Winter Solstice Dinner

Remember the Autumnal Equinox dinner? Well, the time had come to do our Winter Solstice Dinner, and we had a good time. It was an up and down day with plans changing throughout. We went to the store knowing what we wanted and not finding what we wanted, we had to change plans as we went. Then when we got home and got making the food, we found we had forgotten to get a few ingredients. No problem, we thought...we'll make it completely from scratch, we thought...only to find we were out of shortening. After a minor melt down and some frustration, it all pulled together wonderfully and gave us some yummy leftovers for the next day. Mmmm.

Here's what we had (click on the food name to go to the post containing that recipe):

Cheeseball and Rye Toast

Roasted Garlic Spread

Deviled Eggs

Cajun Pork Loin (this I'm not doing a post of because we just bought it from the store pre-seasoned. We just cooked it).

Bacon Cheese Cream Puffs

Roasted Potatoes and Carrots (I'm not posting this either. It's just potatoes and carrots with a little bit of herbed olive oil baked in the oven).

And to drink we had Raspberry Creme Soda (the 2 liter $0.79 stuff from Food Basket....this stuff is amazing).

For the table decorations we used the chimney from a oil lamp as a vase for a bouquet of fake Poinsettias we already had around the house, 5 small tea light candles in these awesome shot-glass style containers given to us by a friend (they were coated with colored foil and gave off the most awesome light). Then we used a light mustardy colored table cloth with a longer piece of maroon fabric in a stripe down the middle of the table. Super easy, but it made the settings look a little nicer than they really were. We pulled out our fun plates and cups from the Equinox dinner to finish it all off.