Category Archives: dinner party; cooking

Weekend!

Posted by sarah3030 in cookbooks, cooking, dinner party; cooking and tagged with , , , ,

Around here, the weekend comes early.  My ten days straight are over and my weekend begins today.

I’m going to go for several runs.

I’m going to cook.

I’m going to do some laundry.

I’m going to fun group workout classes.

I’m going to read textbooks.

I’m making the Smitten Kitchen strawberry cake.

I’m going to try and forget about how delicious the cheese stuffed – bacon wrapped dates that I made last night were…

Have you ever had that appetizer.  It’s popular at tapas restaurants, which is one of my favorites.  Along with Mexican. And French Bistro.  And brunch.

Back to blue cheese stuffed, bacon wrapped dates.  There is a great tapas restaurant just three blocks from me.  It was a very happy day when a tapas restaurant opened within walking distance.  They make this dish there.  There have been many nights where dinner for me was an order of those and an order of the lamb sliders and a French martini.  I just love it there.

I was at Whole Foods over the weekend and blue cheese was CRAZY on sale.  So I bought some.  I’ve been sitting on a bag of dried, pitted dates for a while at home.  All of a sudden, I knew what I needed to do.  I grabbed 4 pieces of bacon from the meat counter at WF and made a point to make these soon.

That night was last night.  I should have run, or gone to Zumba, or done anything besides drink sangria and eat these dates.  But I didn’t.  After 9 days straight of work, this is all I wanted.

Start by reducing some balsamic vinegar and drinking some sangria

Three additional ingredients: pitted dates, blue cheese, bacon

Slice date, fill with blue cheese, wrap in bacon. Bake 15-20 minutes at 400. Brush reduced balsamic glaze. Bake another few minutes. Brush on more glaze. EAT!

And Dominika – this is for you! I love you!

I received a beautiful tapas cookbook several Christmases ago.  I really want to host a tapas dinner party with lots of little plates full of delicious Spanish inspired food.  Until then, I’ll eat these dates.

Sarah hosts a baby shower

Posted by sarah3030 in Crafty, dinner party; cooking, Event and tagged with , , ,

Sitting down feels nice.

I have been on my feet since 7am when I got out of bed to complete baby shower prep and then host said baby shower.  The good news is that it was a lovely shower, several groups of the mom to be’s friends were here and everyone seemed to get along, have a nice time, enjoy the food, ooh and aah at baby gifts and celebrate our friend, of course.

Angela, the mom to be, would not be into all the pastel, so we stuck to a hot pink and orange theme.  Enjoy some party pics! (If you click on them, they get bigger and much easier to see.)  I was really proud of our pink and orange food, which included: port wine cheese & crackers, carrots, red peppers and hummus with red pepper relish, a salad with grated carrots and pomegranate seeds, bagel platter with salmon and red onion, a crostini with a sweet potato spread topped with a peppered pork tenderloin and a pumpkin penne pasta.  Desserts were pumpkin cupcakes and a cake from a local bakery that Angela loves.  I also attempted cake pops for the first time.  They went okay.  I don’t think I’m in a big rush to make them again, but I am glad to be inducted into the cake pop club made so popular by Bakerella.

Copycat Dinner Party

Posted by sarah3030 in dinner party; cooking, food

In October of 2007 my friend Cyndi threw a dinner party.  You can read her account of it here.  It was lovely, one of my favorite memories of Louisiana.  I still recall so many details of this dinner and the decor because it was soo delicious and soo cute.  When I was planning the October Sarah’s Supper Club, I jumped at the chance to copy so many of Cyndi’s good ideas.

Here is a picture of Cyndi’s table setting from 2007…

::photo from Cyndi’s blog, Southern Daze::

Picture of my table from Friday night, 2010…

See the resemblance?

Cyndi did not have any pictures of the candy corn cookie favors she sent us home with, but believe me when I say, they looked a lot like this…

If you read Cyndi’s post, you’ll find other similarities between our parties.  She opens with the measure of a successful party is a kitchen full of dirty dishes.  Well, mission accomplished.  I think I had 30 glasses dirty!  There were only 5 of us!  We each had a pumpkin martini to start, I made shrimp cocktails in martini glasses (up to 10), wine glasses for all, water glasses for all (up to 20) and then miscellaneous glasses.  I think Angela poured a beer at one point, Meg and I had a sip of cherry whiskey…who knows.  My dishwasher was very busy all day Saturday.

Our menu for this supper club even included some homage to Cyndi’s party.  I made the exact same crescent appetizers in addition to the shrimp cocktail.  We did a beef tenderloin.  We did parsley-lemon smashed red potatoes and red wine sauteed mushrooms.  I was so excited to eat this delicious food, I’m sad to say I took no pictures of the food.  I’ll post the recipes soon.  The red wine mushrooms were fantastic with that tenderloin.  Then again, when you buy delicious grass fed tenderloin from Whole Foods, all it needs is salt and pepper and to not be overcooked to be amazing.

Here are some other pictures from the evening…

::From top…pumpkin martinis with spiked whipped cream!, Meg helps cut parsley, Angela teaches us some lessons about wine, the girls at the table, and the whole group::