A Late Summer Dinner Party
Happy Monday! To remind, you can leave comments or questions on this thread. Scroll to the bottom to see where.
If you’re new here, welcome! Many of you like when I share details of entertaining at home. Let me come right out and say it - I don’t do complicated. I invite my friends over to spend time with them and enjoy myself. And I also want to cultivate a relaxed energy in my home so my friends have fun too. Your guests won’t have a good time if you’re stressed out and working too hard. So, I invite people over with nothing to prove and I commit to a menu that feels right for how much work I want to expend. I really like this menu I made over the weekend for 8 guests. I had a group of mixed eaters, ie not everyone eats everything. Keeping that in mind, you’ll understand the menu.
I will share as many details here as I have been asked on Instagram. Feel free to let me know if there’s anything you would like to know!
Drinks
Hubs is in charge of all drinks and condiments. I often squeeze fresh juices and freeze them in advance. These were done 2 days before and served in glass bottles.
Lime juice
Grapefruit Juice
Fresh Mint
Jalapeno
Pellegrino and still water
Hors D’oeuvres
Crudites (watermelon radish, cucumber, carrots, jicama, Little Gems) over ice
Whipped goat cheese with smoked almonds, caramelized shallots, dates and crispy rosemary (tested this for an upcoming shoot)
Crostini and Rustic Bakery tart cherry and cacao nib crackers
Hatch chili spinach dip with chips (tip - always buy an extra bag of chips because so many are broken!)
Dinner
I made two proteins because there were a few dietary preferences that I had to work with. I chose to make two different proteins with the same salad on top of each. I originally wanted to do chicken milanese which meant frying the chicken stovetop and then I felt like going the easy route and baking them. Good decision!
Baked Parmesan Chicken Cutlets with arugula and marinated cherry tomatoes with shallots and balsamic vinaigrette (I halved cherry tomatoes + a thinly sliced shallot and marinated them in fridge all day with balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper and olive oil. I just tasted it as I went. Then tossed right before with arugula.)
Grilled Flank steak with same arugula salad (Somehow I missed taking this image. I used this recipe except swapped in red wine vinegar, hot honey for the sugar and crushed red pepper, and used all olive oil.)
Sautéed corn with chives (just saute corn kernels with butter or plant butter and salt. Top with chopped chives before serving.)
Grilled peppers, eggplant and crispy artichokes with burrata and basil vinaigrette and pine nuts (this was from my August 2023 class. If you took that class, I added eggplant and oven roasted artichoke hearts.) Served room temp!
Dessert
Bakewell Tart (testing for a future class)
Ice Cream (McConnell’s vanilla, chocolate, and salted caramel chip, and Criag’s vegan chocolate)
Fresh Berries and Figs
On the side: Limoncello (delish over berries or vanilla ice cream), Olive oil (delish over vanilla or chocolate ice cream), Cocowhip (my favorite junk food. It’s fake whipped cream. I make no apologies.)
Decor Details
Staub pie plate for the spinach dip
Acrylic cocktail napkin holder
Dahlias, mums and ranunculus from Trader Joe’s in (old) bud vases from World Market
Kiss that frog seagrass tumblers
Heath Ceramics dinner plates Coupe line in Opaque White
I do not recommend the placemats I used. They have a bump in the center which causes the dinner plate not to lie flat.
Serving pieces
Crate and Barrel rectangular white platter
Staub 13-inch double handled fry pan (I pulled this Hudson-Grace platter to use but decided to serve from the skillet since it’s pretty enough and kept the corn warm.)
Hudson Grace round deep platter/tray
Cake stand (crate and barrel)
And last but not least, what everyone is asking about - I’ve actually posted about these several times, the ice cream pint containers!!!
I can’t add every detail about what I did in advance and how I set up my exact schedule. But if you want to entertain more at home with less stress and more enjoyment, you should absolutely take my Entertaining with Ease course!! You take it on your own time and if you want, you can join the private Facebook group. It is a very helpful course and one of my most popular!
xxPamela
I was inspired by your whipped goat cheese appetizer to make a whipped goat cheese with honey app for Rosh Hashanah dinner tonight. Looking forward to your recipe with the almonds etc. Also, I really liked your idea of keeping the same menu when entertaining different groups of friends - genius! First time posting but enthusiastic reader of your emails - thank you
Love your entertaining details, Pamela: food, serve ware and tablescape info ! Thank you for posting!