Tuesday Night #3 - 12/14/10

Tuesday Night Dinner Party was reserved for family in honor of my mom and sister's birthdays.  Mom requested chocolate, of course, and Lisa choose lemon poppy seed cake.  Grandma flipped when I told her I planned on only making a chocolate dessert.  As a result I quick ran and got mini lemon poppy seed muffins.

MENU
Appetizer - Stuffed Mushrooms (Epicurious.com), cherry tomatoes
Wine - Pinot Grigio (Black Box)
Salad - Caesar
Bread - Garlic
Entree - Turkey and Artichoke Stuffed Shells with Arabiatta Sauce (Giada DeLaurentis)
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/turkey-and-artichoke-stuffed-shells-with-arrabbiata-sauce-recipe/index.html
Dessert - Mini lemon poppy seed muffins, Chocolate Oblivion Truffle Torte w/ Raspberry Sauce (The Cake Bible) and Whipped Cream.

OK, this menu is the bomb.  I started on the stuffed shells on Monday.  I doubled the batch so we'd have some for the freezer but somehow it seemed to produce almost 3 times the amount.  I was up to my elbows in pasta, sauce and filling.  I had started the raspberry sauce the night before so i finished that up as well.  This was a dinner party for 8.  Had to pull out the folding chairs.

Family all arrived and we had beer and wine along with our apps.  I saved a small portion of the stuffed mushrooms for Jason and I.  I was sick of no leftovers for the next day.  I should not have bothered since I didn't think the mushrooms were that good.  Next time I'll try a recipe with spicy sausage in it.  Dinner was great and again, everyone had seconds.  Everyone oohed and awed when I served the torte.  I did look very pretty with the sauce and whipped cream.  I stacked the mini poppy seed muffins into a pyramid.  Corny but effective.

This picture really does not do it justice.

No game playing this week.  The birthday girls had gifts to open.  I got my mom flowers and my sister a casserole dish with the Campbell's soup recipe printed on it.  I think it is totally cute.  It is significant because it is pretty much the only thing she is allowed to bring to family dinners.  She has many talents but cooing is not one of them.  My niece entertained me after the meal when I had a chance to relax.  What an angel!

Jason did an excellent job of cleaning up the able and starting the dishwasher.  I owe him because I got a little crunched for time and when he got home I started barking orders at him.  Yikes!  I can get a little worked up.  I apologized and thanked him already.  Once again, he got yummy leftovers for lunch and I didn't.  I woke up about 2:30 in the morning and when and did the final load of dishes and cleaned up the kitchen nice.  At least he didn't have to see a mess while making his morning coffee.

Thanks to mom, dad, grandma, Lisa, Tim, Carol, Morgan and most of all Jason.

Tuesday Night #2 - 12/7/10

Oh boy, well, I have already fallen behind.  It is already the Wednesday after Dinner #3 and I haven't blogged about #2.  I must improve.

I once again had to email/call invites.  I think this is how it is going to be until Tuesday Night Dinner Party catches on.

I feel that this meal was an improvement over the first.  The menu was as follows:  Appetizers = Auntie Kathy's Chex mix, dill herbed cream cheese piped on vegetable crudites, Entree = bolognese sauce on linguine, Salad = mixed baby greens with my favorite vinegarette, Bread = italian herb, Dessert  = Auntie Kathy's chocolate peanut clusters and assorted chocolates.

http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/flavored-cream-cheeses

I loved the herbed cream cheese.  It is so fun and cute to pipe it onto veggies!  This is from martha Stewart's Hors Devours  cookbook.  I did them for christmas one year.  The bolognese sauce is a favorite from the Dean and Deluca cookbook.  I loved Lynn Rossetto Kasper's bolognese from The Splendid Table (or maybe it is the Italian Country Table) but her recipe is much more complicated.  My italian herb bread didn't excite me.  I won't use that recipe again.  Auntie Kathy's treats are super!  That is why I am glad to have them out of the house.  Too tempting.

I'm pleased to say that everyone mixed nicely and we had a good time.  Everyone had second helpings! :)  Beer and wine was plentiful.  We even had a nice italian red to go with the meal.  There were only enough leftovers for Jason's lunch.  None for me.  :(  We girls played Bananagrams after dinner and listened to the guys talk--very entertaining.  Overall, good friends, good food, good hooch and a good time.

I have figured out that for the future 6 is the right amount of people for dinner.  We can fit that amount comfortable around the dining table without having to pull out folding chairs.  We have a smaller living room that 8 gets tight in.  It is also way easier to cook for 6 than 8 so far.  I'm still a novice.

Thanks to Jason for all his help getting the house ready for guests and thanks to Tara, Sean, Mark and Sandra for making it a good night.

