert.

The Mom, Maryanne had everything ready when we got there.

The pot stickers turned out great and the girls spent time plating their dishes beautifully:

The girls got to chop veggies, fill their won ton wrappers as Biz and I sauteed them.

Once we finished eating pot stickers, it was on to the main dish – pizza!

My team did thin crust, and Biz’s team made deep dish. I showed the girls how to make the no rise pizza dough.

2 cups flour
1 cup warm water
1 packet of yeast
pinch of salt.

Mix the water and yeast together and let sit for 5 minutes. Add that to the flour and mix with a wooden spoon until it starts to get incorporated. Then you can take it out and knead it for a few minutes. Then just roll it into 1 big pizza or 2 smaller ones.

My team decided on green pepper, onions and spinach.

I like how the girls thought to place the green peppers around the edges – it turned out great!

Now my sister’s team made a deep dish pizza – the link to that recipe is HERE

Everyone loved the deep dish too!

And after the girls were done eating pizza – it was time for dessert!

Sophie wanted crepes – so we made crepes with strawberries, bananas and Nutella – you can’t go wrong with that.

I used the recipe from Mark Bitterman’s How to Cook Everything and it’s super easy to make.

1 cup all-purpose flour
Pinch salt
1- 1/4 cups milk
2 eggs
2 T corn oil

Just mix together in a bowl and take about 1/4 cup of the batter for each crepe. It only takes about 3 minutes per side.

Then, just fill it with whatever you like!

All in all it was a great night – Biz and I got to do something we love – we got to spend time together and met a great group of girls.

Happy 12th birthday Sophie!