HOME & GARDEN CONSUMER GUIDE
Serving A Bridal Shower
Exotic ideas are popular, including ethnic themes like a Moroccan Girls Night. While having their hands painted with henna, a traditional custom called mendhi, some ladies I met enjoyed the performance of a male belly dancer. Light food for the evening included hummus, stuffed grape leaves and spiced chicken kababs. Since most are finger foods, plates and clean-up were kept to a minimum. Serving iced mint tea eliminated alcohol, too.
Actual cooking at the shower – a real cooking lesson – is another trend. The results, I am told, sometimes inspire additional weddings. For their wedding shower, one couple invited many guests who had not met before to meet in the kitchen at a local cooking school. This helped everyone mix and get acquainted easily, which helped them mingle more easily on the wedding day. The cooking-lesson shower was so much fun, the couple vow to repeat the class for their first anniversary.
Particularly trendy is having a series of small parties for a dozen or fewer guests, each with a different group of friends – work colleagues, old school buddies and so on. Small groups like these allow the bride-to-be and guests to relax and really talk. A small shower also makes potluck planning easy. You have less risk of duplicating a dish, and can ensure a menu including everything from crudités to the guest-of-honor’s favorite foods.
The growing popularity of coed showers makes dainty dishes passé. Still, you can keep the menu light, perhaps with a buffet of green and fruit salads, plus a dessert table that includes this peach-topped, creamy cheese soufflé. A bonus feature of this dessert is that whatever is leftover can be served cold, like a crustless Italian cheesecake.
Peachy Ricotta Soufflé
- Canola oil cooking spray
- 1 cup part-skim (reduced-fat) ricotta cheese
- 1 cup fat-free ricotta cheese
- 8 oz. reduced-fat cream cheese
- 2 large eggs
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 6 Tbsp. flour
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
- 1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
- 3 large egg whites
- 2 large ripe peaches, thinly sliced, or 2 cups canned peaches, sliced, in light syrup
Preheat oven to 375 degrees, with the rack in the center. Coat an 11x7x1-1/2-inch square baking dish with cooking spray.
In a blender or food processor, mix ricotta cheeses, cream cheese and eggs until creamy. Add sugar, flour, salt, vanilla and lemon juice. Whirl to blend well.
Use a hand mixer or whisk to beat egg whites in a medium bowl until soft peaks form. Pour in one-quarter of the cheese mixture. Mix gently with rubber spatula, leaving mixture streaky. Pour in remaining cheese mixture and fold it gently into the whites. Pour mixture into the prepared baking dish. Arrange peaches in three long rows on top.
Bake 40 minutes, or until soufflé is browned and puffed, and knife inserted in the center comes out almost clean. Let soufflé sit 15 minutes before serving. Spoon onto dessert plates to serve.
Makes 6 servings.
Per serving: 326 calories, 12 g. total fat (7 g. saturated fat), 42 g. carbohydrate, 14 g. protein, 1 g. dietary fiber, 407 mg. sodium.
By Dana Jacobi for the American Institute for Cancer Research
“Something Different” is written for the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) by Dana Jacobi, author of The Joy of Soy, and recipe creator for AICR’s Stopping Cancer Before It Starts.
