When we had our first Harry Potter party two years ago, I silently vowed that the next one would be better. That one I was cooking for two hours after the Marshalls arrived, and besides the food our only ode to Harry Potter in the house was the movie playing upstairs.
This time was a little different! Abe disassembled Ammon’s room and transformed it into a dining room for the kids. He floated candles from the ceiling, hung a big picture of Hogwarts on one wall, and used some of the decorations our friend Amy lent us to complete the look. We also set the tables with rustic plates, bowls, and fanciful goblets.
I had not fully learned my lesson though because I procrastinated cooking and ended up cooking for 8 straight hours on Saturday. I did not make all of the food I wanted to, but we still had Leaky Cauldron split pea soup (the smitten kitchen recipe), gilly weed salad, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pasties. I am bookmarking the recipe for the pumpkin pasties here mostly for the crust recipe. It calls for Greek yogurt and is such a good pastry! I substituted spelt flour in half of the pasties and they still came out. It’s really good.
Mary and I made pumpkin juice and funneled it into bottles, and Abe and Mary made butterbeer and gilly weed water. For dessert we had Hagrid’s rock cakes, treacle tart (a delight to bake!), and golden snitches that Amy and her kids crafted.
I had so much fun talking with our adult friends Micah, Jessi, Morgan and Amy while the kids appeared to be having fun in their dining room.
After dinner Jessi and Morgan had to go, but the rest of us went outside to make s’mores on our–now working, hallelujah!–fire pit. Sitting around the fire was another highlight for me.
I neglected to take good pictures, but I did at least get these. I think Abe has a video that he will upload when he gets around to it.
