We Were Holiday Party Animals!

Whew! What an amazing end to 2011! We partied hard, and we’re some of the lucky people because we got paid to do it. Y.Lo Epicure had so many fun events throughout the holidays. We don’t mean to brag (too much), but here is just a small overview of what went on, and you might even get an idea or two for next year.

A “Minute-to-Win-it” Holiday party- there’s nothing like seeing your co-workers try to yank all the tissues from a box using only one hand in only 60 seconds. (Go ahead. Go home and try it, we both know you want to.) This party was also a dance-fest while simultaneously having a special area upstairs for wrapping care packages for the homeless. Party people who give back. We like it!

An upscale house party where the staff got to dress in formal wear too, serving an amazing cocktail concoction called “Santa’s Hat”. Of course we won’t keep it to ourselves:  One part pomegranate juice, two parts champagne, powdered sugar rim on the champagne glass. This was absolutely adorable!

A Private, modest one- bedroom apartment party that turned in to an 80 person blowout. Oh yeah. This person must have had amazing neighbors to go with his amazing view of Denver. Bartending from the kitchen seemed impossible at first, but it turned out to be an absolute blast with some really fun people!

A gorgeous drive to Boulder for a luncheon that dazzled during the day-time with all white linens and silver, glittery snowflakes dangling from the ceiling. As if this wasn’t sparkly enough, guests were blown away by being handed a glass of bubbly as they walked through the door.

A one-thousand person event downtown with three bars, full-service buffet (Provided by yours truly, of course), a DJ and a live band. And how was it? Ah. Maz. Ing. This was a very young crowd who knew how to dress up and get down!

Not a bad run by some folks who started out as a small corporate caterer, right? By the time New Years’ actually came around and most people were ready to go out, we just wanted a NAP! Because as you can tell, Y.Lo Epicure does it all- and we did! But we had an absolute blast gaining all of this experience, and definitely makes us better at what we do every day. Cheers to Partying with you in 2012!

Bah Black Friday Humbug

AH Thanksgiving- you know it’s time when all the signs are present: Moms starting to plan seating arrangements, dads mentally preparing themselves for in-law visits, store displays of stuffing and canned pumpkin galore, and of course – Black Friday adds starting to pop up everywhere. Now I love Thanksgiving and enjoy taking the time to stop and acknowledge all that I have to be thankful for, but this time is also a little clouded for me with angst for what is to come sooner than I am ready- Christmas Shopping.
Like a lot of people, I’m one of those who is making an effort to not be the last-minute Christmas shopper this year. However, I am also constantly struggling to think of new and creative Christmas presents, which I will always maintain as my excuse for late shopping. Anybody with me?
So I got to thinking- what is it that people love this time of year? First thing that pops in to mind: FOOD! What do I do for a living now? FOOD! So do I need to share this light bulb that just went off with you guys? Absolutely.
Y.Lo Epicure does meal plans. Did you know that? One week to one month of them for any number of people. What a great gift idea for that expecting friend of family member of yours! It’s also very thoughtful for the family who has a sick loved one, or the work-aholic that doesn’t have time to cook. I actually have a few of these people in my life right now and voila- Shopping done!
So now that I’m done with a lot of shopping, I can relax and take the time to focus back on Thanksgiving, and letting you know how thankful we at Y.Lo are to have you as a client and friend!
Sincerely,
Y.Lo Epicure

Soup’s On!

Now that it’s officially FALL (where did the time go?) we are starting to add some of our favorite cold weather dishes back to our menu. Yolonda has been busy in our kitchen breaking out her recipes for one of my favorite cold weather dishes… Soup! Something I’m very excited for as I’m starting to find myself searching for Soup recipes to make on a lazy Sunday afternoon.  At Y.Lo Epicure we have a wide variety of warm amazing soup dishes all of them Homemade and made daily in our kitchen! Our soups include:

Vegetable, Chicken Noodle

Cream Corn Chowder

Baked Potato

Creamy Chicken and Vegetable

Split Pea and Ham

Chicken Tortilla

Asparagus with Herbed Goat Cheese

Broccoli Cheddar

Black Bean & Bacon

They also come with Fresh Baked Mini Rolls and Fresh Baked Dessert. So next time you’re thinking about calling in a lunch order I recommend checking out our Deliciously Comforting Homemade Signature Soups! It’s such a great way to warm up the middle of your work day!

 

 

 

 

Happy Fall!

 

Courtney Hall & YLo Team

 

Have you booked your Holiday Party Yet?

With Fall in the air the Holiday Season is approaching FAST!!! Which means it’s time to start planning your Corporate and Family Holiday Parties! Let YLo plan your BIG event and make your party the HIGHLIGHT of the SEASON!! Sit back, Relax and Let us take care of everything from complimentary Holiday Decor to an amazing Custom Holiday Menu! We are sure to make your event UNFORGETTABLE and impress your friends, clients, colleagues, and family with our eye-catching displays and our professional and friendly staff! We will gladly help with any arrangements…all you need to do is ask! Get a Jump Start on the SEASON and Book your Event Today!

