RE-ceiving Guests: Dinner Under the Stars

A NIGHT TO REMEMBER.  I belong to a ladies book club and for Christmas, we normally invite our husbands to join us for a dinner party.  This last December, my friend, Renae, generously offered to host us all TWENTY OF US at her house.  While we always have a great time when we get together, this evening was especially AMAZING.  Renae truly went above and beyond to make a memorable night for us.  At one point, my friend Martha's husband turned to me and said "Wow! This is really good.  This is such a grown up evening."  I replied we were all very lucky because Renae is an excellent cook and a generous hostess.  Renae rented tables and outdoor heaters and hung giant lights in the form of stars over the table from her trees.   The star lights made a great atmosphere, but the low lighting made it hard for me as an inexperienced photographer to capture the whole feeling of the setting. Hopefully I can still share with you some of the magic of the night.

SIMPLE AND ELEGANT.  Renae placed a large floral arrangement on her dining room table which she also cleared to allow the rest of us space to set out our contributions to the dinner party. 

ORNAMENTS HUNG WITH CARE.  Renae travels to her hometown for the holidays so she keeps her holiday decorations selective. She hung a garland and ribbons on her stairwell and glittery ornaments with pretty ribbon from her curtain rods. I am totally stealing this idea for my house next Christmas.

 MEAL MENU

Appetizers (cheese, dips, crackers, olives)

Tomato Bisque Soup

Chicken Pot Pie

Macaroni Au Gratin

Mixed Green Salad with Raspberry Vinaigrette

Chocolate Birthday Cake

Buche de Noel

Apple Pie a la mode

BRILLIANT APPETIZER DECORATING.  Everyone loved this appetizer set up brought by our friend, Kathleen.  She put 2 cheese-based dips and some olives in a dip bowl set. To make them more festive, she made a ribbon out of salmon for the top of the seafood dip and a green pepper christmas tree form for the spicy dip.

ANOTHER VIEW.  My friend, Celeste, took the following photograph before I arrived to capture Kathleen's adorable set up before hungry husbands dug in and diminished the effect.

CHEESE LOVERS.  All the members of my book club like cheese so we rarely gather without a cheese plate of some kind.  For this party, we had a chevre cheese covered in a sweet cranberry sauce.

A LA TABLE.  Renae called us all outside for dinner.  Our friends, Martha & Celeste, contributed a wonderful tomato soup to start off our meal.   They bought the soup from a chef friend of Celeste, however, I happen to have a tomato soup recipe I like to make at home for an easy dinner which I am sharing here:

EASY CRAB TOMATO SOUP

1 cup parmesan cheese

1  cup low fat milk

1 cup half and half  or heavy cream

1 generous pat of real butter

1 can of tomatoes

1 package of imitation crab meat or 1 can of real crab

dash of pepper and salt

Combine in sauce pan and heat on medium. Serves 3-4.  I like that if I buy crab, I will likely have everything else already at home to make this soup.  A very simple dinner.

Warm soup felt so  good because of the chill in the air. A great welcome to the table.

SOUP BEFORE SALAD.  Because it was a chilly night, Renae urged us to the table to eat the warm soup.  Please take note of the green mixed salad above. I was going to edit the picture to show the salad, but decided against it. Everyone already knows what a mixed green salad looks like, right?

LA PIECE DE RESISTANCE.  INDIVIDUAL CHICKEN POT PIES.  It was right after digging in for his first spoonful of this little piece of heaven, that Martha's husband exclaimed ""Wow! This is really good.  " I am sure Renae got everything organic and from the Farmer's Market.  I asked Renae for her chicken pot pie recipe and she told me she used Ina Gartens' recipe.  You can read the 5 stars out of 5 recipe (it deserves 6!) on Foodnetwork.com's  website HERE

BUCHE NOEL.  My friend Celeste's husband, Martin, was very excited that I brought a buche de noel or yule log cake to the party for dessert. I bought it from a bakery (sorry no recipe.)  Martin announced to other people at the party that I had brought a yule log and my friend, Celeste, said "Eldarose brought a U-haul?" LOL.  Martin explained what a yule log is and then Celeste laughed over her blunder and referenced it in jokes  all night.   There was another misunderstanding/mishearing later in the evening but that one is more R-rated than is appropriate for the blog. ; )

My friend Linda brought a chocolate cake for her husband, AJ, because it was his birthday. Linda makes great brownies and chocolate cake. She says her secret is to buy the box stuff, but to add in extra chocolate chips.   It  must work because her chocolate baked goods are out of this world.  As for why she's holding the knife....um, we had wine with dinner? That's all I got to explain it. 

