Last-Minute Dinner

On Friday of this week, I learned I'd be hosting Mother's Day dinner - my mom lives out of state and I found out at the last minute she'd be coming in.

I figured we'd grill steaks. There would be seven of us, and PhillyGuy makes a mean steak.

On Friday around noon, I learned that it would NOT be seven people. I learned that it would, indeed, be more like SIXTEEN people. Now, I like my family and everything, but I'm not doing steak for sixteen. Cost factor aside, I only have "grown up" seating for eight. Ten, if I drag the kitchen table in to hang out in the same vicinity as my (pub-height) dining room table...twelve if I borrow chairs from someone to add onto the kitchen table. And I only have eight steak knives. So, unless you can cut steak with a butter knife while sitting on the couch, steak is out for this crowd.

Instead, I figured we'd do burgers. I make a delicious hamburger (just soy sauce and brown sugar to season the meat - that's it, and it tastes AMAZING), and that's something you can eat on the couch without the aid of a grown-up knife. A more casual meal will let me keep my kitchen table in the kitchen, where I can use it the way I typically do when we have dinner parties - as a beverage station.

So now I need to fill out the rest of the menu. Here's what I'm thinking:

Appetizers:

Tortilla/pita chips with two kinds of dip (probably hummus and salsa)

Baby carrots and celery

OhSheGlows Canadian Beer Nuts (I make these almost every time we have people over or go somewhere)

Spiedies

Dinner:

Burgers

Hot dogs

Bacon mac & cheese (my mom is making this - I am assuming it's going to be unreal)

Salad (something simple - probably romaine, grape tomatoes, red onion and cucumber with oil, rice vinegar and garlic)

Dessert:

Fruit with homemade whipped cream

Something else (??????????)

Coffee

I'm not sure whether my brother's girlfriend will be bringing a dessert or an appetizer, but as of now I'm thinking I'll just make brownies or blondies quickly if no one brings a dessert. I have everything on hand and blondies, in particular, are really quick to mix up - I can even pull the butter straight from the freezer.

My family is big into appetizers and pre-dinner munching. With that in mind, plus such a heavy side (bacon mac & cheese!?!) with the burgers, I'm pretty sure a salad will be more than enough to fill everything out.

In the meantime, my house needs some real cleaning, and I need to squeeze in a run (or, more realistically, a fairly short but intense run followed by some time on the good ol' recumbent bike). Not to mention some dog park time so that crazy Sophie is less like this:

and more like this:

Happy Saturday everyone!