Favorite Dinner Party Recipes

Since we're getting ready to host a little gathering for Peter's 30th birthday, I started thinking about the dinner party recipes that I return to again and again. I really like to experiment and try new recipes, but it's nice to have a few good ole standbys up your sleeve that always turn out great! And if they look and taste like you slaved all day in the kitchen but actually were a snap to put together then so much the better :)

1. Chicken Marbella from The Silver Palate Cookbook:

(image from Simply Recipes)

This recipe calls for prunes which you might think sounds weird and a little disgusting (I did too when I first saw the recipe!), but trust me (a prune-hater), this dish is delicious. It looks very elegant in a serving dish and always gets rave reviews from guests (most of whom also usually hate prunes).

2. Creamy Slow-Cooker Chicken from Southern Living:

(image from Southern Living)

My husband, who thought he hated mushrooms when we first were married, is now a mushroom convert because of this dish :) So, so easy (it uses cream of mushroom soup and a slow-cooker) and so, so yummy. It's especially nice in the winter - pure comfort food! Pair it with Roasted Vegetables and Rice as seen in the picture and you have instant dinner party fare :)

3. Shrimp Casserole from Southern Living:

(image from Southern Living)

There is also a chicken version of this recipe if you don't like shrimp (which I have also tried), but I think that the shrimp version is a little tastier. What's super great about this recipe is that you can make it ahead and freeze it if you won't have much time to prepare before company comes, and it's just as delicious as if you made it right then! People also tend to get very excited when you serve them shrimp :) I'm not sure why (except that it's very tasty!), but shrimp seems to be a sure winner at dinner parties!

 

 4. Chicken Tortellini with Asparagus and Olives from Southern Living:

(image from Google)

 

This is hands-down my husband's favorite dish :) This is the dish that he requests for every birthday (in fact, this is what I'll be making for his party in a few weeks!). You do have to make it right before guests arrive because the asparagus tends to become very wilted if you make it ahead, but it's a crowd pleaser and simple to make. Pair with a salad, garlic green beans, garlic bread (we like garlic in my house!), and white wine and life is good :)

5. World's Best Lasagna from AllRecipes:

(image from AllRecipes)

Who doesn't like lasagna? And this is the best lasagna recipe I've ever tried (and I've tried many, my friends!). This does require making your own sauce which takes a couple of hours to simmer, but it's worth it. This also feeds about a thousand people so it's great if you're having a big shindig :)

Peter and I love hosting friends and family for dinner so I'm always on the lookout for the next, great dinner party recipe. What are your fave recipes to serve to company?

Weekend Recap

Friday was a day off of work for me (I heart 3-day weekends!), and I spent most of the day running around doing errands and picking up supplies for Peter's birthday party later this month. At 6:00, we met my sister, JMC, at Jazz in the Garden at the National Gallery of Art in DC.

(image from The National Gallery of Art)

Every Friday night during the summer the Gallery offers a free jazz concert outside in the Scupture Garden. Lots of people come right after work to meet friends and enjoy a picnic dinner. We had gorgeous weather on Friday so it was super fun to spend some time outside - listening to music, people-watching, and eating some yummy deli sandwiches. Jazz is not my favorite type of music, but the concert was free so I'm not complaining :) The performer this past Friday played a vibraphone (yeah - I had no idea what that was either!) which was kind of like a really big xylophone. Interesting! Do y'all remember the Miss America pageants when contestants would play xylophone for the talent competition? I always thought that looked like so much fun! :)

After dinner, we set off to find Pinkberry, the frozen yogurt shop that everyone is raving about. And it definitely deserves some raving! That stuff is dangerously delicious!!! I ordered the chocolate with toffee crumbles and almonds, and Peter and JMC got the salted caramel flavor with lots of different toppings. We will certainly be back sometime soon :)

(image from Pinkberry)

On Saturday, Peter made some oh-so-yummy omlettes for breakfast, and then I ran some more errands and did some stuff around the house until it was time to meet friends for dinner. Two of our friends from church are returning to China in a few weeks so the dinner was a little farewell party for them. We went to PJ's Rice Bistro  which was a new restaurant for me. One of the new dishes that we tried was shrimp with pineapple, and, let me tell you, I could eat a plate of that every day! (I won't, but I could!)

Peter and I had planned to go to Seneca Creek State Park to hike and maybe canoe for a bit on Sunday, but it was a rainy day in the DC area so we decided to postpone that trip until next weekend. My fingers are crossed for better weather next Sunday!

(image from Google)

In lieu of hiking and canoeing, we read, watched Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World,  and I made Pineapple Bliss Cupcakes from Gina's Skinny Recipes.

