Dinner Party for Seven!

Tonight, I decided to invite some close friends over for a long overdue dinner party. I usually like to keep some sort of theme, but this time I just couldn’t think of a good one, so I decided to go with Tiffany Blue and Brown. The menu included: Pear and Gorgonzola Salad, Creamy Polenta with a Mushroom Sauce, Homemade Ricotta Gnocchi with a Vodka Marinara, and Braised Short Ribs. For dessert, I served Joni’s Toffee Dip with Granny Smith Apples and the mini cupcakes from Vanilla Bakeshop. Drink included my usual party punch with sherbert ice cream and somehow we went through 3 bottles of wine. Two bottles were special and I had been saving them for quite awhile. I was quite happy with myself as three out of the four dishes I had never made before.

The braised short ribs and creamy polenta recipes were great and I have now added them to my repertoire. The homemade gnocchi weren’t as hard as I thought it would be to make. They tasted good (but just not as good as Sprazzo Restaurant). If you have been to my parties, you know you will always get a full course meal and a favor to take home. This time, the favors were simply wrapped Ritter Chocolate Biscuits….one of my favorite chocolate treats.

Oh yeah….I have to give a shout out to Mari Mix Chocolate Cereal Mix (given to me by Joni). Who would have thought Chocolate Cereal Mix could be so good! I didn’t think people who eat it, but it was gone by the end of the night.

One of my guests was the adorable daughter of my friends Mike and Lily. I brought a lot of my toys from work so Lindsay had things to keep her occupied (I work as a school occupational therapist). One of my games that I do at work is this game called “Let’s Make a Sandwich.” I take two pillows (the bread) and add the child (the sandwich meat) and then pretend to eat them up by squishing them. I had to include this picture of Lindsay being a “sandwich.”