entertaining « Healthy and Sane

Entries Tagged as 'entertaining'

Dinner parties are where it’s at

February 18th, 2010 · 29 Comments · breakfast, dessert, eggplant, entertaining, restaurant reviews, salad, snacks

When we were kids, meals were always prepared by the parents (most likely by mom). They were simple and satisfying, except for maybe that occasional vegetable you really would rather leave on the plate For birthday parties and other celebrations, in my house my parents always prepared a giant feast (we actually had 2 large parties – one with all the kids, and a second one with all the adults – man, that’s a lot of prep!). If you are an American, the birthday parties were likely held at somewhere fun like Chuck E. Cheese. I never experienced such a thing.

In middle school, my family moved to Israel and the idea of take-out was introduced into my life. This was further solidified when we moved to the US, and most gatherings with friends were now at the local Dunkin Donuts or at someone’s house with a giant plastic container full of Chinese food. College was pretty similar, except alcohol was introduced into the mix – in large quantities at that.

Over the past few months, Adam and I hosted and attended a few dinner parties. There was no greasy, cheap food, no binge drinking – just a home-cooked meal with nice wine and a great conversation. Last night, on the way back home from such a dinner party, it hit me – this is what you do in your late 20’s (and probably well into your 30’s or until kids start ruining all your fancy plans)! I have to say – I’m really liking this new stage of my life, and I can’t wait to host more dinner parties at our own house soon!!

Before I get into the dinner party details, let’s quickly review the rest of the day’s eats – they were really good!

BREAKFAST

2 Vermont spelt toasts with low fat cottage cheese, Zoe’s granola and almond slices + 1 orange

Toast close-up – great combo!

Juicy orange…

MID-MORNING SNACK

1T peanut butter + 1/2 apple

LUNCH DATE

The fun lunch date I mentioned last night was with the lovely Shannon of Tri 2 Cook. She joined me for a sweaty spin class and then we went to b.good. My salad from Friday finally convinced her to give b.good a go! I stopped myself from ordering the same thing and got the sesame ginger chicken salad this time – mesclun, carrots, jicama, edamame, sesame seeds, sesame sticks, orange-soy dressing

The lighting there is horrible but hopefully you can see all the goodies in there… chicken + sesame sticks

jicama, carrots, edamame…

I really liked this salad as well. Shannon liked her b.good burger.

For dessert I stopped by Paradise Bakery and got myself a choc chip cookie. I <3 them!

The salad + cookie combo held me over for 7 hours!! And now we get to the part where I tell you all about the dinner party Adam and I attended last night.

DINNER

So as you all know, we currently don’t have a kitchen to cook in. Somehow we were talking about that and Turkish food, and my co-worker Egemen offered to cook dinner for Adam and me one day. Hey, you don’t have to ask me twice! I’ve never had homemade Turkish food so this was quite a treat.

Egemen did a really great job setting up for dinner. There were lots of candles and some simple apps to munch on while he was finishing up dinner. Very cozy. His friends Margaret and Amanda joined us for the meal as well. We all loved the juicy strawberries and the cheese sampler.

I had a few glasses of wine with dinner. Here is my first pour.

And now for the real treat – slow braised lamb + hunkar begendi (eggplant cream)

Egemen really went all out! The lamb took 2 days to marinate + 3 hours to cook. It was really melting in your mouth – so tender! The hunkar begendi was the most unique eggplant dish I’ve had. It is a combo of roasted eggplant meat, flour, butter and mozzarella. SO good. You could really taste the smokiness of the eggplant. Now I miss my mom’s.

Dessert was another traditional Turkish dish – walnut and cinnamon stuffed figs (sorry, I don’t know the exact name) with vanilla ice cream and chocolate fudge

This was very sweet and very cinnamony – a small portion was perfect to end the meal on a sweet note. Delicious! Thanks Egemen for hosting us – we’ll need to return the favor by cooking for you and the girls next time.

Do you like dinner parties?