Happy Monday!

Courtney Hall & YLo Team!

Local Charity’s Benefit with Wine Walk & Haley’s Heart!!

The Lowry Town Center in Denver, Colorado has a bi-annual Wine Walk benefiting local charities in the Lowry Community. It’s a great event that allows members of the community together to socialize with other members and to promote the local businesses in the Lowry Town Center. It also benefits local charities such as the local school programs in the area. The local businesses get together to serve wine and food to the participates. Each business will have a selection of wine from a certain area of the world and participates get to try different wines from all over the world and food. This year we helped Haley’s Heart providing them with what we constantly heard was the BEST food of the night! They also made the event memorable with a Photo Booth outside of their store for everyone to take complimentary pictures in! Blue Sky Photo Booth brought lots of props for everyone to have fun with. Michelle and I even got in on the photo taking action taking silly pictures for us to remember how much fun we had catering this event! We were so Happy to work with them. They have by far the CUTEST Store at Lowry Town Center filled with everything from Rockstar Baby Pacifiers to Rockies Baseball Bracelets to Home decor like Apothecary Jars. If you are ever down around Quebec and 1st Street and the Lowry Town Center make sure to stop by and bring you’re wallet! You won’t want to leave empty handed! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the event we served our addicting Chicken Curry Puffs, Sun Dried Tomato Marinated Tomato and Mozzarella Balls, and Roasted Fennel and Artichoke Dip served with Toasted Crostini. Everyone was definetely coming back for seconds with this amazing array of appetizers!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Have a Great Weekend!!

Courtney Hall & YLo Team!

Close the Window on Hunger with Champion Windows!

Last week YLo helped Champion Windows Company of Denver end their Summer “Close the Window on Hunger” Campain with an amazing event at their 45th Street North Denver location! Their campaign resulted in a total of 106,786 POUNDS of FOOD!!!! The food will be donated to the Food Bank of the Rockies and Boulder Community Food. Please check out their campaign on their Facebook page here. We were soo Happy to be a part of this event! We loved being able to provide everyone who made their campaign sooooo successful with some amazing food! The Beautiful dessert display of Mini Cheese Cakes, Chocolate Covered Strawberries, and Chocolate Drizzled Cream Puffs was soo cute you couldn’t wait to eat to eat them up! We also did an appetizer buffet including our BBQ Mini Meatballs, Bison Sliders with Caramelized Onion, and Chicken Empanadas with Dried Apricots and Cranberries. Chef Yolonda also made her amazing Caramel Walnut Baked Brie en Croute with Fresh Berries and Crackers. The Brie is baked in puff pastry  and you can wait to cut into it and get the Creamy Brie, Sweet Caramel Sauce, and savory Puff Pastry on your plate! It was such a fun event and we loved working with Lisa and the rest of the Champion Staff!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Tuesday!

Courtney Hall & YLo Team!

The Votes are IN and the A-List Winners are…..

Thank you for all the support and votes we received form our Loving Friends, Family and of course amazing CLIENTS!!! Y. Lo Epicure recieved…….…..2nd Place!!!!!! For best caterer!!

Please check out the results here

We couldn’t be more excited because it gives us the chance to work even harder next year to get to be #1!!! We continue to thank you for all your support! We love the ability to continue to provide you with amazing food, personal service, and eye catching displays! We are also very thankful to be a rapidly growing small women owned business with the ability to be active in the community. And of course it is all THANKS to you, our clients, and the relationships you have allowed us to build with you. We thank you again for all of your and support!

Thank you again!

Courtney Hall & YLo Team!

Celebrate Labor Day with these Patriotic Dishes!

Where did the summer go? We can’t believe it’s already September and that it’s time to start switching out the warm summer shorts and t-shirts for jeans and sweatshirts! So before the cold weather officially arrives we’re celebrating Labor Day out in the warm sun with friends and family and some of these amazing Patriotic Dishes! We want to wish Everyone a Fabulous Holiday and hope you are able to enjoy some of these dishes as well!

Red, White and Blue Burgers

Ingredients

2lb Ground Beef

1 Cup finely chopped Red Onion

1/2 package Dry Ranch Salad Dressing Mix

1 teaspoon Ground Black Pepper

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup Red Wine (Cabernet Savignon preferred)

8 ounces Blue Cheese Crumbles

Directions

Preheat Grill to Medium-High Heat and lightly oil the grate. Mix together the above ingredients in a large bowl. Form 8 burgers. Cook for 8-10 minutes on each side until they are cook to your desired temperature. Have fun topping the burgers with more Blue Cheese, Tomatoes, Lettuce, Caramelized Red Onions, Bacon, etc and Enjoy!