(image from Skinny Taste)

I was really looking forward to these because I love me some pineapple, but I thought the cupcakes turned out just OK. I don't think that I would make them again. The frosting is very runny and not very flavorful (kind of a bad combo!). The recipe made 24 so I might need to find someone to take some off of my hands!



Charlottesville Trip #2

 On the morning of our anniversary, we started the day with breakfast at a local bakery. Chocolate croissants seemed appropriate, and Albemarle Baking Company makes some good ones :) Then we headed to a little place called the University of Virginia to take a tour and look at ...

The Rotunda

  (the sweetest UVA student took this picture for us - she saw us struggling to take a self-portrait and offered to take it for us!)

The Academic Village 

(I couldn't get a good picture of the entire "village" so this is one pavilion)

Walled Gardens 

(these were behind every pavilion in the Academic Village and anyone could enter and take a peek)

Students walking around the lawn wearing bathrobes (Lol!) :)

After our tour of UVA, we grabbed some lunch at The White Spot in the "Corner" area.

Mmmm ... I wish I had a "Gus" burger right now!

Then we traveled to Ashlawn-Highland which is the farmhouse that belonged to President James Monroe.

The Monroes lived in the white section of the house; the yellow was added by subsequent owners. It was a fairly small house; I was kind of surprised at the size!

The farm had a flock of sheep that were descendants of the original flock of sheep owned by the Monroes, chickens, and peacocks. 

Adorable lambs!

This guy was giving me the stink eye the whole time we were there. I'm pretty confident that he didn't like me much.

Peacocks definitely know that they're beautiful :)

For our anniversary dinner, Peter and I went to C&O Restaurant in downtown Charlottesville. 

I didn't take a picture of our food because we inhaled it way too quickly for that to happen :) It was soooo delish! What a great way to end our special day!!!

********************************************************************

I'd like to take a break from writing about the anniversary of my wedding day to wish these two crazy kids a very happy wedding day tomorrow :)

(image from Yahoo)

Thirteen and a half hours until the ceremony starts!!! Can't wait :)

Charlottesville Trip

After some major problems with my camera over the past two weeks, I have successfully managed to upload pictures of our second anniversary trip to Charlottesville, VA. So I thought I should do a blog post in honor of that achievement :)

Peter and I wanted to do a quick getaway for our second anniversary, and since he had never been to Charlottesville and it's about a 2-hour drive to DC, we decided to go there. On Sunday we had a nice drive down to the C-ville area and made our first stop at King Family Vineyards in Crozet, VA. It was hard to pick a vineyard to visit because there are SO many vineyards around Charlottesville, but I'm glad that we picked King Family. It was smaller and owned by one family (hence "King Family") so it had kind of a laid-back, welcoming vibe to it. I'm not glad that I totally forgot to take pictures while we were there! We were walking to our car to leave for the day when I remembered that I had not taken a single picture. Seriously not happy with myself! Good memories of the place will have to suffice :) We had a delicious picnic there and then took a very interesting tour of the winery and did a wine tasting. It was my first wine tasting, and I really enjoyed it. We took home a bottle of their dessert wine, Loreley, which was super yummy! I had never tasted dessert wine before, but I'm definitely a fan now!

(image from King Family Vineyards)

Then we headed to our hotel, The Boar's Head Inn, which happened to be pretty much just down the street from King Family Vineyards. I, of course, forgot to take pictures of our lovely room in the main inn, but I did take pictures of our stroll around the grounds. There are a few lakes around the property, and all of the spring flowers were in bloom so it was quite beautiful. I would highly recommend The Boar's Head if you are spending time in C-ville!

 Front of the Inn

 Back of the Inn with Lake (Love the bench swings!)

Peter at the Lake (He may or may not have been thinking about having a swim)

Not very successful attempt at a self-portrait under a gorgeous pink cherry tree :)

After our stroll, we went to dinner at a fabulous restaurant called Duner's in Ivy, VA. It's located in what looks to be a house-converted-to-be-a-restaurant so it's fairly small, but the food was uber tasty. I did think about taking pictures of restaurant and the deliciousness on my plate, but we were literally touching elbows with the people dining around us so I thought that maybe I shouldn't :) 

More to come on our trip tomorrow ...

Weekend Recap

It's a sunny Monday here :) This weekend was a pretty rainy, cloudy, chilly one here in the DC 'burbs, but it's gorgeous today, and I'm very thankful for a little bit of spring!