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A housewarming party done right

January 31st, 2010 · 5 Comments · entertaining

I’ve been a lazy bum all day today. I actually woke up at 11:30 after nearly 11 hours of sleep! I’ve been absolutely exhausted all week and I guess starting drinking at 4pm yesterday just put me over the top. Totally worth it – everything at the party we attended was fabulous. Our friends Mike and Katie are excellent hosts!!

As mentioned, their housewarming party started at 4pm, so the menu was centered around different crostini and a few other fun finger foods. Every single thing was incredible and all recipes came from Cooking Light so we were filling up on nutritious food. That’s definitely my kind of party food!

Pumpernickel toasts with sour cream, lox and chives

Believe it or not, I was actually dreaming about this exact combo a few nights ago. I had a few of these guys.

Fig and goat cheese crostini

The super sweet figs were nicely complemented by the tangy goat cheese. Delicious!

The hostess multi-tasking…

Beef tenderloin, herbed cheese, spinach and gorgonzola crostini

The beef was so tender – perfectly cooked! I really enjoyed the creaminess of the spread under the spinach but unfortunately it had chives which proved to be too oniony for me. I think this was the guys’ favorite appetizer though – a definite hit at the party.

And finally we get to my favorite crostini of the night: roasted red pepper and olive crostini

Katie went through the trouble of roasting her own peppers instead of buying the jarred variety. You could really taste the difference!!

I could eat this whole bowl of the topping in one seating.

Spinach and artichoke dip with tortilla chips

Lots of cheese + crackers

The food never stopped coming… those little crostini plates were refilled throughout the night. The hosts had a few helpers so they were able to mingle with friends as well. Great idea!

How about a pose for the blog?

And then there was drinking! I had a few cups of white wine…

Some red…

And….. a raspberry jello shot! Yep, you read that right. Awesome!

These were strong! I stuck to just one… and a million bites of dessert!!!

Random party pics…

We met some really cool people and of course had fun drinking and chatting with existing friends. And I definitely ate my weight in apps + dessert! They say you should sit away from the table with the food if you want to limit mindless snacking, but I’m pretty sure I have an internal magnet in my system so I just couldn’t stay away. It was all SO good! Best party food I’ve ever had in my life. Seriously!! It was as if it was all tailored to my taste buds.

We left the party stuffed and happy and headed to our friends Kyle and Tiffany’s place where I learned that I’m useless at Trivial Pursuit (actually that wasn’t a surprise at all)… they need more food related questions, lol.

How is your weekend going? Did you cast a vote in my poll yet?

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Good friends + good food = good time

January 22nd, 2010 · 24 Comments · Cooking Light, chicken, dessert, entertaining, soups

Last night, Adam and I went to our friends’ place for dinner. They just recently bought their condo so this was their first time hosting us there. We got there around 7 and left nearly at midnight. If we were at a restaurant, we would definitely have closed the place down. With great food, wine and the conversation flowing, the time really flew by!

Katie is as health conscious as I am (maybe even more – she’s getting married in 6 months!) so our whole menu for the night was from Cooking Light. Awesome!! I started with a glass of this Louis Latour Pinor Noir. I’m not the biggest fan of Pinot Noir but this was a crisp bottle – a nice way to start the meal.

Mike made sure to refill my glass when it was getting low, so I have no idea how much I really drank (maybe 4 glasses?). Between the 4 of us, 2 bottles of beer and 4+ bottles of wine were consumed. The guys did most of the heavy lifting Like I said, it was a good time!

After getting the tour of their place, which is gorgeous (!!!!), we sat down for dinner. Our first course was a roasted cauliflower soup, finished with truffle oil (recipe can be found here, onions were omitted and hazelnut oil was replaced by truffle oil).

It was so thick and rich, I hesitated about finishing my portion but everyone else polished theirs off so I slowly followed suit. I was shocked to find out that this was only 87 calories/serving. Seriously, Katie didn’t tell me she used Cooking Light recipes until the end so I thought she chose to serve us full fat meals for dinner. The truffle oil gave it a real depth. Very delicious!

