home is where my story begins...

Early Summer Dinner Group – How to Host a Dinner Party Without Cooking Ahead

   By 1 Comment

Every few months I share photos from my dinner group and tell you all about how much fun we have.  For those of you who are new to my blog, here’s how it works.  Every few months (we shoot for once a month) the hostess chooses four recipes that she has never tried before.  She purchases the ingredients for those recipes and sets up four cooking stations in her kitchen.  When the guests arrive, we each choose a recipe that we are interested in making and start cooking.  When you are at your own house, in your own kitchen, cooking alone, it can sometimes seem like a chore.  But, when you are cooking with friends, it is so much more fun!

This time, we had Dinner Group at my friend Dawn’s house.  She has a beautiful backyard and the weather was sunny and warm.  We ate outside, after dinner was done.
(I usually bring my fancy camera, but I forgot this time.  It was a good chance to try out the quality of the iphone 6 camera.  I think the color/white balance was slightly off, but overall it took nice photos. Gotta love technology that you can take with you!)
I’m not a drinker, but we usually have some sort of cocktail along with dinner.  This one was called a Hula Girl.  I stuck with water, but this smelled really yummy!

Ooh, check out the bokeh (background blur) with my iphone picture.  Not bad, Apple!

We had salad, pasta, drinks, and dessert.  The pasta had chicken, tomato, spinach, and cheese.  You can’t go wrong with that combination!

The salad was very interesting because it was a combination I would never have thought about putting together.  It had fruit, spinach, and quinoa.  It was really tasty and I was surprised that I liked it!

The recipe I made was the cheesecake puffs for dessert.  Um, I think you can tell just by looking that these were SUPER tasty.  It was a puffed pastry, stuffed with cream cheese filling and strawberries, topped with powdered sugar, chocolate, and almonds.  I could live on these!

I think I say this every time I post about my dinner group, but I will say it again.  This is really the perfect dinner party!  You don’t have to do any cooking ahead of time and it’s just a great way to spend quality time with friends.  I also love the fact that it gets me trying new foods, that I know I wouldn’t try on my own, and trying new recipes too!  
Happy cooking!

The Best Way to Host a Dinner Party – Chapter 4

   By Leave a Comment

I feel like I share about the BEST way to host a dinner party quite frequently. When something is the BEST, you just can’t help but share.  
It was Angie’s turn to host this month.  She told the dinner guests to come in comfy clothes and her theme for the dinner party was comfort food.  Now, if you haven’t read my previous blog posts about my dinner club, here’s how it works.  The hostess selects 4 dishes to cook for the party, purchases the ingredients, and sets everything out on the counter.  Each of the guests and the hostess selects a dish to prepare and we spend the evening cooking together.  Doesn’t that sound lovely?  The goal is to select recipes that are new to us.  Angie said she chose a few recipes from the Pioneer Woman website.  I love P-Dub. You just can’t go wrong there.
There was salad, grilled cheese, tomato soup, and strawberry crisp. 
And yoga pants. 
And cocktails.
I forgot to read all of the recipes, so I don’t even know what was in everything.  I will say with certainty that it was really yummy and comforting.  The grilled cheese sandwiches were made with rye bread, white cheddar cheese, tomatoes, onions, something green that I didn’t want on my sandwiches, and a dijon spread.  I was licking my fingers as I ate the gooey-ness.

The salad also had a hint of dijon.  I’ve decided that I really love nuts in my salads.  

I picked the tomato soup for my contribution.  I have a confession to make.  Never, in my life, have I tasted tomato soup.  I know, I know.  Some of you are thinking that it must be because I don’t like tomatoes.  Ummm.  Tomatoes happen to be one of my favorite foods of all time.  So, my only reason for not ever trying tomato soup is that Campbell’s tomato doesn’t look too yummy to me.  The recipe that we used was a creamy tomato basil.  It was pretty good.  I can see why people consider this comfort food.   The verdict?  I think I’d make it again and I think my family would like it.  It was a good choice for the dinner party!
We finished the night with strawberry crisp, which was TO DIE FOR.  It didn’t photograph well, so it didn’t make the cut for the blog, but it was my favorite comfort food of the night.  
I love my dinner club friends.  It’s so nice to have a chance to sit and talk with other adults, find out how my friends’ lives are going, and just try out a few new recipes at the same time.  Now, don’t you agree that this is the BEST way to host a dinner party?
Thanks dinner club!  I can’t wait until next month!
Happy cooking!