HAPPY GUESTS.  I took this pic as the pot pies were being served.  We had a little dancing, silliness and the ladies had a flash mob practice session before the evening was over.  At the end of the evening, Renae and I were talking in the kitchen and I complimented her and shared all the praises she got from our end of the long dinner table.  Renae was very humble about it all.  She was very touched that Walter, Martha's husband, had been impressed by her cooking because Martha is herself an excellent cook.  Somehow, we got on the topic of having our husbands there and Renae remarked that we are a pretty lucky group because we all get along so well, without drama, and even our husbands are good guys.  I agreed.  Perhaps the blessing of our friendship was the most magical part of the evening.

WRITTEN BY ELDAROSE

 

 

You can see my Outdoor Dinner Party setting HERE

You can read see our post on Western Tables HERE

RE-cipe sharing: Sherry's Sandies

Sherry's Sandies. It is hard to believe anything this good is legal.

I am sharing a cookie recipe from my mother -in-law, Sherry, who is an excellent cook.  I have already shared Sherry's pound cake recipe that Eldarose labeled Marriage Saving Pound Cake HERE.  These sandies cookies are also really delicious.  I highly recommend this recipe.  Be warned, it is hard to eat just one. 

SHERRY'S SANDIES

preheat oven to 400 degrees

1 cup butter (2 sticks)
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/4 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup finely chopped nuts

Mix in order.  Roll into balls 1 inch in diameter.  Bake on ungreased cookie sheet for about 12 minutes.  As soon as they come out of oven (let cool a minute or else powdered sugar will melt) roll in powdered sugar.  Put powdered sugar in pan and roll cookies in pan and then store them in sealed container until ready to eat.  Makes about 5 dozen.

WRITTEN BY REBA

;

RE-decorating: Holiday lunch at Jean's house

This past week, I saw my college roommate, Jean at her home in Houston. Jean has been an incredible friend for many years. This last visit, she invited me and a college friend of ours, Angela, over for lunch at her home. It was a rare treat for the 3 of us to be together. Since college, the three of us have lived in three different cities in Texas and while we will see each other when we visit those cities, we seldom are all in the same city at the same time. We were joined for lunch by one of Jean's daughters and another visiting relative. We had a great time and I was able to shoot a few photos for the blog.Jean decorates her front door for Christmas with fruit, red and gold glass ornaments, a wreath and a poinsettia.

Jean sets a welcoming scene on her front porch by decorating her wood bench with Christmas patchwork pillows and a stuffed snowman doll.

Jean lives in a spacious home which she has decorated for the Christmas holiday.  Jean has many nativity scenes throughout her home including one I gave her years ago. She has a large tree in her foyer and another one in her family room. 

Jean's dining room is already set for Christmas dinner. She uses her Lenox Autumn wedding china on gold chargers, with matching linen napkins, Towle Old Master silverware and her Waterford Lismore crystal. Her floral center piece is in complementary shades of creams and light blues. Her place card holder is a red & green Christmas tree ball ornament. She uses Sabino crystal knife rests. I especially noticed how nice the china setting looks on the mahogany table without a tablecloth.