Next up, Mike got to carve the roasted chicken (recipe to come).

On the side we enjoyed some hericot verts…

… and whole wheat couscous with dried fruit

My portion (I had a little bit more of the chicken).

The chicken was the star for sure. I’ve actually never roasted a chicken before and was impressed with Katie’s skills – it was so moist and flavorful! She rubbed it with spices under the skin, so when the skin was removed, there was a lot of flavor. She convinced me to give it a go once we have our kitchen back.

And now, my favorite part of dinner (shocker, I know!) – dessert. Katie cutting the cake…

She made this carrot cake with toasted coconut cream cheese frosting. OMG – so incredible!! The cake was super moist and rich and full of plump raisins and then the cream cheese frosting put it over the top. Perfectly sweet with a fun twist of toasted shredded coconut.

We all loved it (including Adam who supposedly hates carrot cake and coconut – yes, even he wanted seconds). Speaking of seconds, I couldn’t help myself. My sweet tooth nearly always wins, what can I say And that, my bloggie friends, is how you consume nearly 700 calories in just dessert!

I took pictures of the rest of my eats from earlier in the day, but I’m going to leave them off so this meal gets its full blog glory. The dinner was absolutely fabulous! Thank you, Mike and Katie for hosting us!! We can’t wait to have you over for dinner again when our kitchen is done!

When you have people over for dinner, do you try new recipes or serve tried and true classics? Healthify them or make it a full splurge and stick with the full fat versions? I’m all about doing it Cooking Light-style!

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New Year’s Eve 2009

January 2nd, 2010 · 14 Comments · Cooking Light, entertaining, party

Wow, 2010 is finally upon us! I’m excited for what this year will bring. I think we definitely celebrated the end of 2009 in style, though. Adam and I hosted a little get together for about 20 friends and I think everyone had a great time. I know I did!

Despite a late-ish get together, I couldn’t help myself with a few appetizers and desserts

An antipasti plate with grapes, aged gouda, smoked gouda, four pepper goat cheese, salami and mixed olives

Tzatziki which I made by following this recipe from Cooking Light. I substituted 2% greek yogurt for nonfat plain and used dried dill and no mint. The result was so fresh and delicious. I think this was the best thing I made for the party!

Fresh cauliflower, baby carrots and cucumber slices for dipping…

My mom helped out with some cooking as well, and made these little cheese puffs. They have cheddar baked right into the dough, and are stuffed with russian cottage cheese, A LOT of garlic and fresh dill. This is a recipe my mom got from a German magazine when we were kids so although it’s not Russian, it really reminds me of my childhood. Everyone loved these guys of course!

Bacon potato chips I got from Foodzie for Adam’s Christmas stocking. The reviews on these were mixed. They are definitely on the weird side – lots of smoky flavor for sure!

Crab dip based on this recipe from Cooking Light. I halved it (because crab is expensive!), used claw meat (see previous reason), used 4% cottage cheese (I wasn’t sure how the fat-free would melt) and omitted the scallions. I tasted the batter before baking it and thought it was amazing. Post baking it was a little fishy, although one of our friends was converted into a crab lover during the party (the first bite was just okay to him, but he kept going back!) which I guess is the best review that could be given to this dip. It was also gone by the end of the night – another good sign.

I tried it with some cauliflower…

Trader Joe’s ham & cheese puff pastry bites

No prep required, just pop in the oven and bake. Perfect for a random get together or when you want to keep the cooking to the minimum! This was actually my strategy for the party – I made a few dips, but then relied on some store bought extras (cheeses, meats, chips, veggies, etc.). It worked out great – I was hardly in the kitchen to pull this off!

DESSERTS!

Desserts I made a few days before the party, to make sure I don’t run out of time. That would be criminal

I started with Ellie Krieger’s no bake lemon cheesecake bars…

They set a little better over the next 24 hours (after the last post), but I still served them in little muffin liners with spoons. This was definitely less messy! Overall I really liked the taste of them, but the texture just complicated things too much. I wouldn’t make them again unless I figured out how I can get them to perfectly set next time.

