Entertaining | Healthy and Sane

Party tricks

September 21st, 2011

Hi blog friends. Just stopping by to say hi. I’m still around, just very busy with work. I’m not good with pre-scheduled posts. I like to write when inspiration strikes. It’s the only way I know how. Anyways, I’ll be back very soon, with recipes like these… (mmm, that was good).

Oh and I’m hosting a get-together for my co-workers today and making buffalo chicken dip, EDBV olive and sundried tomato hummus, chocolate chip dough balls, as well as serving a bunch of other store bought goodies (like nuts, goat cheese with crackers, etc).

What are your hosting tricks for a casual get together for a crowd when you’re short on time?

Entertaining the family for dinner

July 21st, 2011

Hi y’all (apparently I’m turning Texan)! lol Thank you SO MUCH for all of your feedback on my clearing out the closet post. Going through it, combined with stress at work and the feelings e-course I’ve been taking, has put me in a bit of a funk for a few days. I tried going shopping too and wasn’t too successful. Nothing was looking quite right (and was several sizes larger than I was before) – it’s tough to embrace your “new body” when that happens.

Anyways, I’m cool now and I want to tell you about the dinner I cooked for my dad’s birthday last weekend (sticking to my 30 by 30 list and hosting dinner parties left and right. haha)! His birthday happens to be on my wedding anniversary. Adam and I celebrated the night, just the 2 of us, but I had plans to make it up to my dad soon enough.

When hosting a dinner party do you pick a theme or just go with delicious recipes?

I wanted to make sure this was really really delicious so for my main course I chose a recipe I’ve made (and loved!) before – chicken thighs on the grill (btw, I always tag my favorite recipes so you can find them easily… on the right hand side).

Next up were these lovely ravioli with prosciutto, sundried tomatoes, basil and mozzarella in Jamie Oliver’s The Naked Chef cookbook. The pictures have been enticing me for weeks and a special birthday dinner seemed like the right time to break out my pasta roller! [PS – you can find the entire recipe on this blog]

Seriously, such cuties! Smile

It appears that I had an Italian theme developing so I went with it! Doesn’t strawberry ricotta cake sound kind of Italian? [If you say ricottttte like Giada, it definitely will Winking smile ]

OH YEAH!

Add a few Russian cheesy profiterole-like puffs (recipe coming to Russian Bites next)…

Some green beans with wild mushrooms…

And we have dinner!!

My mom was a giant help with executing the menu. I got a little ambitious planning this… happens every time! Open-mouthed smile

I was hoping this would turn into delicious comfort food, fit for a hole in the wall restaurant. I don’t know if I hit the bar quite that high (I’m pretty critical of my own cooking) but every single item turned out absolutely delicious… I can tell you that!

Happy birthday, dad!!

[Ha, he was trying to make a funny face when I pulled out the camera… I say that worked!]

Hope your dreams all come true! Smile

The angel food cake meets Italian grandmother was so light and the perfect ending to our Italian feast. Adam asked that I add it to our rotation of desserts (which means I should start a rotation of desserts! Yessss). I’m adding more strawberries between each layer next time!

Have you entertained recently? Do you have go-to items for dinner parties?

Dinner party, vegan style

June 13th, 2011

Sorry for the sporadic posting recently. I’ve been working on living a full and guiltless life lately which means that if other activities take over with no time for blogging, as much as I miss it, I’m okay with it. All of it. It’s the happiest I’ve been in a really long time and I’m embracing it! [PS – if you just type in the URL to see if there are new posts, I know it may be frustrating to not know if there is going to be something new and checking back over and over with no good news. May I suggest email alerts? Hopefully that makes things easier and I do hope my schedule normalizes soon).

Now onto something fun I did this weekend. The weather was dreadful (stoopid rain) but we still had a chance to eat at East by Northeast – a sustainable Chinese tapas place, which happens to be on my 30 by 30 list. The place was adorable but the lighting was not good for pictures so Adam and I happily enjoyed a photo-free dinner.

I continued to plow through my list (ok not exactly “plow”) by inviting Josh and Melissa over for dinner. I’m totally crushing my goal of 12 dinners this year (this one was #3 already in less than a month! Told ya I’ve been busy!!).

Scenes from the kitchen…

[Tofu pressing]

Melissa is vegan so dinner was a 3 course vegan meal. On the menu:

[Recipes linked to the names]

I don’t think that having a few friends over for dinner needs to be a big production, but if it’s the weekend and I have time, I love making things a little more special. I’ve mentioned it before but I just love browsing through recipes and having a theme in mind (vegan in this case) was actually fun.

Tofu and mushroom lettuce cups

I doubled the recipe to make sure we have enough and it made A LOT.

This was quick and very flavorful. Would make for a really great entrée over rice.

While the guys were chatting it up, I went back to the kitchen to make the hand pies which… were a pain in the ass. Instead of butter (not vegan) the dough had coconut oil which was pretty hard to work with. It was either rock solid or almost mushy the second it started to warm up. I persevered and made 5 large and 1 mini hand pie and crossed my fingers that it would bake up into something edible.

Oh it did.

While the coconut oil was hard to work with, it made these taste so much more special. It had the texture similar to any short dough (given the high fat content) but had a natural sweetness that was very appealing. Btw, I added some black beans to the filling (and omitted the onions of course) which was a great decision. Some hot sauce over the top and these were lip-smacking good. We devoured them within minutes! (I saved the dough and the remaining filling and am determined to make a few more pies for me and Adam to enjoy later this week). I’d make these again and see if practice makes perfect Smile

Dessert time!

[How cute is my ice cream container???]

Cookies fresh from the oven with homemade ice cream. Does it get any better than that??! It doesn’t. I speak from experience. Smile

I used dark vegan chocolate chips instead of white, and dried cranberries instead of cherries for the dough balls and am very happy with the results. Just like the peanut butter chocolate chip dough balls the dough was quite dry, but the taste was nothing short of amazing. Pea Daddy said “Those will be gone by midnight”… well ours were gone by 10! Open-mouthed smile

The vegan ice cream was delicious as well. If you put it side by side with the “cows milk” ice cream, it wouldn’t win but in a class by itself, it was very delicious (and well, if you’re vegan – obviously that taste test would never even happen). I LOVED the cookie dough made of cashews, dates and chocolate chips (larabar-style) and will make those again just for a random dessert soon for sure (I ran out of cashews, otherwise I would have doubled the recipe right there!). Nice job, Lauren! Smile

Happy bellies all around. Checking things off the list has never been tastier Smile with tongue out