I hope you checked out last week’s In The Kitchen, where I made summer salads!
This week we’re talking about throwing a dinner party. I recently threw a dinner party for my friends and it was so fun! We had pasta, salad, and a fairly affordable wine. Interested? Read on.
First I decided on the menu with my roommate. It’s been hot out (who would have thought summer in Oregon would get past 100 degrees?), so we tried to do the least work possible. Because we’re on a budget, we made traditional spaghetti with red sauce, and salad.
Ingredients:
I pack of spaghetti
6 cups (at least) of water
2 cups of sauce (if you don’t like red sauce, use pesto or alfredo)
Make sure that if you are going to have the pasta sitting around for a while, that you put some kind of starch into the pot, it will keep them from sticking together. I actually left mine in the water to make sure they stayed hot and didn’t start to look like a starchy mess. I prepared the sauce separately just in case my guests wanted to go without.
The salad we used was a pre-made mix, and we added tomatoes, peppers, and carrots.
Ingredients:
1 pre-made salad mix, or type of lettuce
1 red bell pepper
1 carrot
1 tomato
It was really good, especially with the balsamic vinaigrette that we used. We ate dinner with a barefoot wine. If you aren’t of age, or don’t like wine then drink some Martinelli’s or apple juice, it has the same type of taste and it’s fun!
For dessert we decided to have fruit bars. The ones that we picked out were Dreyers antioxidant bars, flavored acai blueberry, pomegranate, and white grape. We picked them because they seemed summery and we didn’t have to worry about diet implications because they are so light and fun!
After the dinner party we decided to play volleyball, make sure that you have planned a whole night of fun because with the weather you don’t know how long people will want to stay at your apartment.
If you want to spice up the party a little bit, play a game! We asked our guests to bring any kind of board game or party game they had. My favorite game was Cards Against Humanity, which is like an adult version of Apples to Apples – believe me, it is worth your while!
Although we were half in the kitchen and half outside, we all had fun together! Let me know if you have any suggestions for my next column or have any ideas about what kind of Pinterest recipes I could try next!
And as always, check out my Pinboard, where I post everything I try!