For the casual luncheon, we ate in the breakfast nook adjacent to the kitchen. Jean used a red table runner with Christmas appliques. She also used Spode Christmas tree pattern plates with a Santa Claus napkin holder on top of gold chargers. We had a delicious green salad for lunch with great orange rolls from a local bakery. She made the salad while we watched and chatted. We enjoyed a great, relaxing time. Old Friends are such a blessing! Jean shared an easy recipe for sour cream biscuits with me which I am sharing with you below

I didn't take a picture of Jean's biscuits so I googled and found Macaroniandcheesecake.com did almost the exact same recipe.  The image above is of their biscuits.  The only minor difference from Jean's recipe below is they cook their biscuits at 350 instead of 375.  Although, they also found a handy recipe to make a Bisquick substitute if you don't have any available.  The image above, their biscuit recipe and the Bisquick substitute recipe can be found HERE

JEAN'S SOUR CREAM BISCUITS RECIPE


2 sticks butter, room temperature
1 cup sour cream
2 cups Bisquick
Mix and drop into small muffin tins.  Bake @ 375 degrees for 15 minutes or until lightly browned.  Makes 4 dozen.

WRITTEN BY REBA

""/>

RE-cipe Sharing: Sherry's Pound Cake

NO ORDINARY CAKE: This pound cake is legendary.

Reba will give you her version below, but here is my version of this cake's story.

Reba's mother-in-law is an excellent cook and she gives this pound cake to our family every year at Christmas.  Even though we always have a ridiculous amount of dessert options during Christmas, people in my family fight over this cake and only this cake.  There is slice monitoring. I'm not kidding.  I have been telling stories about this cake for 16 years and people have sometimes asked me if it is possible that the cake is considered so good because it has become a family tradition at our house. They wonder if the nostalgic factor plays a part in the cake hype the way someone might feel their mother's Campbell's chicken noodle soup is somehow better than anyone else's even though they all come from the can. The answer is no. My husband has no nostalgic attachment to this cake and within a year of visiting my family's house, he also began anticipating the arrival of this pound cake at Christmas time with feverish glee. Frankly, I like this cake, but I am not nuts over it the way others in my family are. Once I asked my husband if this pound cake is really all that  much better than other pound cakes. My husband looked at me in the eye and with all seriousness said "Eldarose, if you cannot taste how much better this cake is than other cakes, then don't eat it. Leave more of it for the rest of us who can appreciate it." LOL! My brother is just as bad. We have to hide the cake from him or he will take it away so he can eat it on his own.  I am pretty sure when my husband and I argue, part of him thinks "if we don't make up, I won't get any more pound cake at Christmas." In other words, this cake has helped hold my marriage together so you can see why it is *SUCH* a big deal that Reba has decided to share it with you. When Reba's niece recently got married, she told me all she wanted from her grandmother was her pound cake recipe and she worried she wasn't going to get it. *THIS* recipe that you are being given here right now. I was floored when Reba said she had THE recipe and was going to post it. FLOORED. I've been waiting for this recipe for 16 years and you're getting it now, no wait. I strongly encourage you to make this cake and enjoy your good luck, but remember only serve it to someone if you are sure you want them to stick around.

WRITTEN BY ELDAROSE

REBA'S TAKE:

This is my mother-in-law's recipe for her pound cake that she gives every year to friends and neighbors. At my parents' house on Christmas Day, it is by far the favorite dessert. Sherry makes two for my parents so that there will be enough for everyone. One brother takes whatever is left over to his house. This year, I plan to make one for every brother and sister so there will be enough cakes for every one to take home. One year, my sister-in-law, Mary, made 44 loaf sized pound cakes to give. She poured half of each recipe in the loaf pans. They cooked faster than an hour. She said she constantly had to be checking them to see when they were cooked. Because she was making so many, she didn't take the time to let the oven cool between baking the loaves. That caused fluctuations as to bake time. If you are just baking one, you should have no problems.

3 cups of sugar

1/2 lb. (2 sticks) softened Falfurrias (it's a local brand) butter (salted)

6 extra large eggs

3 cups Swan's cake flour (sifted before measuring)

1 cup Hygeia (local brand) whipping cream

3 tsp. McCormick real vanilla

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

Mix cream, sugar and butter well. Add eggs, one at a time. The more you beat the better. Add flour a little at a time, and a little cream until it is all blended. Add flavorings. Put batter in a well greased and floured bundt cake pan and put into a cold oven. Turn temperature to 350 degrees and bake for 1 hour until a light brown crust forms on top. Let cool. Dust with powdered sugar when cool.

WRITTEN BY REBA

Update 01/09/2012:   I have also just posted Sherry's Delicious Sandies cookie recipe HERE