Wild West Saloon

What a night.  Last night was my husbands 30th birthday party with a wild west theme.  Talk about a boys dream to dress up as a cowboy!  Five hours before the party started my husband and brother were running around the house practicing shoot outs and were dreaming up their outfits weeks before the party.  I was really impressed with the turnout of cowboys, saloon girls and Native Americans.   Everyone got really into it.  The food was yummy, the music was great, the people were fun and the cake was a hit. I have included recipe links of the food I made for the party (sorry there are no photos of the food, I tend to not take photos at a party and I just enjoy myself).  On the menu was chili, beer bread and wings - a cowboys feed.  All went down really well.

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/the-ultimate-chili/detail.aspx
This is the link for the chili recipe.  It was a huge hit! I used one less tablespoon of chili and I also added  two tablespoons of garlic powder, one tablespoon of salt, three tablespoons of brown sugar and two tablespoons of honey.  I forgot the red wine in the end which I think it probably didn't need and I also thickened it up with some cornflour.  Normally I would have used the full amount of chili powder but was a bit concerned about my guests not liking spicy so I stuck with using less.  I served it with corn chips and grated cheese.

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/baked-buffalo-wings/detail.aspx
This is the recipe I used for the buffalo wings.  They turned out super yummy and went incredibly fast.  I highly recommend this.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/sticky-honey-soy-chicken-wings-recipe/index.html
This is the recipe for the honey and soy wings I used.  I didn't have cilantro so I left it out.  Also, I didn't fry them I just baked them with the above buffalo wings (200 degree C for 40 min - or until juices run clear, turning once) and then melted butter and honey together and brushed them with it at the end.  These were also a hit!

http://www.food.com/recipe/beer-bread-73440
This is the super easy recipe for the beer bread.  Anyone can make this, it is so easy.  I use self rising flour as you only have four ingredients to use then.  Make sure you do sift the flour as it does make a difference.

As for the cake, I was pretty excited to make this cake once I decided I knew what I was doing.  My favourite part is definitely the saloon girl in the window and the passed out cowboy on the side of the saloon.   It is a Mississippi mud cake and went much faster then it took to make.  Someone asked if I was sad to cut into my cakes but I am just as proud of the taste of my cakes as I am in how they look so I love people to eat them!