December Dinner Recap

After a year of appealing appetizers, esculant entrees, scrumptious sides and delectable desserts, we treat ourselves to a night of relaxation.  This year we pampered ourselves with a night of tapas, wine and in-home massages.

Grapes graciously offered to be the hostess of our December "outing" dinner club.
She whipped up a wicked white bean dip.

and "cin"fully good Cinnamon Cream Cheese squares.

Paprika tempted our taste buds with a trio of dips:  garlic-garlic dip, spinach and herb dip and spicy four pepper dip served with beer bread.

We toasted the evening with a tantalizing tempranillo and smooth shiraz.



















Couscous awoke our appetites with an artichoke and roasted red pepper dip

as well as a festive goat cheese rolled in pistachios and cranberries

and oh so yummy orange spiced pecan mix.

Saucy and her out-of-town guest, Salsa, arrived late after some unexpected car trouble,

with Saucy's picturesque personal pizzas; red sauce and white sauce;

and Salsa supplied some scrumptious butter cookies

After we all had at a turn at massages and were feeling relaxed and stress free,

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You too can feel this relaxed and free of stress by contacting the amazing Kimberly Reszetylo, a certified massage therapist at kimberly.reszetylo@gmail.com or at Avonworth Chiropractic 412-734-1811.  Kim is trained in Deep Tissue, Neuro Muscular (trigger point) Therapy, Swedish, Orthopedic, Sports Massage, Prenatal, Myofascial, and some focus on Reflexology and Shiatsu.  In other words she is AWESOME and she is a beautiful soul you just have to meet!

[Back to our regularly scheduled blog]

Grapes introduced us to a new grab bag exchange game in which we traded our gifts based on the instruction slips we drew.

It was tons of fun and only Salsa wound up with her original gift, but Saucy was her personal shopper, so she was surprised by it anyways AND the Polish pottery dish is perfect for her Polish heritage!!

Paprika procured a bottle of Pinot and a package of honey lotion and a honey candle.

Grapes grabbed a gift of a bamboo set of utensils and a gingham insulated tote

Saucy scored a sassy wine carrier and snowmen glasses

and Couscous collected a classy scarf, snowman slate decor and much needed self-therapy notes! (though, these WILL be shared with ALL dinner club members!)

Another fantastic year of culinary adventures behind us.  What baked ideas will we have for 2014? Astonishing appetizers? Eccentric entrees?  Strange sides? Diverse desserts?  Check back with us in February and see!!!

DECEMBER DINNER CLUB

Another year wraps up after a whirl-wind world tour of France, Puerto Rico, Japan and Italy.  We picked recipes from the berry and pumpkin patches and after a couple of bottles of wine we usually got a little nuts with corny jokes and cheesy blog posts. So now we pack up our pots, pans and muffin tins for a dinner of tapas and wine and treat ourselves to a night of massages and relaxation!!