On Friday, I had the day off of work so I spent the morning doing some errands and then headed over to my friend, RMZ's, house for lunch. Her sister (also one of my friends), MM, was visiting from New Jersey, and we had a great time catching up over some very yummy taco salad. After lunch, I took the train to Alexandria, VA, where I volunteered for a Junior League event. I think we had about 60 Girl Scouts plus leaders come to spend the night at a historic inn/tavern (now a museum) and learn about Alexandria's history. They earn a badge for it, but I forget which one :) I was a Brownie for a few years in elementary school, and we never got to do anything like that! I would have been crazy excited to do an overnight in a museum when I was little! I also managed to find time to pop into Lavender Moon Cupcakery while I was in Alexandria (I always find time for a cupcake) :) They were running a "happy hour" special while I was there so I got 6 for the price of 4 (I couldn't turn down a good deal even though I was originally only going to buy 2!). Peter and I tried 3 of the cupcakes when I got home around 11:00pm. We had never tried cupcakes from this bakery before, and we agreed that they were OK. Some of the cupcakes were dry, but the frosting on most was really good. Not Georgetown Cupcake delicious, but I also didn't have to wait in line for 2 hours to get my cupcakes :)

Saturday we had a lazy morning of sleeping in and then making a big breakfast. We made a "Dutch Baby" (I know it sounds weird, but it's really easy and good!) I had never heard of a "Dutch Baby" before Peter and I were married, but he grew up eating them. It's basically a baked pancake (it puffs up in the oven and then deflates when you take it out) that you serve with fresh lemon juice and powdered sugar.

(image from Martha Stewart)

Then I went shopping in search of a pair of white jeans for the summer. I've been a little hesitant to buy white jeans (I've never been a huge fan of white clothing, shoes, etc.), but they look so cute with tunics that I thought I would give a pair a try this summer. I had no luck finding anything, though :( Most of the stores that I visited didn't sell white jeans, and those that did have some in stock did not have petite sizes. If anyone has recs for a good pair of petite white jeans, please send them my way! Saturday night I made Orange-Glazed Salmon for dinner, and then we watched Gran Torino which I had never seen before.

(image from IMBD) 

I'm still thinking about/processing this movie. Wow! Clint Eastwood is a great storyteller - and actor!

On Sunday we went to church and then came home with plans to take a bike ride on the Crescent Trail to Georgetown, but it was fairly cloudy and chilly yesterday (even though the weather crew on the news had promised me a day of sun and 73 degrees!) so we scrapped those plans and just stayed home until a dinner that we attended at our church. We are planning a bike ride tonight when we get off of work, though, to take advantage of the loveliness that is outside right now :)

I Scream, You Scream, We all Scream for Ice Cream!

 (image from www.leewardlaw.com)

It is such a lovely day today in the DC-area (74 degrees and sunny) and the first day of spring is on Sunday so of course my thoughts are turning to ice cream :) I love ice cream, and my husband super loves ice cream so on spring/summer weekends, we are always up for trying new ice cream places around town or returning to old favorites. Here are a few places that we have visited and liked in the past:

1. The Dairy at the University of Maryland: This shop has horrible hours if you're not a student/faculty member on campus (it's only open 11am to 4pm Mon-Fri), but the ice cream is worth a little maneuvering in your schedule to make time for a visit. They have 26 flavors that are made in-house with the university's herd of Holsteins. One of our favorite flavors is Fridge Fever (vanilla ice cream, chocolate fudge, chocolate brownie, chocolate covered cashews and Myers rum).

2. York Castle Tropical Ice Cream (Silver Spring, MD): Run by a Jamaican family, this shop specializes in tropical flavors that most Americans have never heard of (Soursop, Lychee, Mamey Sapote). There are also flavors like Mint Chocolate Chip and Swiss Chocolate if you're not feeling adventurous :)

3. Thomas Sweet (Georgetown, DC): This is a really cute ice cream cafe with outdoor seating which is a definite plus! Cinnamon ice cream is one of my fave flavors and difficult to find, but they serve it here :)

4. Justine's Ice Cream (St. Michaels, MD): Justine's is on Maryland's Eastern Shore so we're only able to visit if we're traveling through the area, but the milkshakes here are worth a special detour!

Two ice cream shops that I'm looking forward to trying for the first time this spring/summer are the Ice Cream Factory & Cafe in Brandywine, MD, and Cherry Hill Farm & Orchards in Clinton, MD. Has anyone been to these places before? I would also like to try my first snowball this season in Baltimore. I've heard from friends who are from Baltimore that this is quite the summer tradition there, and that there is fierce customer loyalty to specific snowball stands in the area. Any suggestions?

Maryland Momentos

Last night while I was grocery shopping, I picked up these just for kicks:

(image from www.snackerrific.com)

Kind of like a crab-shaped Cheez-it with some added Old Bay-like sassiness :) Not bad!

