This is How to Do a Dinner Party

Posted on August 31, 2012 3 Comments

Y’all my good friend Tamara is back (see her other fab posts here and here). Yeah!! Today, she’s helping us bring our A-game when we invite friends over for dinner. And y’all are inviting folks over, right? Hopefully, that’s not crickets I hear. But, if it is and you’ve been channeling your inner hermit like me, Tamara’s recent dinner party should inspire you to pick up the  phone and schedule a shin-dig or two. It’s all yours, Tam…

 

I love table linens- napkins, placemats, tablecloths, runners. I love napkin rings and serving platters, and pretty servers. Okay, I admit it, I’m in love with pretty things. Whether they belong on the table or any other place. My collection of placemats and coordinating napkins is something I’m quite proud of. So when we invited our marriage mentors over for brunch, I knew I wanted to set a pretty table.

table setting

I knew I wanted to use the lime green zebra print placemats and napkins my mother scored for me for $2 each. The placemats led to my use of lime, orange, and white as my color scheme. I have white dishes that I’ve had from my first college apartment in 1996. Over the years, I’ve also collected white serving dishes, spoons, and pitchers. I like incorporating fresh flowers on my table. The orange tulips came from Sam’s! The bunch was large and the remaining made a great thank you gift for our mentors.

table setting

I decided not to use a tablecloth and just added the white dinner plate and bowl on top of the placement. I layered an orange napkin with the matching zebra napkin and topped it with a multicolored napkin ring.

dinner napkins

I went to my Pinterest boards for food inspiration and decided the menu should include:

  • Tomato-Basil Bisque (recipe on Pinterest)
  • Garlic Parmesan Pull-a-part Bread (recipe on Pinterest)
  • Spinach and Salmon Quiche (see my recipe below)
  • Veggie Quiche (see my recipe below)
  • Salad
  • Strawberry Lemonade (see my recipe below)
  • Fruit Parfaits for dessert (see my recipe below)

brunch for dinner

 

Everything was pretty easy to make and y’all know me…budget friendly! It not only pleased the eye, but it all tasted great if I must say so myself!

Even though this wasn’t my first brunch party, there are still several new things I learned:

  • I decided, then reconsidered, decided again, then reconsidered dishes while putting together the menu. But guess what, I went with my original plan. Don’t second guess yourself! I erred on the light side for our food instead of something like chicken and rice or another one of my other default dishes. This was a good thing. Our guests were more than happy with the menu and I didn’t have to spend hours in a hot kitchen preparing food.
  • Set the table the night before. OMG! This is my new favorite thing. If you’re anything like me, the day of you will get distracted and off track, or even try to sneak in a new project. Setting the table the previous night before, or even before you start cooking saves so much time. That way when your guests arrive, even if you’re still cooking, it won’t seem as if you were totally not ready for them.
  • Use what you have, don’t buy anything new. OK, I admit it…I like new things. But, I was determined that I not buy anything other than food (and flowers) for this brunch. I’m proud to say I didn’t. Mixing and matching and trying new color pairings will help you rethink items you have in your home.
  • Speaking of rethinking items…the tulips found their home in a white pitcher. This was a flea market find that costs $3 because it has a chipped mouth. We don’t drink from it, but I use it for flowers instead. I bet you didn’t even see the chip, huh?
  • Choose a color scheme and try to find items within that scheme. You can always add more colors, but your chosen one will serve as your base. It took time (and money…but not a lot) to accumulate all of the dishes and table accessories I have. I’ve been collecting since that first apartment. I’m always on the lookout for inexpensive new additions.
  • Your décor, menu, or itinerary doesn’t have to be fancy. As long as you have good people, good food, you will have a good time!

Many blessings!
Tamara

O.K., let’s play what’s your favorite part? Aside from the fact that Tamara and her hubbie have marriage mentors (how awesome is that?), I love that she went old school with table settings. I usually go with a family-style buffets myself, but I’m really digging the extra pizzazz the pretty napkins and placemats add.  I also like how classy the white dishes and table accessories look. I don’t know about you, but she’s given me some really good ideas.

Recipes

This is the hard part, trying to remember how I actually do these because it’s not from a real recipe.

Quiche (makes one pie)

Ingredients:

  • 3-4 Eggs (beaten)
  • Splash of Milk/Cream
  • Salt & Pepper or other Seasoning to taste
  • 4-6 Ounces of Mozzarella (or your favorite) Cheese (shredded)
  • ¼ cup Chopped White Onion
  • ¼ cup Chopped Bell Pepper
  • 1-2 cloves of chopped garlic
  • 2 tablespoons Olive Oil
  • 1 package of two Frozen pie shells
  • Your choice: 1/2 package Frozen Chopped Spinach (from large bag, not frozen box) or about 3 cups fresh spinach
  • Baked/Grilled Salmon
  • ½ Red, Yellow, Orange Peppers were used for the veggie quiche (sliced into long strips)

Directions:

  • Crack and beat eggs, add milk/cream and seasoning. Set aside.
  • Heat pan with olive oil and sauté onion, bell peppers and garlic until soft.
  • Add spinach and sauté with cooked veggies. Cook until lightly wilted. If you used frozen spinach, you will produce a bit of water. This should not affect your overall dish.
  • Remove pan from heat and add cheese and eggs. Stir completely until each ingredient is incorporated.
  • Add cooked salmon (chopped or flaked into smaller pieces)
  • Now, pour egg mixture into pie shells.
  • Bake 20-25 minutes, or until the quiche has set how you like it. The longer you bake, the more firm a setting. Once the top has reached the desired brownness, remove from the oven and let sit 3-5 minutes before serving.

