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!

Quickie

This has to be a quick post, since I have a very exciting day. Even though I'm a fourth-year associate, I'm still the most junior person in my office...which starts to suck after a while, because there's no one for me to pass off work to. Until now. One of our nearby offices has a first-year associate who (miraculously) wants to do bankruptcy work, and BOY do I have plenty of it. So, he's coming into the city today to hang out, meet Bosslady and I, and -- most importantly -- grab some assignments from me.

I feel like dancing! But instead I need to pull stuff together to give to him. So that means a very quick weekend recap.

I started Saturday with a great nine-miler with Claudia from Sunrise & Cherries. I love meeting new running buddies, and it's a big bonus when we're running the same pace. We hit up the Schuylhill trail and knocked out nine miles on the Art Museum loop in about 1:32, chatting the entire time.

And good thing, too, because I proceeded to spend the next several hours doing this:











And preparing all kinds of appetizers. Here's the initial spread:



Please see cameos by what I've dubbed "OhSheGlows Canadian Hockey Nuts," and pumpkin pie dip inspired by Caitlin. Everyone raved - there was a lot of "Wait, did you actually MAKE this?" which I'm going to go ahead and take as a compliment.

(Please also see cameos by my husband's harmonica, which he uses to entertain the dogs, and my nacho hat, which was a wedding gift from my stepmother. My sister and I each got one. They are heirlooms.)

No pictures of the rest of the eats, though, since I was too busy, you know, eating and setting up and hosting and generally hanging out. I refilled all of the dips several times, and eventually let everyone loose on the chili and meatball sandwiches. Despite my certainty that I'd made an embarassing quantity of food, there were barely any leftovers. I made FOUR PACKAGES of Trader Joe's meatless meatballs, and threw almost four pounds of ground turkey in the chili...and somehow, almost all of it went. My excessiveness has been reinforced.

It should come as no surprise that I spent most of Sunday decked out in my finest:



It was a tossup between my Phillies sweats and my Eagles sweats. Eagles won out only because they're new, and there is NOTHING in the world quite like brand-new super-soft fleece. Apparently, I made the right choice, since the Phils swept even WITHOUT my pants' support.

How was your weekend?

College Football Party Menu

Yeah, I went there.



Salted caramel hot chocolate. It's a welcome trade for my usual post-lunch Lindt sea salt dark chocolate squares. The barista looked at me like I had four heads when I ordered it, since I almost always get plain ol' iced coffee. But I don't care - I LIVE for salty/sweet combos, and this is one of the best. I also love how they always ask if you want whipped cream - PLEASE. On a drink like this, if I'm being honest? I'd really prefer just a cup of whipped cream topped with caramel and sea salt. Forget the hot chocolate part...it's almost too rich for me. I can only finish about half of a tall before it starts to get to be too much.

Anyway. I'm taking a quick break from blasting through stuff here at work to outline my menu for tomorrow. As I mentioned before, my SIL is coming into town for the weekend, and we're taking the opportunity to host a college football-watching party, open-house style.

Planned menu:

Appetizers/snacky stuff, to be set out around 1pm or so:

- Tortilla chips, baby carrots and assorted dips (Wegman's carmelized onion hummus, guacamole, salsa, creamy parmesan artichoke dip)
- Caitlin's Pumpkin Dip with sliced honeycrisp apples
- OhSheGlow's Canadian Beer Nuts

Mains:

- Chopped tossed salad (romaine, tomatoes, cukes, red onion, maybe olives if I get really crazy)
- Meatballs, with red sauce, provolone cheese, plenty of shredded Locatelli and Amoroso's rolls
- Turkey chili (I'll start this in the crockpot around 10am and when it's done, it's done) with cornbread
- Chili fixins: Fage 0 (instead of sour cream), guac, shredded cheese, chopped onion, hot sauce, salsa, sliced olives

Dessert:

- Jenna's most amazing incredible chocolate chip cookies

I'll make the cookie dough in the morning and refrigerate until it seems like it's cookie time. nothing like fresh, warm delicious cookies :)

Reviewing this, I feel like I'm missing something. I'm thinking about maybe picking up a loaf of bread to add as an additional dipping alternative...not sure that I really need it, but this is how I operate. I suffer from what I believe to be a classic Italian (and, based on my experience, Jewish) affliction of "OMGWHATIFIDON'THAVEENOUGHFOOD?!"

Seriously. I would be so, SO embarassed if I ran out of food at a party. Horrified. I always over-cook, and I get made fun of for it...but seriously. Let's be clear. The chili I'm making? I have about three pounds of ground turkey and four cans of beans. I bought four packages of meatballs and 24 rolls. And I'm STILL worried my husband's friends won't get enough to eat. After all, who am I to decide how many meatball sandwiches is a reasonable amount per person?

My husband is worried about more reasonable things. Like whether we have enough seating for everyone, depending on who shows up when. Me? I'm like "WHO CARES! They can sit on the floor and have four meatball sandwiches and a pound of pumpkin dip and sixteen cookies each!"

Do you overfeed? Do you blame it on your heritage like I do? And more importantly...who's going to come over on Sunday and eat the pound and a half of chili and 27 meatballs that I'll have left over?