Tuesday Night #1 - 11/30/10

Jason and I worked hard getting the house cleaned up for company. I even shampooed the carpets and they look great! I had made a batch of baguettes and the dessert earlier in the day. I always use my bread machine for mixing and the first raising of the bread. I form the bread and do the last raising of the bread by hand. I hate a leaf of bread in the square shape of the bread maker pan. I also can never get the blasted thing out of the machine pan when it is done. It usually turned in to a mangled block. That's why I gave up that technique.

A guest brought a red and a white wine. She and I polished off my Black Box red (1 glass each) before we broke into her red, a 2009 Cline Mourvedre. I have no idea what the heck that is but it was tasty. The rest of the guests had either beer or water.

After people were chatting with a drink I remembered that I needed to cook! I can easily get distracted. I popped into the kitchen and started to cook. I started the stew off by sauteing up the chorizo. As this was going on I scanned the recipe to make sure I knew what I was doing. This is when I realized (yet again) what a knucklehead I was. The recipe called for andouille, not chorizo. Well, it was too late as I didn't have andouille. Oh man, that was a real dinner party stresser. I recalled hearing somewhere that as a cook you should never admit any mistakes to your dinner party guests because more likely than not no one was going to notice. I decided to go with that since I didn't have better options.

I finished off the stew crossing my fingers that it was going to be OK. I had chosen a simple recipe out of the Food Network Magazine. It was really nothing fancy and was in a recipe collection titled "Weeknight Cooking". Hey, Tuesday is a weeknight. The recipe ingredients included boneless, skinless chicken thighs, red potatoes and okra. I had only cooked with okra once before and did not care for it. I was giving okra a second chance. That made me a bit nervous but I had had pretty good luck with Food Network recipes. Oh yeah, and the recipe called for ANDOUILLE, not chorizo.

Dinner was served and on the table a bit later than I had planned. No one was starved though as I had mixed olives, pretzels and hummus for them to snack on. I found the stew to be a little bland and so did Jason. This is probably because of the sausage mix up. We'll be kicking the leftovers up a bit with hot sauce. Everyone seemed to like it though. I know the bread was a big hit. That all got scarfed down pretty quick. I served baby greens salad with cucumbers and grape tomatoes. I let people choose their own dressing out of the fridge selection.

The Traditional Two Berry Buckle I made went over well too. I made it with blueberries and raspberries. The recipe was quite simple and really easy to do if you have a stand mixer and a food processor. The recipe is out of a cookbook called Home Cooking Desserts. I picked it up at Half Priced books years ago and it has turned out to be a good one. Love that!

Overall, I'd say that the main course is not worth making again. It lacked a kick. Had I actually used the proper ingredients this may not have been a problem. Jason agreed. That dessert rocked though and we have really enjoyed finishing it off this last week. It is great with coffee in the morning. My first Tuesday night dinner party meal was nothing over the top or even memorable, but we had a good time. Thanks to Jill, Scott, Ryan, Mandy and little O-Dog for coming.

We Are Having a Dinner Party Every Tuesday Night

"What?" asks my husband Jason.

"We are having a dinner party every Tuesday night."

He looks at me like I'm crazy.

I respond that I want to start cooking more, that since he is not working right now we had more time, we had to eat and so we might as well invite friends and make it fun. I used to have dinner parties for friends all the time and I missed it. I had chosen Tuesdays because Monday was my grocery shopping day. It all made perfect sense.

Jason is still looking at me like I am crazy.

"What is the big deal? We don't have anything better to do. (Sad, but true.) I'll have everyone come bring a beverage to share. That way it won't get too expensive. I already posted it on Facebook." I say.

"You what?!?" he asks incredulously.

"Yep, I posted on Facebook that I am having a dinner party every Tuesday night at 6 pm and the first 6 people to RSVP get to come."

I had in fact posted my invite on Facebook on Sunday around noon. I then compulsively checked for responses every half hour or so. By Sunday night all my friends to respond were busy this Tuesday but wanted to come another time. The pessimist in me was now was convinced I was going to end up having a dinner party for just my husband and myself--what a couple of losers. That's depressing. I figured it may end up that way a couple of times and that would be alright. It was NOT alright for the first one though!

I decided to tempt people by sharing the menu I had chosen - Stewed Chicken with Andouille, salad, homemade baguettes, and a traditional 2 berry buckle for dessert. That should get some takers, right? I thought some of my not so close Facebook friends might be a little timid about RSVPing, but I wanted them to. I wanted an interesting mix of people every week. Stir things up a little. It does take a while for things to catch on sometimes. Just in case I sent out a handful of emails inviting people. A more personalized, if still technological, approach might be the trick at first.

It was the emails that did the trick. Two couples were available. Yay! I then remembered that I had lent my friend our extra chairs for her Thanksgiving event so we could currently only seat 6 for dinner. I posted to Facebook that I was no longer taking reservations. Dinner for 6 would be just fine. I now felt optimistic and not at all like a loser. That was good.