November Dinner Club

Upcoming Dinner - November

Hostess - Grapes

Whatever You Want - Comfort Foods

October -Halloween Dinner Club

The girls had a ghoulish time at the October dinner club! Costumes were optional and boy were they clever!!!

Napkins and wine glasses adorned with, what else, but bats and spiders, oh my!

Killer Chef (awesome costume!) started us off with her appetizer of Coagulated Blood Dip with Finger Sticks! Yes, those are mozzarella eyeballs staring back at you!

 

Check out her theme plates (to prevent the blood dip from staining the good dishes!!)

Her wicked wine selection completed the dinner theme: Spellbound

Our mysterious "ghosts" of honor took on the terrifying task of prepping the main dish for the hostess.

The morbid main dish was a butternut squash and black bean chili served in pumpkin bowls.

Accompanied by coffin corn bread and hideous honey butter (the honey butter was actually fantastic, just trying to stay in the theme!)

And her clever costume for the evening......Count em out....Fifty shades of Grey! LOL

The ominous black cat carved up a creative side dish - a pepper pumpkin patch!!!  (Needed a picture of the front of the dish - each one had a jack-o-lantern face!!!)

Update!:  Picture of the jack-o-lantern faces!

She brought a spine-chilling wine - Vampire Blood!!

The invisible woman (was she there or wasn't she?) saved us creepy calories with her invisible dessert! Our blood-curdling chef though brought pumpkin spice candied pecans for an after-dinner treat.

The evening's ghastly guests did hair-raising job of creating Halloween theme dishes that no one was too scared to eat!

Weekly Farm Challenge 10/4/12 - 10/11/12 and 10/11/12 - 10/18/12

As the weather cools, the leaves change from green to red to orange, the fall bounty continues:  Tomatoes, peppers, kale, broccoli, green beans, red leaf lettuce, radishes, onions, corn (Yes, corn in October?!?!), parsley, apples, cauliflower, carrots, and eggplant.

A couple weeks of repeat dishes of salad, kale chips and salsa (for tailgating!)

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Couscous began using her veggie scraps (peels, green tops, etc.) and made her own veggie broth!

And using the veggie broth she made a corn, red pepper and potato chowder - Happy Fall!!

Weekly Farm Challenge 9/20/12 - 9/27/12 and 9/27/12 - 10/4/12

The fall veggies are coming in: tomatoes, peppers, spaghetti squash, basil, apples, zucchini, onion, swiss chard, eggplant, leaf lettuce, green beans, beets, yellow squash, garlic and butternut squash

Couscous vowed to make a dish with eggplant that Grapes would like and......she may have found a dish that passes the test!  Baba Ganoush!

 She also made salsa with the tomatoes, garlic, red pepper, and onion

Finally Couscous whipped up a batch of roasted butternut squash and shallot soup

OCTOBER DINNER CLUB

Upcoming Dinner - October
Hostess - Couscous 
theme - Halloween

September - Squash Theme Dinner

The gals had a gourd ole time with this fall ingredient! Amazingly enough we all used different squash varieties and No One used the most famous of the American plant - the pumpkin!!

Paprika set the appropriate stage for the autumnal equinox.

Saucy started us off with a breaded yellow (summer) squash with marinara.  She used an egg-wash and breadcrumbs for her breading.

Paprika also wanted to try her hand at some breaded squash, only she used a butternut (winter) squash. This "Country Fried Squash" also started with an egg-wash, but cornmeal was used for the breading.

 Both were equally tasty and while they used a similar preparation, they each had their own distinct taste.

Couscous couldn't quite meet the challenge of finding a "squash" wine, so brought a regular old red wine,  Piper Ranch Malbec. (yeah, nothing squashy about this one, except that grapes were squashed to produce it?)

Paprika's main dish was an amazing camouflage of squash, called Posh Squash.  It was similar to a quiche.  The squash was boiled down to mush and mixed with eggs, mayo, onion, bell pepper, Parm cheese and breadcrumbs and baked.  Any winter squash can be used and Paprika learned NOT to use acorn squash next time - little bugger is a *&#$* to peel!!

Couscous kept it simple with a basic spaghetti squash, microwaved, shredded and mixed with sauteed garlic, olive oil, salt & pepper.  Simple, but oh so tasty!

Grapes' creativity was flowing (maybe because of her name) and she selected a thematic appropriate wine - Las Parcelas Carmenere - as it looks like a "squashed" grape on the label!!!  LOL!!

Grapes also camouflaged her squash into a Butternut Squash Bake with evaporated milk, eggs, vanilla,  and topped with pecans and Rice Krispies! She kicked it up by serving it with warm with a vanilla gelato!  A wonderful fall comfort dessert!!!

  Check back next month for our October dinner, which is sure to have an alarming appetizer, spooky sidedish, evil entree, witchy wines, and a devilish dessert!!

Weekly Farm Challenge 9/13/12 - 9/20/12

This week's bounty consisted of: Apple Cider, Parsley, Leaf Lettuce, Beets, Eggplant, Onion, Apples, Tomatoes and Peppers

Busy week of salads and most items are just plain good by themselves (i.e. beets, apples), but Couscous did manage to whip up some Asian Stuffed Peppers!