Strawberry Lemonade

Ingredients

  • 1-2 cups of strawberries pureed
  • 4 lemons (squeezed and seeds removed)
  • 4-5 cups Water
  • 1-2 cups Sugar (or to your taste)

Directions

  • Mix all ingredients, taste, and feel free to add any of the ingredients to achieve the taste you prefer.
  • Chill (or add ice), and serve

Homemade Whipped Cream

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups of Heavy Whipping Cream
  • ¼ or ½ cup of confectioner’s sugar (depends on your desired sweetness)
  • 1-2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract

Directions:

  • Whip all ingredients until slightly thick and smooth about 3-4 minutes.  If you begin to see the cream start to clot, stop because too much whipping will produce lumpy, clotted cream.
  • You can serve immediately, or refrigerate up to 4 days.

1st Birthday B-Day-Q

Posted on June 27, 2012 12 Comments

Man, time sure flies. I can’t believe the big girl’s 1st birthday party was almost 3 weeks ago. I’m way behind on giving y’all the party update (and writing out thank you cards…eek!), so here goes…

This was our first real DIY party. We usually have the kids’ parties somewhere like Chuck E Cheese’s or a bounce house, but this year I was feeling a little adventurous. Overall, I’d say the party turned out pretty well. Little Christiana was all over the place playing, dancing and coloring.

party-people

I will say that DIY parties definitely have their pros and cons. I’ll give you my 2 cents on Friday, but for now let’s talk PARTAY!

Party Theme

Don’t judge me when I tell you that Will Smith’s Summertime music video was the party inspiration. Yes, I know the party was for a 1-yr old, but I was really into the old school cookout vibe. So, I thought–why not have a B-Day-Q! Don’t you think it has a catchy ring to it?

Invitations

I usually go to etsy.com for printable invitations. But as I said, I was feeling adventurous and decided to make my own. Other than using pennants and a Western-style font, I had no clue where to start. In the end, the invitation turned out pretty cute.

b-day-q-invitation

For kids’ parties, I’m all about sending invitations by email. It’s cheap, convenient to RSVP and easy to send reminders. My favorite service is Paperlesspost. They seem to have the widest selection of design options.

Food

I’d hoped that hubbie would barbecue, but he quickly nixed that idea. Plan B–have the food catered. Thankfully hubbie was on board with springing for the good stuff instead of getting so-so barbecue. Here’s a shot of the coordinating food tags.

food-cards-w

Of course, you can’t forget about the birthday cake. I wanted pennants on the cake to match the invitations, but had no idea they’d jack up the cake cost so much. I finally opted for a semi-DIY cake with the bakery doing everything but the pennants which I planned to add myself. Somehow the bakery messed up the order and ended up doing the pennants anyway. While it meant paying more, it ended up being a God-send because I was running short on time.

birthday-cake-candle-w

Of course, I can’t help but go overboard, so we also had strawberry cupcakes and jello cups to add to the all the pink-ness. (Lesson learned– jello does not do well in Texas heat.) In the background, you can also see the bubble wands we gave away as favors to the kids. The tags said, “Thanks for coming to my B-Day-Q. You blew me away.”

Decorations

In my head, the party decorations were supposed to be pretty extravagant (like, even decorating the trash cans extravagant). But of course, I procrastinated and didn’t get going on everything until the week of the party so a lot of my ideas were scrapped until the next go-round.

I did get to use the pom-poms that have been popping up everywhere. What they don’t tell you, is that these boogers take forever to fluff up. Since the tissue paper is so delicate, you have to go really slow or risk tearing off a bunch of paper like me. Fortunately, they’re also very forgiving, so it wasn’t too obvious. After all that hard work, these babies will be making a reappearance as part of Christiana’s bedroom decor.

The other time-intensive thing was hand-painting pennants on all the table cloths. The painting itself wasn’t so bad, it was waiting for the paint to dry in between coats that took awhile.

pennant-tablecloth

They turned out pretty cute so the wait was worth it. Way more festive than plastic table cloths. As an added bonus, these were cheap to make. I already had the acrylic paint and picked up a huge roll of this masking paper from Lowe’s for maybe $5. I covered five 8-foot tables and still had a bunch of paper left over.

Entertainment

Since I was on the cookout vibe, there had to be music. Putting the playlist together turned out to be more difficult than I expected. I was surprised by how many songs I thought would be family-friendly, really weren’t once I listened to the lyrics. Of course the Back Street Band was a big hit. The kids about lost it when “Just Like a Rockstar” came on.

There was also a coloring “rug” for the kids. To make it, I just glued pages from a gigantic coloring book I picked up from the dollar store onto the masking paper. Super simple, and the kids seemed to like it.

coloring-pages

Now that the big party is over, we get a long break until the next one in November. What theme will be next??

p.s. I may have gone a little crazy with the photoshopping. That’s what happens when you start learning new tricks. Also, a big shout out to my mom and Christiana’s godparents for taking pictures during the party. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have a single one.

 

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