Game of Thrones Halloween Brunch

My friend Sabrina is always coming up with these fabulous ideas.

Together, when we start talking about things we love, we end up brainstorming different ways to entertain our friends and prepare great meals for our family. Sometimes, if we are lucky, we get to do these two things together!

Recently, she mentioned to me that she would like to try making a few fun dishes to the tune of Game of Thrones for a Halloween themed brunch.

She had me at Game of Thrones…

Ok. So, I must admit, I stopped watching a couple of seasons back. I think I lost interest somewhere around season four or five. But, I was able to pick it back up again recently when my friend Claudette lent us all her discs for the first three seasons, we binged watched to refresh and catch up again when season seven started earlier this year.

While Sabrina and I love putting all these ideas and details in order, we do know and understand our own limitations. We know that it is difficult to do it all. This is why we asked for a little help from our friends.

Of course Sab and I like to start with the FOOD.

Have you seen these huge Grazing Stations, and Grazing Trays that seems to be all the trend, right now? While, I am all for making things easy in the interest of time, I think Sab and I both agree, it’s worth a little extra effort when it comes to creating an appetizer tray like this. They are perfect for putting out for big groups of people, and need little tending to once they are set up.

Actually, this is really where we can get a little creative with the ingredients that can be included in a board like this.

Going to one of the nearest deli’s is always your best bet when trying to put something like this together. Santi’s was our deli of choice for this one because I really had the idea that I wanted to include some fun things that aren’t available anywhere else. (like the big German pretzels)

One thing I really appreciate is the fact that you can request the deli meats to be sliced very thinly. By choosing a variety of meats like salami, ham, turkey, lyoneer, and even dried sausages, your grazing board is off to an awesome start.

In this case, I just came from a California Milk Advisory Board event a couple of days before. We were able to include some of those cheeses into the grazing board while adding in some of the cheeses that I hand carried from Little Italy during my recent trip to New York.

These cheeses just made this grazing board a little more exciting.

AND SO DID THIS.

Growing up, my Nana always had this bottle of pickled vegetables in the refrigerator. Usually it was right next to her Brioschi. I never liked either of these bottles or jars as a kid. But now that I am older, I find myself looking for the tart and tangy taste of the pickled veggies my Nana would eat right out of the jar.

[yumprint-recipe id=’29’]We knew we wanted to make something that would reference The Red Wedding.

We knew we wanted to make something that would reference The Dragons.

We knew we wanted to make something that would reference The Pigeon Pie.

We also wanted to make sure we had delicious desserts.

We had a little bit of time to make a Rustic Plum Tart with Homemade Ricotta Cheese and toasted almonds. I was able to make the ricotta earlier in the week during a cheesemaking workshop.

But the real stars of the show were the desserts that our friends brought over to compliment our theme. Honestly, we really didn’t have much time to put this all together. We thought about it one week, and threw it together with the help of our friends, the following week.

Mind you, when we ask our friends to come up with things like this, they DO NOT disappoint! But I have a confession, Sabrina likes to challenge our friends. I always have a good laugh when we talk about stuff like this, and honestly, I laughed really hard (and maybe even said “Are you sure?”) and passed on the request to our friend Maggie from The Little Whisk.

Yes. We even had Ned Stark’s head (in cookie form) on a stick.

We also had a Fire and Ice cake representing Jon Snow. Sonja did an awesome job with this one. It totally represents all that our favorite character is…and perhaps even what has come in the status of his relationship with Daenerys.

Not all the desserts need to be themed, though. That’s why we asked The Flour Jar to serve up goodness in the form of our favorite doughnuts.Every dessert table should have a variety of different sweets to satisfy each and every sweet tooth. Our friend, Bea (I have posted about her doughnuts before.) from Flour Jar Manila sent over these lovelies that EVERYONE enjoyed as well. (especially the kids when they came home from school) My problem? I can’t eat just one.

But all of the food, as fun and as yummy as it looked and tasted, would not be enough as it sits on the table…you know us so well already when we do these things, right?

We need a back drop. A Tablescape. A stage for all the food to sit on. While the food has to be yummy, we need it to be just as pretty when we bring our dishes to the table.

This makes it so much easier to focus on the meal.

Doesn’t it?

Now, if you would like to order cookies, cake, or even the doughnuts, I am sure if you order early enough, you can create your own dessert buffet for Halloween. But if you are gonna do something like this, I suggest you also drop The White Box a line so they can put together some of the accessories for your table as well.

Guess what?

White Box is offering a special 15% discount for a Halloween Party Box that is good for 10-15 people.

All you have to do is:

1) Follow them on Instagram @thewhiteboxph
2) Like their Facebook page at facebook.com/thewhiteboxph
3) Private message them with the #mwbgothalloween to avail of the discount

**Promo ends October 8, 2018

Cakes by Sonja: Fire & Ice Cake
The Little Whisk: Sugar Cookies & Ned Stark’s Head on a Stick
Flour Jar Manila: Mini Doughnuts in assorted flavors
The White BoxPH: Styling details and tablescape