Top 10 Dinner Parties
Been spending a lot of money eating out lately? Well why not eat in? You can throw a dinner party at home and ‘spend’ some quality time with your family and friends.
Here’s our Top10 Dinner Party Ideas:
Pizza Party
A ‘Make Your Own’ Pizza Party is a definite crowd pleaser. It’s fun to roll out the dough and then customize your pizza by picking your favourite toppings. You can buy dough in bags at grocery stores or Italian markets. The kitchen island or table is the best place to set up your work station with a flour covered cutting board in the center and then bowls filled with a variety of toppings.
Guests stand around the island/table drinking wine and chatting. Each person takes their turn making their own personalized pizza. They roll out the dough, add sauce, their favourite toppings, put it on a cookie sheet and bake at 450-500 degrees for 7-10 mins depending on your oven.
As soon as the first person has put theirs in the oven, the next person takes their place at the work station and starts making their pizza. By the time they are finished, the first pizza should be finished cooking and the new one can go in. The first pizza is cut into enough pieces that everyone can try it, that way, everyone gets to try a piece of everyone elses favourite pizza. Fun!
BBQ
If it’s summer, why not have dinner outside? A BBQ is a casual summer treat in the comfort of your own backyard. Let the breeze, and smoke, blow through your hair, offer your guests cool summer beverages and then make them walk the plank…or just cook your food on one. Planking’s not just for fish anymore, it’s the latest trend in BBQing, it makes your life easy and your food taste amazing. Our suggestion is:
Starter: Brie with blackberries and pineapple rum sauce
Main: Jack Daniel’s infused (meaning?) chicken burgers with cheese and onions, bacon wrapped chicken thighs
Dessert: Twinkies with Nutella, Oreo cookie crumbs and marshmallows
Location: Someone’s backyard
Decor: barbecue, wooden planks, apron
Menu: warm Brie with blackberries and pineapple rum sauce, Jack Daniels injected chicken burgers with mozzarella cheese, bacon wrapped chicken thighs, cold beer & wine cooler, and concoct a creative dessert to plank on your grill!
Attire: sundresses, shorts & tank, comfy and casual
Formal
You can dress up but can’t afford to go anywhere? / Do you have a formal dinner room that never gets used except on special occasions? Well why not have a formal dinner party? Using your best china, silverware, white linen table cloth and napkins, you can set the stage for an evening that will impress your guests…and your mother. Here’s a link to tips for setting the table and for proper etiquette during the meal.
Location: dining room
Decor: wine glasses, white cloth serviettes, matching plates
Menu: carrot ginger soup, steak, bread and butter…link to recipes
Attire: black tie
Entertainment: classical music and light conversation
Moroccan
To get this theme going, try decorating your living room coffee table with a warm coloured table cloth and throwing cousins on the floor. Then you can add any kind of Moroccan looking accessories to dress it up. You will need a tea pot for the Moroccan Mint Tea, which plays a very important part in Moroccan culture.
You will also need a Tagine, which is a cooking or serving dish used in Moroccan dinning to serve your main dish.
Dvira Ovadia helped us decorate our table. She is an interior designer who can be reached at www.Dvira.com
For inspiration for your dinner party you and go to the Sultans Tent restaurant which is a Moroccan restaurant that has belly dancing!!!
Cheater Hors d’oeuvres
It’s okay to cheat sometimes, especially when it’s hosting a dinner party. This dinner party idea puts the ease in please – the secret? No baking!
Don’t you just love sampling all kinds of different foods? Well what about an entire evening of that? Our Hors D’oeuvres dinner party is just that. It takes place in the living room where guests taste each round of ‘appies’ that roll on by. The most appropriate products for this segment are as follows:
Location: anywhere you can kick back and relax
Decor: napkins and fingers to grab at all the tasty delights
Menu: cherry tomato with salmon cream cheese and capers on whole wheat cracker, carrot with salmon cream cheese and capers on rice cracker, carrot and sprouts rice paper rolls, soy meat with pineapple on a stick, white wine and champagne
Attire: causal attire
Entertainment:
Fondue
When the company’s good, you want them to stay for a long time. Why not catch up on the good ol’ times with a fondue dinner party.
