What's for Dinner, Sun., Aug. 24, 2014

[NJCher]

So I'd like to tell about my dinner party.

The most fun part was when the RG drove up and saw the guests sitting around the table! We wore hoodies and kept our hoods up and sat so he could only see the sides of us. He was very mystified when he walked onto the patio! You should have seen his face! But because he loves all the guests, it was a happy reunion when he figured it out.

Our guests brought some lovely things: a case of wine, and each was an individual bottle they chose. Throughout the evening, we drank most of them and they were wonderful selections.

They also brought a big platter of cantalope wrapped in prosciutto. This is one of the RG's favorite appetizers. And a mixed vegetable salad, which we enjoyed with the filet mignon.

I literally had jumped out of the shower and had just gotten dressed when the doorbell rang! This was a huge challenge for me to not only clean the house, but get the patio landscaping trimmed and cook all the food. I started to get a migraine yesterday, but I took time to relax a little and it didn't develop into a big problem.

My first course was the salad. To my surprise, everyone wanted to try both the mozzarella tomato and the roasted pepper with capers. I thought everyone would be tired of caprese by this time of year, but they weren't. I used grape tomatoes I grew myself!

Next up were the jalapeno poppers. I stuffed them with a combo of cream cheese and Monterey Jack cheese that had been seasoned with cumin, etc. Then I dipped them in flour, egg, and finally panko and gave them a nice brown. After that, I wrapped them in turkey bacon and put a topping of crema Mexicana on it. Everyone loved them except for one person, who doesn't eat hot things.

After that I served my lobster bisque. Boy was that a lesson, making that. It involves a lot of boiling down the broth (with shells and mirepoix) until it's highly concentrated. Then add cream. It was delicious. Everyone had two bowls, but they were small bowls.

Next up the filet mignon and with that I served my friend's vegetable salad. The filet mignon was flavored with garlic and sage, salt and pepper. The RG came in and did them in a cast iron pan. It took very little time.

Then the final round, which was blueberries and whipped cream.

Several people commented on the fact that there was time in between the courses, and they liked that. It made it a leisurely dinner.

There were two surprises. One was a friend who stopped by and decided to stay, even though I didn't invite him to do so. The second was the behavior of my one indoor/outdoor cat. She can be a bit nervy and did not like the fact that she didn't have her own chair. Everytime a guest got up, she took over their chair. She was not very graceful about leaving, either, when the guest returned. It was taken in good spirits by the guests, though.

[cbayer]

1. Your dinner sounds absolutely spectacular.

Congratulations to you for putting this together and pulling it off so perfectly. Perhaps you should have told the uninvited guest that he was sitting in the cat's chair.

I agree with your guests comments. I like long, slow meals with multiple small courses. I hope you were able to have a nice, quiet day off today.

We are cleaning out the fridge and have been nibbling all day. I reheated the mashed potatoes, cut up a pear and served with gorgonzola, made applesauce and am about to fry some parmesan chicken cutlets I had frozen. Should be plenty of room in there for all the new stuff tomorrow.

[Galileo126]

2. Classic beef stew

My local grocery had chuck roast on sale, so why not? The beef is simmering as I type, in stock, garlic, onions and deglazed with red wine. After a couple of hours, I'll add in the mushrooms, carrots and spuds. In the last 10 minutes, I'll throw in the green beans. I even picked up a baguette, for dunkin' of course.

Sounds like an awesome dinner party, Cher! The poppers sound yummy.



Edit - I forgot about the pearl onions, too..

[fizzgig]

3. sounds like a perfectly lovely evening

we'll do grilled pork chops, mashed taters and (frozen) peas tonight. i'm also going to fire up the smoker and toss some chicken quarters on to cover a few days next week.

[pinto]

4. What a great meal. Love the lobster bisque in the dish line up.

[greatauntoftriplets]

5. Sounds like a great party, except for the uninvited one.

Dinner tonight is baked pork chops with a panko/parmesan crust. Baked potato and a sliced tomato to go with it.

[hobbit709]

6. Stir-fried noodles with crab meat.

Green onions, garlic, straw mushrooms, Thai peppers, red rice noodles., lump crab meat.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

7. sausages, onions, and peppers stewed in spaghetti sauce

A week or three back, we bought a huge basket of peppers for nine bucks or so - when we priced it out, we got them at something like 28 cents per decent sized bell pepper. We froze more than a dozen whole, but sliced the rest up and sliced up some onions, and froze up baggies of mixed peppers and onions. So we took out a bag last night to thaw in the fridge, and today within 2 minutes of setting the crock pot on the counter, we were in 'it's cooking, so ignore it for 5 hours' mode.

[littlewolf]

8. that sounds delish. enjoy .... I may have to do something like that. nt

[pinto]

10. Sausage with peppers and onions in red sauce is a classic summer beach dish in New England.

Simmered long and slow. Lathered out on a crusty Italian roll. Some beach town have simple store fronts where you order at the window and get it served up on a paper plate or wrapped in foil.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

11. My housemate is from New York

so that might have been where she got the idea. It's a meal we probably do once a month or so, using slightly chewy elongated sub rolls. The other one we do with those sub rolls is to take NY strips, slice them into 6-8 mm or so wide strips, pan fry them, then bake them on aluminum foil with sharp white cheddar over them just long enough to melt it nicely, then pop it back into the sub rolls.

Now that we're heading into fall, we'll be pulling out the full peppers more often for stuffed peppers, doing baked cauliflower-based dishes, squash stuff, and more things with pork, apples, cinnamon. Can't wait, fall food is da bomb.

[littlewolf]

9. wife wanted chinese so cashua chicken and white rice.

went to the chinese restaurant and bought egg rolls and white rice
(that way I didn't have to drag out the rice cooker )
it was pretty good if I don't say so myself.