Christmas Gourmet Dinner Night

 

I promised a post on my Christmas Gourmet Dinner Night and dang it, I am going to deliver!   Everyone except my gourmet dinner night friends can leave now.  It is their duty to read this.  So let's get rollin'.

I LOVE Gourmet dinner night when it is at someone else's house.  Who wouldn't love showing up to a nice dinner with appetizers, main course, side dishes, fun beverages and a delicious dessert?  It is all fun and games until it is my turn to host.  I can decorate a pretty table:



But the food is my problem.   This year, I got smart and brought it my mother to do everything be my sous chef.  I helped throw her a birthday party the day before where I made vats of chicken salad so I figured she owed me.  Or at a minimum, she would come help because she is  my mom.  Here she is at her party the day before:

She came to my party and made the main course--Parmesan Crusted Chicken and rice.  She also brought leftover shrimp and fruit from her party.  All of this made me look like the Hostess with the Mostess. 



We had Ashley's hot artichoke dip to start.  yum.



I made my famous salad.  My friends had all had it before but no one complained:


I bought rolls from the Lion House Pantry at Deseret Book and tried to pass them off as my own.  They were disgusting and dry and in the end, I didn't even want to take credit for them. 

I was going to wow my friends with a fancy dessert but sometime around 3:00 in the afternoon, I found Buster sitting on my bar going to town on the sheet cake.  The aftermath:


Luckily, I was using a cookie cutter to cut out little cakes and the crisis was averted.  Here I am piping on frosting with a Ziploc bag:

The finished product:

The best part of the evening is our annual gift exchange.  Everyone brings three identical gifts that cost ten to fifteen bucks and we put them under the tree.  Then we each draw three names and we give our gifts to those people:

The gift giving:

Here is some of the loot:






I gave the Mindy Kaling books and lip glosses.

Everyone stayed until 1:00 am talking and laughing so I figure it was a success....



 

even if my kitchen looked like this the next day:

 



Halloween Dinner Night

I hosted Gourmet Dinner Night at my house last night. As you know, when it is at my house, it is simply called "dinner night." I can't guarantee gourmet but I can guarantee a dinner of some sort. I have darling friends...see photo above. Lisa wasn't there yet and Liz couldn't come but there are nine of us in the group.

Since it is October, I decided to do soup, salad and bread sticks, since that seems like Halloween food to me. I have to admit, I am not wild about this soup and that should have been my first red flag in making it. But I pressed on. The soup was not good. It was Pasta Fagioli's from Olive Garden and it just did not turn out right. This always seems to happen to me on at least one item...unfortunately for my guests, last night it was the main course...

At least the table looked cute. I borrowed the candelabra from my mom (who has the world's cutest decorations and tableware.)



I put out the bubbly cauldron which is just a mist maker put into water that you can actually buy at Harmon's. It is one of the best Halloween purchases I have ever made.



We started with a Halloween punch (that I pulled from a Country Living magazine at Harmon's the night before). It kind of tasted like a apple cider with a kick. I liked it but it was nothing to write home about. I threw some plastic spiders in for good measure.



When I got home from Harmon's (our local grocery store) with the ingredients, I pulled out the Martinelli's and they had put it in its own brown bag...like I had just been to the liquor store and was going to be swigging it from the bottle in a park next to my shopping cart full of everything I own.



We had bruschetta from Harmon's (I love that place!)



and apples and caramel dip to start:



Then had a knock-off of the house salad at Smokey Mountain Pizza. My family loves this salad and we always eat it with pizza and Italian food.



I also served garlic Parmesan bread twists that I got from the cookbook "When Life Gives you Friends" that Ashley recently gave away on her blog. The bread twists were yummy and I will make those again. Here they are pre-cooked and before they had risen:



My piece de resistance was a made from scratch peach pie with ice cream...I got the pie crust recipe from my sis-in-law Sarah. She got it from a Lion House cookbook. I love that you can mix it in a Kitchen Aid Mixer. Most pie crusts require a pie cutter and they take forever but not this one.



I am totally relieved that it is over. I love this group of friends so much and love doing this every month because it forces us to get together but just don't love when it is my turn to host. Cooking stresses me out. With this group, the conversation is always a bit racy and I laugh really hard. We have been through a lot and I am so glad these girls are in my life.

Recipes:

I am sparing you from the soup.

Parmesan Garlic Bread Twists:

2 loaves frozen bread dough, thawed
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/2 t. garlic salt
Parmesan cheese

Thaw bread dough in the refrigerator overnight. Remove from frige 2 hours before you want to serve hot. Roll each loaf into 12x20" rectangle. Melt butter in a microwave safe bowl and add garlic salt. Cut dough into 1 inch strips (the short way). Dip each breadstick in buter and lay on large cookie sheet. Take two strips and twist together. Arrange on cookie sheet. Sprinkle with garlic salt and parmesan cheese. Let rise for one hour. Backe at 400 degrees 12-15 minutes, or until lightly browned on top.

Smoky Mountain Salad

lettuce (any kind will do)
mushrooms (sliced)
olives (sliced)
tomatoes (diced)
feta cheese

Buy dressing at Smokey Mountain Pizza and Pasta--the one in SLC is on 9400 South and Highland Dr.

