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.