Dinner Group in August

   By 2 Comments

Last night was my turn to host the dinner group that I do with a few friends.  I posted about this dinner group before, explaining how it is the best way ever to host a dinner party.  My friend, Krystal, came up with the plan.  She said a friend had done a dinner group like this one and loved it.  We started about a year ago, with the intention of getting together once a month.  Some months are crazier than others and we have to skip, but I was excited to host this month!  Everything is just easier in the summertime. 
For those of you who aren’t regular readers of my blog, the whole idea behind our dinner group is that the host chooses the recipes and purchases the ingredients, but doesn’t do any of the cooking ahead of time.  Each guest and the host cooks one of the dishes. The rule is, that you can’t choose recipes that you’ve ever made before.  It has to be something new.  Now, those of you who know me know that I am NOT an adventurous eater.  Sometimes the recipes have really prompted me to venture out of my comfort zone!  
I decided we would have a honey themed party this time.  Each recipe I chose involved honey in some way.  We started off with a honey and cheese table. 
 I went down to my local Central Market, which has a lot of specialty items.  I told the people in the cheese section what my plan was and they got REALLY excited.  Honestly, I think I made their day!  They guided me in my cheese and honey pairings and explained way more about the flavors of cheese and honey together than I would really ever need to know. Williams-Sonoma also has a great blog post on honey tasting. One of the cheese blocks I bought (the one that practically made the cheese man jump up and down with joy) used crushed honey comb from bees outside of a monastery in France, around the edge of the cheese.  (At least I think that’s how his story went.  I started hearing, “Wah, wah, wah.  Waaaah.  Wah. Wah.”  It was a little overwhelming.) By the way, when you go to a fancy cheese store and they show you the cheese you should buy, look at the cheese but then ask for something less expensive.  Wow!  Who knew cheese could be so expensive!
We were all kind of shocked by different flavors that the different honey had.  We used Clover, Raspberry, and Blackberry honey.  Obviously, the cheese had different flavors too.  I should have kept track of the different types of cheese, but I forgot to write them down for later!  I tried to remember which honey was supposed to go with certain cheeses, but in the end, I couldn’t remember.  We just snacked and enjoyed our cheese and honey pairings.
I’m not a drinker, but my friends usually serve some sort of yummy drink when they host the dinner group.  I found a recipe for a peach and honey drink that sounded good.  It called for Jack Daniels’ Honey Whiskey.  Ummm.  That’s a $32 bottle of alcohol that I will never use again!  My local Safeway had Jim Bean Honey Whiskey for $10, so that’s the one I chose to use.  I forgot to take a picture of the drinks but they were very pretty.  The recipe called for equal amounts of whiskey, peach nectar, and sparkling water, with a little honey mixed into the drink.  Yes, I tried the drink!  I took a taste and it was very honey/peachy.   I had about half of the drink and then I promptly handed it over to my hubby.  I just don’t like the alcohol flavor.  Bleck.

I set up a little table on my deck so we could eat dinner outside.  I love that tablecloth.  It’s a pretty linen cloth that was my grandma’s from many years ago.  The folding chairs were my grandparents’ too.  I just love the antiquey feel.
On the menu tonight was grilled corn with honey basil butter, chicken with a honey Thai rub, and a pear and blue cheese salad with honey glazed walnuts.  Overall, I LOVED the salad and HATED the chicken.  I thought the grilled corn was really yummy.  I’ve never grilled corn right in the husks so that was something new for me.  

For dessert, we had a apple tart drizzled with honey.  
 I’ve never been a huge fan of honey, so this was something new for me.  I’ve used honey in recipes, but I don’t usually put honey on anything and just eat it.  I have to say, I kind of like it, especially the honey and cheese pairings.  That was surprisingly yummy!
It was such a nice party and a perfectly relaxed evening.  Thanks for coming, friends!
Happy party planning!