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Dinner Group Pioneer Woman Style – My Turn

Becca — Sat, 26 Oct 2013 15:43:00 +0000

A few months ago, a friend of mine started a dinner group. It’s a really fun idea. The hostess chooses four recipes that she hasn’t tried before. Before the guests arrive, she sets up stations, each one with the recipe the guest will be cooking and all of the supplies and ingredients she will need. There are four of us in this dinner group, and so far it’s been lots of fun!

I love this idea because it takes the pressure off of being the hostess. If the recipe doesn’t turn out, it’s ok, and there is not nearly as much stress as preparing all of the food for a dinner party all on your own!

The first two months of our dinner group featured a few Thai recipes. I can honestly say that they are recipes I would never consider making on my own. They included ingredients like Fish Sauce, which I had never even heard of before. (I love to cook and bake, but I’m certainly not an adventurous cook!)

This time it was my turn to host the dinner group. I had no idea what types of recipes to choose. I wanted to come up with a theme, but my brain was on overload with school stuff. Instead, I just chose a cookbook that I had on my shelf, but hadn’t really ventured into yet. I chose PW’s Food From My Frontier. I love P-Dub and I knew she wouldn’t let me down with her recipes.

*Full disclosure here: I love food photography, but I just didn’t have it in me to plate up and photograph the food this time. These pictures are from freedigitalphotos.net.*

The Whiskey Meatballs were yummy. They didn’t turn out quite as pretty as the picture. Once the gravy was cooking with them, they started falling apart.

The Roasted Shrimp were SO yummy. I would make these again in a heartbeat. My hubby and I devoured the leftover shrimp for lunch the next day.

The Cauliflower Soup… well, the cauliflower soup needed a bit more cooking time. I really should have started this ahead of time and then had the chef for this station just finish it up. We all tried the soup, but decided that the recipe was not a keeper. (Sorry P-Dub, just being honest!)

In the cookbook, Ree suggests serving the meatballs and shrimp with rosemary dinner rolls. We made the meatballs into little meatball sliders and then also used the rolls to dip into the yummy shrimp sauce. The rolls were a good filler since the meatballs and shrimp are more appetizer-ish recipes.

Dessert was Tres Leche cake. It was soaked in three different types of sweet milk and topped with whip cream. It kind of had a bread pudding texture, which isn’t my favorite. I was too full of shrimp to finish it, but it was pretty good.

Overall, I think I needed to throw a vegetable in there, since the cauliflower soup wasn’t our favorite. I liked the meatballs, shrimp, and rolls. The cake and soup weren’t my favorites. I was surprised that I liked the meatballs because they included spicy mustard and whiskey, neither of which I particularly like.

To top off the night, we had apple cider with cinnamon sugar vodka. Talk about warm and yummy! I’m not a drinker, so I’m sure if anyone saw me trying to buy whiskey and vodka at Safeway they would have had a good laugh. I had no idea what I was doing…. I was just trying to figure out which bottle was the cheapest!

I love this idea for a dinner party! We’ve had a lot of fun and it’s pushed me to try a few new recipes (and venture into the whiskey isle at the store). Next month – putting our feet up and ordering pizza at Dawn’s house! Hey, don’t judge. It will be November and we’ll need a break.

Happy cooking!

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A New Way to Host a Dinner Party

Becca — Fri, 02 Aug 2013 03:31:00 +0000

Are you ready for this?
How would you like to host a dinner party, but not have to spend hours in the kitchen before the guests arrive? Actually, you don’t even need to cook anything! Sound too good to be true?

I was invited to be part of a dinner group and we had our first dinner get together earlier this week. This is a SUPER fun way to host a party. There were four of us having dinner together. The hostess selected four different dishes for us to make and purchased the ingredients. Each person had their own little cooking station.

This station has everything set up to make Thai Corn Fritters with Chili Pepper and Cilantro Sauce.

Next, we have the Roasted Butternut Squash Salad with Soy Balsamic Dressing.

This was my station. I made Crispy Pork and Mango Lettuce Wraps with Pepper-Lime Dressing.

Finally, there was a Peach and Raspberry Cobbler.

I didn’t actually get the name of the cookbook that all of these recipes came from. It is the job of the hostess to find a cookbook, along with recipes that they have NEVER tried before. Then, they set the ingredients out for the guests. Below, you can see two of my friends cooking away.

We’ve decided that we should cook all of our meals together this way, Sister-Wives style. It was so much fun to chat with friends while preparing a meal, and the finished meal was TO DIE FOR!

(Please excuse the quality of the iPhone photos. Next time I will remember to bring my camera!)

The salad had quite a bit of cilantro in it, which I love. It had the perfect blend of ingredients and the dressing gave it just the right amount of tang. I can honestly say, this is the first time I’ve tried roasted butternut squash and I really liked it.

Here’s another shot of the salads, and you can see the dessert ready to go in the oven.

Once everyone was done cooking their portion of the dinner, we sat down to eat.

Oh. My. Goodness.
This was such an incredible meal! Everything was absolutely delicious!

Corn Fritters are another item I have never eaten. We don’t eat much that we need to fry at home, but… wow. I’d make these again! The dipping sauce had a sweet flavor that was YUM-MY. (That was a pause in that word for effect.)

It’s not the best picture of my lettuce wraps, but seriously… I could have eaten these all day. Some of the ingredients in the pork included lemongrass (another first for me), red onion, mango, cilantro, red pepper, garlic, ginger, lime, and fish sauce. (Again, I’ve never used fish sauce before!) This really tested my culinary skills (or lack thereof) AND my adventurous eating skills. Those of you who know me well, know that I’m a very boring eater.

How can you go wrong with Peach Raspberry Cobbler? We topped them with vanilla ice cream, but this was the prettier picture.

So, what do you think? Doesn’t this sound like the most fun dinner party ever? You get to try new recipes. There’s no pressure to serve a perfect meal, because all of the recipes are experiments, and you get to have fun cooking (and dining) with friends.

So. Much. Fun.

September is my month. I’ll have to hit the library and find a good cookbook. If you have any great suggestions for a theme, please let me know. It’s going to be tough not to do something like “taco bar” or “burger night”. I need to be a little more creative and adventurous.

Thank you to our gracious hostess. Another thank you to my friends for their fabulous culinary skills and great conversation! It was truly a fun night with AMAZING food!

Happy cooking!

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