Summer Dinner Party

Nothing is better than good friends and family, great weather and superb wine! 

Last night, my fiance and I hosted our first summer dinner party and we cooked up a few recipes from the June MS Living.  Although I completely forgot to take photos (except for the awesome wine!), here is what we sampled:

Green Salad w/ Chickpeas & White Balsamic Dressing
Rating: 7
Comments: The dressing was good but I thought it could have used more vinegar and less oil. The dressing had a slight sweetness from the honey and was a nice, summery dressing. 

Grilled Buttermilk Chicken
Rating: 9
Comments: I used some of the fresh herbs we were growing outside. Even our pickiest eaters enjoyed this recipe and I'm looking forward to making it again!
Tweaks: We used chicken breast in lieu of whole chicken

Spicy Grilled Shrimp
Rating: 7
Comments: I was really scared of some the ingredients in the recipe, especially its use "fish sauce." However, after I realized that fish sauce sounds way worse than it actually looks, I'm glad we gave it a try. 

Vermont Burgers - Turkey & Beef
Rating: 7
Comments: Although I don't eat meat, I heard that the beef burgers were pretty good. As for the turkey burgers, I didn't hear anything about them. I'm going to take that as a sign that they were edible, but not memorable!

Roasted Asparagus w/ Capers & Lemon
Rating: 5
Comments: I guess I expected more from this recipe since I was using capers and lemon. However, the asparagus tasted, well... just like asparagus. Nothing real special about it but it was still good. 

Overall, we had a great dinner! I just wish I would have more time to prepare dessert! Maybe next time. 

Martha & RATM

Well, it finally happened! All components of dinner were finally ready to be served at the same time! 


For me, this was as an absolute first. Why? Because often I find myself serving courses to my fiance when they are finished (rather than as a complete meal) because I somehow failed to calculate the cooking times of the dinner courses properly. Boy, grandmothers use to make it look so easy!


Although I intended to start cooking some of my MS Living recipes a few days ago, I delayed tackling some Martha's "What's for Dinner?" recipe section until last night. The results: Well, spectacular - of course! It was one of the best meals I have cooked in a long time and it got me out of my incessant cooking rut. 


It all started with my enlightening grocery store trip to Wegman's. Instead of purchasing the same six produce items, I finally had some variety in my cart - rhubarb, leeks, various peppers (and they weren't red or green), salmon and fresh mint, to name a few. In the past, if I even dared to purchase these items, they would just sit in the fridge until they "went bad" because I had NO CLUE what to do with them. Not this time! 


Armed with my recipes and ingredients, I was ready to take on dinner. Of course my execution was indeed, hilarious - for several reasons! However, the comedy in my execution first hit me when I when I was in my disaster of a kitchen, chopping fresh herbs in my 4" stiletto stacked heels with crimson lips, all while singing along to Rage Against the Machine's "Killing in the Name Of." How very un-Martha of me! Nonetheless, the dinner turned out great. Next time, I will try a little harder to "fit the part" a little more!


The breakdown of the dinner and the recipes are as follows:

Bruschetta - w/ Tomato, Balsamic & Dill

Rating: 6

Garlic-Jalapeno Shrimp

Rating: 8

Tweaks: Substituted a Hungarian pepper for jalapeno

Comments: We loved this recipe!

Rice w/ Peas and Cilantro

Rating: 6

Tweaks: Substituted parsley for cilantro

Carmel Custards

Rating: 7

Comments: Reminded us of a creme brulee type of dessert - minus the crunchy top!

Drink - The Taurus

Rating: 2 (Holy crap! Strong tequila!)

More to come...


~ I