I was curious about the company that makes them since I had never heard of Wye River before, and after a little googling, I found the company's website and I also found two websites that carry Wye River products and a lot of other Maryland souvenirs: Maryland Delivered and The Maryland Store. I like to put together baskets of Maryland-related gifts for friends and family who stay with us and who have never been to Maryland before, and these two sites will be great sources for ideas of things to include. Since I'm not originally from Maryland, sometimes I have a difficult time thinking of local products so I'm thankful for some help :)

Lacey's Cookies

I just polished off a package of these treats :) Delicious, but I was sorry to see the last two go!

 (image from www.pacificfundraisers.com)

If you have never had them, sprint at full throttle to your local Trader Joe's (I think World Market sells them too) to buy some. My favorite are the dark chocolate almond, but the milk chocolate macadamia are to die for as well. Lacey's Cookies are more candy than cookie, I think, but I'm not going to quibble about names for something so wonderful; I'm just going to focus on buying and eating them! I'm really curious about the recipe for these; I've never had anything like them and would like to know how they're made. If anyone has a recipe for them, please pass it along!

Weekend Recap & Menu Wednesday & Thoughts on The Bachelor

I'm really going to try to do better at doing my weekend recap posts on Mon. (or Tues. if Mon is a holiday) instead of later in the week. It just feels weird doing a weekend recap in the middle of the week! It also feels weird to do a Menu Monday post on Wednesday :)

On Fri. Peter and I took full advantage of the nice, spring-like weather in the DC-area (temps in the 70s!) and took a walk at the college campus where he works and the nearby neighborhood where we used to live. All of the college students were out and about enjoying the weather too; there was really kind of a street-party vibe going on. We gave up trying to count how many frat house barbecues we passed :) We were hoping that some college students would invite us to share their hamburgers and hot dogs but no luck so we headed home for pizza and a movie. We watched Eat Pray Love. Cinematography=gorgeous. Acting/Storyline/Etc.=mediocre. I remembered from reading the book that Elizabeth Gilbert certainly had a way with words but that overall I thought the book was a bit on the self-indulgent side, and I felt the same about the movie. Sat. was a lazy morning with a yummy breakfast of biscuits and honey and then we ran some errands that we had been needing to do for awhile. Peter got two pairs of new sneakers, and I got a bike! My bike was stolen last year (apparently a rite of passage when you live in the DC-area), and I really missed riding last spring and fall. Now I'm fully prepared to tackle those trails when the first signs of spring come (so excited for that!) :) Getting home from the mall was quite an adventure on Sat. because there were brush fires in our area!!! It was an extremely windy day, and a fire that started at some kind of factory ended up burning acres and acres of land. The smoke was so bad that the police had to close I-95 for awhile. Needless to say, traffic was horrible, and Peter and I had to be creative taking back roads home. After that, Peter took me out to eat (in the opposite direction of the fires!) for our belated Valentine's Day. Deep Creek Restaurant and Marina was terrific! We both love seafood, and our meals (he had scallops, I had crab) were fantastic. We had a table looking out onto the water, and a group of swans (?!) decided to swim by while we were eating which was fun to see. Sun. was church, lunch with friends (we went to a Vietnamese noodle place which was a new experience for me, and I loved it!), a grocery store and library run, and then talking to our families and relaxing. Mon. was a holiday for me, and I stayed home the entire day and cleaned like a crazy woman! Maybe it was spring fever or something, but I really went to town and was exhausted that night. I also almost finished organizing my recipe cuttings into binders. I've had a drawer full of recipe cuttings for about five years now and it was getting out of control (meaning the drawer was overflowing and I couldn't find anything in there!) so I finally decided to do something about it. P can't tease me any more about taking 3 years to find a recipe :)

Speaking of recipes, I tried one new recipe last week that I think deserves a shout out: Bacon Pierogi Bake

(image from Cooking Light)

Potato dumplings and cheese in cream sauce baked and topped with bacon, tomatoes, and green onions. Yum! Low in calories, fat, etc. and quick to prepare and easy on the budget. Even better! Peter didn't think that he liked pierogis, but he liked this and I'll definitely be making this again.

I don't really have a good transition into speaking about The Bachelor so I'm just going to jump in. I'm SO glad that Michelle was given the heave-ho last week!!! I was worried that she was going to be kept for the drama factor, but, thankfully, no. I really think that she thought she was going to win with all of her shenanigans and couldn't believe that her scheming didn't pay off when Brad didn't hand her a rose. Not sad to see her go at all! I was sad, though, to see Shawntel leave this week. She seemed so nice and genuine, and I really admired her for having such a different occupation. I'm rooting for Ashley now, even though I like Emily too :) I loved the hometown visits this week, and Ashley's family is too cute for words!

(image from ABC.com)

Can't wait to see the finale!!!