Hamsters are terrifying! {the dinner party} Sunday Snapshot

We had SO much fun!  We laughed so hard!

Alright let me back up a bit.  You know how I said that I was not nervous about the dinner party--- well that changed Saturday morning.  Friday night we went to one of our favorite Mexican restaurants and I had ONE margarita.  But since I am such a lightweight ( I seldom drink), I came home and fell asleep rather than do anything to prepare for our big dinner. 

So, I woke up kind of panicked Saturday morning.  I had a little melt down about whether we would be able to get all the shopping and cooking done in time for our guests arrival. In my panic, a few tears might have been shed--(which I am very embarrassed about now).  Dave and I quickly made our lists (which we meant to do Friday night) and took off to different grocery stores to get various supplies.  When I came home, Kate told me that she "did all the dishes" and she was in the process of wiping all the counters with granite cleaner.  She was moving around swiftly "cleaning" the kitchen with her step stool. Bless her heart.  It was SO sweet.   I was very touched by her kindness (but I did have to re-do the dishes).  She said, "Mom, you really should have hired some helpers for your party."

Okay, so about the food....I think I was a bit overambitious with the menu (and unnecessarily so).  Just to give you some feedback about the recipes.....  Both appetizer recipes were new to me and they were both very good.  Kate helped make the goat cheese wrapped grapes. I covered them in goat cheese and she rolled them in pistachios. I am not a walnut fan, so I used chopped pistachios instead.  These were super easy to make and all the guests were pleasantly surprised and amused by them. They paired very nicely with our champagne.

The other appetizer was AMAZING!  I will definitely make it again.  It was a caramelized onion and dried cranberry compote on crostini.  I toasted baguette slices, spread a thin layer of whipped cream cheese and topped with the compote and a sprig of parsley.  (We used dried cranberries instead of fresh).  YUM!  I loved this one.  It was the perfect touch of savory and sweet.

So the mixed green salad with lump crabmeat did not turn out so well.  As I was making the marinated crab, I thought the crabmeat smelled a bit off.  Long story short, the crab was bad and we wasted a lot of time and money on that.  I was very disappointed but had to improvise.  So, we served a mixed green salad with avocado slices and a homemade raspberry vinaigrette instead.


(just before we sat down for the salad course)

Okay, here is where it got SO FUN!!!!!!  Dave had read about a dinner party game online where you place a random sentences under everyone's plate.  People have to try to work their sentence into the dinner conversation without being detected. So Dave put a sentence under all our chargers.  It was HYSTERICAL!   We could not stop laughing.

Here are some of the sentences:
I want a pony (worked in seamlessly by a very manly Southern friend).
I could have been an artist (or a hoarder) assigned to one of our very athletic Texas male friends.
I was almost arrested last week (given to our most innocent and saintly friend..she did not pull it off).
I could have dinner with Hillary (a male Republican friend).
I would live on the international space station for 3 years  (given to a good female friend).
I hope sea turtles don't go extinct. (my friend Cathy really worked hard to get this one in).
And mine was Hampsters are terrifying!  I would just bust out laughing every time I even thought about saying it.

What was so fun about this game is that we all know one another pretty well and two of the men are good salesmen and sometimes say "off the wall" things.  So for them, it was easy peasy to work their sentences in.  In fact, they worked other odd things in that we thought was their assigned sentence.  I cannot even begin to tell you how much fun this was.  We laughed and laughed and laughed.


We had invited 5 couples to dinner.  Two of the couples had other commitments.  One of them was going to a wedding and did not think they would make it but they ended up coming straight from the wedding and joining us as we were eating the main course.  For a few minutes, we did not tell them about the random sentence game.  We looked and sounded either completely ridiculous or drunk so we had to tell them what was going on.

{Dave flambéing the green peppercorn /brandy sauce}

{the enormous Beef Wellington}

As far as the main course went, the beef wellington was delicious and we are glad we made it. However, I think that a regular tenderloin with a red wine reduction sauce would have been a ton easier and just as good.  So Dave and I think that the Beef Wellington was good but not completely worth the effort and time that was involved at this point in our busy lives. We realized that simple and uncomplicated food would have been fine as we were having so much fun that the food was almost secondary.  The potato, butternut squash and gruyere gratin was fabulous!!!!!  We will definitely make it again and I would highly recommend it.

After dinner, I had planned a game of the OldieNewlywed Game (we've all been married 15-20 years).  So, we divided up and the husbands and wives and answered questions about one another.  We came back and played the game while having dessert.  Again, we laughed so much and really had a great time! Dave had ordered the BEST handamde chocolate truffles in the whole world for each couple as their "prize" for playing the Newlywed Game.

 The dessert was fabulous and easy to make too.

Today at Mass, one of my friends told us it was the best dinner party she and her husband had ever been to. Of course, that made us happy.  We just wanted a really fun night with our friends.  I am telling you, if you have a dinner party, you have to do the sentence game.  You will laugh so hard.   We are so blessed to have such a great group of wonderful friends.

Dinner Party Prep

Updated--Lisa asked what I decided to do with my hair...so I put a photo at the bottom...

{getting ready to make arrangements}

I am busy cleaning, cooking and primping for our Valentine Dinner Party.  I am so excited.  We have some fun things planned but we are a touch out of practice.  While we do entertain a lot, lately most of it has consisted of more casual family dinners.  We have not hosted a dinner party in a while.  And the best part is that these are some of our closest friends and we have all known each other for many, many years.  Because we are all such good friends, I have no nervous jitters at all.  It is such fun to entertain people who really know you and love you just the way you are.  It takes some of the pressure off:)

Here is our tentative menu plan. I say tentative because I keep tweaking it.  I am trying to choose things that will not require me to be cooking much during the actual party. So, most of this can be prepared tonight or tomorrow and then heated or served at the time.

I am planning to serve our appetizers in the living room by the fire.  We will be serving grapes wrapped in goat cheese and caramelized onion and cranberry crostini paired with Champagne or my favorite Prosecco.

Next, we will have a salad course of mixed greens topped with lime marinated lump crab meat with tomato, avocado and cilantro. I created my own recipe but a similar one is here.

For the main course, we are serving Beef Wellington (thanks Olivia for the suggestion) and a potato, butternut squash and gruyere gratin and marinated asparagus.

And for dessert I am making a dark chocolate ganache tart with either fresh whipped cream or Haagen Dazs vanilla ice cream (thanks Kristi for the suggestion and recipe).

Hope y'all have a great weekend!!!

{above my kitchen sink--it is a dark rainy day}

Dave and quite a few of you thought I should cut my hair and I almost did.  But my stylist and I both wanted to keep it long for now.  So, I got a nice healthy trim instead.  I am not ready to give up my newfound love of curls and sock buns:)  Here is a photo for you, Lisa.  I am SO awkward photographing myself:)





Oops the flash went off on that one;)