Next, my mom surprised me with a cake for the party. This one is called “holiday” in Russian, which was quite appropriate. The base is an almond meal crust (I think), topped with custard and chocolate ganache.

I was in heaven after the first bite. Here it is cut into party size bites. Mmm… thanks mom!!!!! My mom’s goods were my favorite from the whole spread!

Lastly, the peppermint bark cookies made an appearance as well. Of course!

Some alcohol was also involved We had some wine and glasses set up…

And a make your-own mixed drink set up. It worked out really well. People were making all sorts of fun concoctions!

+ a lot of beer! We have so much left now because everyone brought way more than they could drink. Not the worst thing in the world

I had a few glasses of red...

Then Pran showed up with sangria and I couldn’t resist… drank a few glasses of that. I love sangria!

A little posing action

Somebody wasn’t too amused. Hehe (actually he smiled right after the camera clicked – tough guy!)

So much fun! How did you celebrate New Year’s Eve?

I spent the majority of my first day of 2010 on the couch, watching reruns of the Next Iron Chef. Good times. I’m off to the gym now. I’ll be back this weekend with my New Years Resolutions for 2010 (want to digest them for a few days). Did you make resolutions yet? Have a fabulous weekend and a happy 2010!!!!!!!

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Dinner with the family – entertaining part II

December 7th, 2009 · 18 Comments · Cooking Light, Ellie Krieger, dessert, entertaining, fish, salad, salmon

After making a successful dinner for my dad last weekend, I decided to make a 3+ course dinner for my aunt (she’s here from Russia for 2 weeks) and my parents. I really love having people over for dinner, but I also get a little nervous about making sure that everyone’s happy. Adam was a big help in prepping the space. The Christmas tree was ready for our guests…

Our house smells like Christmas!!

Fresh flowers in the vase…

And the dining room table set…

Everybody – have some wine! [This was a fantastic Chianti my dad brought.]

FIRST COURSE

We started with a nice salad: mixed greens, arugula, roasted apples, pomegranate seeds and hazelnuts

I thought all the salad ingredients complemented each other really well – the sweet and savory balance was spot on (she pats herself on the back…).

I followed this recipe for the dressing (cut the oil by 1/2).

I also decided to make little appetizers with the Pepperidge Farm puff pastry (I received a free coupon for it from Foodbuzz).

These guys were inspired by a pasta I used to love at an old local restaurant in New York. They’re topped with vodka sauce, roasted asparagus, sun-dried tomatoes, pine nuts and a graded parmesan. Delicious!!

My plate:

SECOND COURSE

The star of the show: sweet-spicy glazed salmon. This is one of my favorite salmon recipes – I follow this recipe from Cooking Light, substituting 1/2 honey mustard and 1/2 country dijon mustard for Chinese-style hot mustard.

Haricot verts, steamed then sauteed in a tiny bit of EVOO with garlic.

Couscous pilaf (recipe based on p. 12 of The Best of Cooking Light, Great Plates) – ww couscous, dried cherries, almond slivers, lemon zest and S&P.

My plate (I ate 1/2 of it… getting stuffed!)

The salmon was a hit! This glaze is fabulous!!

The cherries in the couscous were my favorite. I <3 cherries

Let’s not forget the veggies. Simple preparation doesn’t mean simple taste.

DESSERT

The almond, cherry chocolate clusters made their appearance on the dinner table. This recipe is already becoming a staple in my entertaining repertoire because it takes just minutes to make and everybody loves these clusters!

All 12 were gobbled up!

My aunt also brought a dessert – a local specialty called “chuck chuck.” Her mother-in-law made this particular batch with nearly every ingredient home-grown. This is little homemade pastry noodles, fried then covered in a honey glaze. The eggs are from the chickens they have and the honey is from their own honey-combs. Pretty awesome. We picked on this sticky mess all night. Mmm…..