Crowd Pleasing Very Berry Trifle

(courtesy of Sunny Anderson and Food Network)

Ingredients

1/4 cup plus 2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1 premade angel food cake, cut into 1-inch slices
1 pound cream cheese, at room temperature
2 cups heavy cream, at room temperature
2 pints blueberries
2 pints strawberries, hulled and sliced

Directions

Heat 1/4 cup sugar, the lemon juice and 1/4 cup water in a saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring, until the sugar dissolves. Remove from the heat and stir in the almond extract. Brush both sides of each slice of cake with the syrup. Cut the slices into 1-inch cubes. Beat the remaining 2/3 cup sugar and the cream cheese with a mixer on medium speed until smooth and light. Add the cream and beat on medium-high speed until smooth and the consistency of whipped cream. Arrange half of the cake cubes in the bottom of a 13-cup trifle dish. Sprinkle evenly with a layer of blueberries. Dollop half of the cream mixture over the blueberries and gently spread. Top with a layer of strawberries. Layer the remaining cake cubes on top of the strawberries, then sprinkle with more blueberries and top with the remaining cream mixture. Finish with the remaining strawberries and blueberries, arranging them in a decorative pattern. Cover and refrigerate 1 hour.

We hope everyone has a FABULOUS Holiday Weekend!

Courtney Hall & YLo Team!

We’ve Got the Dirt on Composting!

With the growing concern over the environment there is an importance for our community to do what we can to pitch in and help. At Y.Lo we understand this growing concern and love to do whatever we can to help make an impact on helping our environment. Something we love to offer is on-site composting! We are happy to bring the materials needed to compost the remaining food that does not get eaten at your next event! At home you can easily start your own compost pile adding scraps of food from home cooked meals, gathered leaves and or newly cut grass from your yard. Instead of throwing way these raw materials, think about trying something as simple as Passive Composting. This involves the least amount of time and energy on your part. This is done by collecting organic materials in a freestanding pile. It might take a long time (a year or two), but eventually organic materials in any type of a pile will break down into finished compost for you to constantly use for fertilizer for your garden or plants! So if you’ve got a back yard and lots of table scraps why not give composting a try?

How to create a Passive Composting

To start you want to find a spot in your yard that will allow the pile to get both sunlight and rain. This sunlight will help heat up the pile and help speed up the decomposing part of the process along with the rain providing the pile with the moisture it needs to help this process as well.  You can then build a 3-sided enclosure made of fencing, wire, concrete blocks, or wood, which keeps the pile neater and less unsightly.  This will also help to keep the pile intact. Some also use a garbage can. Start adding grass clippings, leaves, and kitchen scraps (always cover these with 8″ of other material). The pile will start to shrink quickly as the materials compress and decompose. Wait a little bit over a year or two before checking the bottom of the bin for finished compost. When you feel it is ready, shovel the bottom section into a wheelbarrow and add it to your garden beds or before you mulch. Continue to add greens and browns to have a good supply of finished compost at the ready. After the first few years, most simple piles produce a few cubic feet of finished compost a year.

Happy Composting!

Courtney Hall & YLo Team!

YLo and Regis Celebrate a New Campus for the University!!

This past Thursday, August 25th Y.Lo Epicure had the great honor of catering the ribbon cutting ceremony for Regis University‘s new Dual Language Campus in Thornton, Colorado. The Dual Language campus will focus on providing programs that allow working adult members of the Latino Community with the opportunity to further their education and pursue amazing new career opportunities.  Roxanne Gonzales, academic dean of the College for Professional Studies, said “Having all bilingual faculty and staff ensures students can communicate and receive services in their preferred language, and our bilingual faculty are rigorously selected and trained specifically to work with adult students”. They’ve already projected enrollment for the first group of students this fall  to be nearly 150 students, and the majority of those being undergraduate students. Classes begin this fall.

For the event we really wanted to celebrate the Latin Culture honoring this accomplishment. We were able to have fun with the decorations providing them with bright colorful flower displays courtesy of Capelli Floral and we loved their request for large cacti displays. The food was an amazing display of some of our best Latin dishes including Braised Peruvian Short Ribs, Brazilian Beef Empanadas with Dried Apricots and Cranberries, Grilled Seasonal Vegetables topped with Homemade Chimichurri, and Mini Crispy Tortilla Bowls filled with Fresh Shrimp and Guacamole and topped with Pico De Gallo. We also set up a beautiful refreshing  drink buffet with Ice Tea, Lemonade, Sangria, and Iced Water with Sliced Fruit. We satisfied everyone’s sweet tooth with Mexican Brownies with a Hint of Heat, Cinnamon Sprinkled Churros and Sweet Cherry Empanadas. While people enjoyed the food and drinks they enjoyed festive music by the band Tit Del Barrio Malaga. After the Ribbon Cutting ceremony a mariachi band played to celebrate the occasion!  It was an amazing event and a new chapter for the rapidly expanding University, and we were so happy to help celebrate!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome Back to School!,

 

Courtney Hall & YLo Team!