When my brother was 14 or so, I told him that I'd do a full 7 course meal for him for a date if he ever wanted me to. Well, he finally called that in this past weekend. He and my cousin asked out two girls from my church and brought them out to the house for dinner, then took them bowling. I had so much fun deciding on a theme, putting the menu together, and getting decorations up. I LOVE doing these dinner parties.
Brig and I decided on a Snowman theme and tried to incorporate that into as many of the courses as we could. I had plans to make snowmen for the table centerpiece as well, but I ran out of time. I do like what did pull together though. I hit up the after Christmas 50% off sale and got me a pack of 20 mini trees, some glittered and scented pinecones, 4 silver snowman ornaments, and 4 gold plate chargers. I also picked up 2 small packs of gold and silver ornaments for our New Years Tree (since we didn't get the tree decorated in time for Christmas, we ended up with a New Years Tree instead), and Cameron Brig and I worked on making ornaments as well.
(click on any photo to see it larger)
The Decorations:
Thanks to Google Translate, we did the whole menu in French. I knew that no one coming to dinner knew French, but I figured it would help provide some good conversation (which it did) as they tried to figure out what each course was.
And then we had the New Years Tree nearby for added awesomeness.
The Menu:
Course 1: Cheese Balls with Crackers
Course 2: Curried Carrot Soup with Rye Bread Bowl
Course 3: Salad
This was just a generic salad, with garlic cheese croutons and their choice of dressing (we have tons). Then I had the great idea to buy mozzarella cheese pearls and put three on a toothpick, topped with an olive to make a snowman. Only I found out when we opened the package of cheese that cheese pearls aren't necessarily round...so the cheese snowmen looked more like modern art then snowmen. Oh well.
Course 4: Mango Sorbet.
I forgot to get a picture of this course. We bought mango sorbet at the store (I made my own once and that was more than I wanted to deal with this go around). We served the sorbet in small decorative canning jars with a gold ribbon tied around the top.
Course 5: Mashed Potato Snowman with Chicken gravy, served with Parmesan Asparagus,
Course 6: Chicken Cordon Bleu with Sauteed Peppers
I didn't end up getting a picture of this course either. But it was yummy! Cameron cooked up the chicken and it was perfection. We were going to serve it face up with a piece of rye toast cut into the shape of a hat so it would be a snowman head, but I forgot to do that...I forgot to even pull out the toast. But it was still delicious.
Course 7: Snowman Cheesecake
Beverages:
Everyone had a water glass, but then we also gave them the option of Homemade Egg Nog or a Homemade Vanilla Cream Soda. We served the Egg Nog and Cream Soda in our fun "fancy" glasses, and drew on snowman faces with dry erase markers.
For homemade vanilla cream sodas, fill a glass 3/4 of the way with shaved ice (like you get at sonic). Pour in your flavored Torrani syrup (found in the coffee aisle in your grocery store). In these glasses Cameron filled the cup about 1/4 of the way with the syrup. Pour Club Soda in the glass, filling about 3/4 of the remaining space. Finally pour in some heavy whipping cream or half and half (we used heavy whipping cream this go around). Stir and enjoy!
It was so much fun to serve the dishes and to carry out the dinner. I loved it. Cameron would periodically go out and provide some entertainment. He juggled osage oranges, he did a "magic show", he read the menu in his best and worst French accents, and was just a hit. All in all, I think it was a success.
Oh my gosh.. this was so cute to read. How fun!
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