Location: on a nice hardwood floor or seated in your living room
Decor: ceramic fondue pot, metal fondue pot, fondue forks, napkins, plates
Menu: baguette (cubed), chicken (cubed), broccoli, baby carrots, cauliflower, chicken broth, vegetable oil, cheese fondue package
Attire: barefoot
Entertainment: Walk down memory lane with “Six Degrees of Separation”. Name an old high school crush and find out where they are now by playing a game of whose who.
Tea
You don’t have to be English to have Afternoon Tea. Tiered trays, tea pots, china cups and saucers sit on your living room coffee table as your guests prop themselves in chairs around it. The menu includes finger sandwiches, scones, bite size desserts and of course lots of tea…the loose leaf kind. If you want to really go all out, have your guests where sundresses and hats.
Location: your living room or backyard deck
Decor: tea cups, tea pot, tiered tray, napkins
Menu: Ham & Swiss finger sandwiches, date squares, apricot squares, lemon pound cake (cubed), grapes, strawberries, rolled up meats, two types of tea (e.g. Genmaicha and Masala Chai)
Attire: patterned blouse and capris
Entertainment: each guest wears a silly hat and tells a story behind their choice of headwear
Pot Luck
A dinner party doesn’t have to be a lot of work…not if you host a pot luck buffet. Each guest brings a dish and sets it up on a table and then it’s self serve buffet style. The only problem…what wine to serve. Well, no worries because we’ve got some suggestions for you.
Sushi
Summon your inner Sushi chef to create delights that look as good as they taste. This one we recommend you try before you host the party so you are comfortable enough to be able to teach your guests.
The quality of the sushi rice is very important. We recommend Japanese short grain rice because it sticks together well. To make 4-6 servings of rice you will need:
- 3 cups Japanese rice
- 3 1/4 cups water
- 1/3 cup rice vinegar
- 3 Tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp salt
Cook Japanese sushi rice according to the directions on the package.
Mix rice vinegar, sugar, and salt in a sauce pan. Put the pan on low heat and heat until the sugar dissolves. Cool the vinegar mixture and then pour it over the rice and fold the rice quickly. Use a fan to cool and remove the moisture from. This will give sushi rice a shiny look. It’s best to use the rice right away.
To make California rolls are one of the most popular types of sushi and it’s unique because the dried seaweed (also known as nori) is rolled on the inside of the roll. To make 4 rolls, you’ll need:
- 4 cups sushi rice
- 4 sheets of nori (dried seaweed)
- 1 avocado, cut into strips
- 3/4 cup crab meat
- 1 cucumber, julienned
- sesame seeds
Cover a bamboo mat with plastic wrap. Put a sheet of dried seaweed on top of the mat. Spread sushi rice on top of the seaweed and press firmly. Sprinkle sesame seeds over the sushi rice. Turn the sushi layer over so that the seaweed is on top. Place avocado, cucumber and crab lengthwise on the seaweed.
Roll the bamboo mat forward, pressing the ingredients inside the cylinder-shaped sushi. Press firmly the bamboo mat with hands, then remove the rolled sushi. Cut the sushi roll into bite-size pieces.
Breakfast
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day so why not have it for dinner too? This dinner party can be thrown by the hosts in their PJ’s as they whip up some breakfast favourites like, eggs and bacon, pancakes with berries and whip cream. We also suggest a cereal bar, it looks great and your guests can have fun picking their favourite type of cereal or mix them altogether if they want. We also suggest eating in the family room in front of the tv watching movies or PVR your favorite cartoons! If this party is for a ‘girls night’ or for you and the kids, it makes a great slumber party too.