Pie Crust (makes two crusts)

1/4 c butter
1/4 c margarine
1/3 cup shortening
1/3 cup lard (I don't go anywhere near lard...I just do 1/2 cup butter and 1/2 cup shortning)
1 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp nonfat dried milk (I never have this and it's fine)
3 cups flour
1/2 cup cold water

In mixer cream together fats and sugar, baking powder, salt and dried milk. Add half of flour and mix well. Add water and remaining flour. Mix. Roll thin. Put bottom crust in plate. Put peach filling in and put top crust on. Back at 400 for 30 minutes. Cover in foil after about 15 minutes.

Peach Pie filling

3/4 to 1 cup sugar
3 Tbsp flour
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
dash salt
about 7 ripe peaches

Apple Cider punch

1 gallon apple cider
1/2 gallon white grape fruit juioe chilled
1 bottle sparkling apple cider chilled
8 oz orange juice
apple slices to float
sonic ice

Christmas Dinner Night at my House

Whenever I host gourmet dinner night at my house, I insist that it simply be called "dinner night." I can't guarantee "gourmet" but I can guarantee that there will be a dinner of some sort. This group has been getting together for at least 5 years and it is a blast (when it isn't your night to host.)

I had two objectives this year. 1. I wanted to serve a traditional Christmas dinner and 2. I wanted to avoid becoming Bobby. Enter a Costco ham. Delicious. The thing comes pre-sliced with a glaze. I used orange juice instead of water in mine and I think it turned out pretty good.

The table: I enjoy having a reason to buy tableware and it is fun for me to set the table. I borrowed my mom's Spode dishes and my grandmother's red glasses:



I splurged on these cute cloth napkins from Pier 1 and my friend Heidi loaned me these ornaments to use as napkin rings:



I used it as an excuse to finally get candy in my candy jars:



I served a yummy punch that I learned from my Thanksgiving Point cooking class. The punch looked festive with cranberries and cucumbers:


We started with a cheeseball and crackers (thanks Harmons!) then moved on to spinach salad, jello salad, cheesy potatoes, my sis-in-law's famous creamed corn, and rolls and honey butter from Texas Roadhouse. You've got to hide the evidence:



For dessert, we had an array of tarts and goodies from Kneaders. FYI--You can buy 20 desserts for 25 bucks (thanks for the tip Misa!) It was fun to cut these up and let everyone try everything. I didn't even try to pretend I made these:



The best part of the night was the gift exchange. All nine of us bring eight identical gifts (one for each of the other girls.) We had a really fun selection of jewelry, wrapping supplies, magnet boards, aprons, etc. It was fun to see what everyone picked out and we were all giddy opening all of our new stuff:






The favorite gift of the night were the aprons that Jaime made everyone. We are wearing them in the photo at the top of this post.

These little kitties were on my doorstep all day long. When everyone left at midnight, they were still out there. I'm not an animal lover but I'm not completely heartless. I couldn't let them freeze to death. So I got a box and a blanket and they cuddled in there for the night. PETA would be proud:


The next day, they were gone.

Recipes:

Holiday Beverage (Thanksgiving Point)

1 can limeade with three cans water
2 liter diet Sprite
fresh cranberries
cucumbers sliced
Mix and serve

Christmas Spinach Salad (Thanksgiving Point)

baby spinach
candied pecans (made with 1/3 cup sugar, 1 cup pecans and 2 Tbsp butter on the stove)
blue cheese, crumbled
orange pieces from little oranges (cuties)
pomegranate seeds (Costco sells the fresh seeds in their produce section)

Dressing:
2 T sesame seeds
1 T poppy seeds
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tsp minced onion
1/4 t paprika
1/4 c white wine vinegar
1/4 c cider vinegar
1/2 c oil

Mix in blender. Toss with salad ingredients just before serving.

Easiest Cheesy Potatoes

1 bag "simply shreds" frozen potatoes
1 1/2 cans Cream of chicken soup
1/2 cup sour cream
any kind of cheese (I like chedder)
crushed corn flakes

Stir together cream of chicken soup and sour cream. I like to shake in some minced onion. Stir in the frozen potatoes. Pour mixture into a 9x13 pan. Grate chedder cheese on top. Crush up corn flakes and put over the top. Bake at 350 for 35 minutes.

Annette's Ultimate Creamed Corn

2 lbs frozen whole kernal corn (I like Costco's)
12 ounces cream cheese cut into cubes (can use low fat)
1 cup milk
1/2 cup margarine or butter
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

Spread corn over bottom of crockpot. Top with cream cheese cubes. Stir together remaining ingredients in small bowl. Pour over corn and creamed cheese.

Cover and cook on high heat setting for 2-3 hours.

Stir well before serving. Corn will hold on low heat for up to 2 hours.

Layered jello salad

6 (3oz) pkgs jello--3 red and 3 green

Dissolve 1 pkg is 1 cup boiling water. Divide that in half. Set one bowl aside. In other bowl, add three tablespoons cold water or add two ice-cubes. Pour into 9x12 pyrex. Let sit 30 minutes (give or take until it isn't jiggly.) Add 1/3 cup plain yogurt to other bowl. Beat briefly until there are not any little white specs. Wait a second for foam to settle and then pour over first layer. Wait as long as you want to add the next layor. Repeat and repeat.

A special thanks to Costco for the ham, Texas Roadhouse for the rolls, Harmon's for the cheesball and Kneaders for the desserts. Why cook when you can buy?

For more recipes, you can visit our gourmet dinner group's blog Cookbook Junkies.