Happy New Year!! 

We embark on another year of challenging our culinary creativity!! See if we can stump our dinner-mates this year with interesting ingredients, tricky themes and wild and wacky  "whatever your want" menus!

Paprika got us off to a "nutrageous" start for January's dinner club with her choice ingredient:  Peanuts or Peanut Butter. Fortunately we are all nut-free, well, as far as allergies are concerned anyway.  This is not a statement on our mental health.

Saucy kicked us off with dried figs stuffed with creamy peanut butter.  A family holiday tradition that is soon to be a new favorite on all our holiday tables! (Will try it with Chunky PB too!)

She paired this nicely with a white wine from New York's  Finger Lakes region.  For a northeast wine, it was surprisingly not too sweet.

Paprika's Fun Trivet

Paprika and Couscous should have communicated earlier to prevent duplication, as they both prepared Asian noodles with vegetables and peanut sauce.  OOPS!  Though it was "twice as nice" and was interesting to compare the dishes side by side.  Both were equally good and different from each other!

Couscous' noodle dish was Udon noodles with bok choy, carrots and snow peas with a MILD peanut sauce.

  Upon recommendation from JAW, she brought a Chateau Ste. Michelle, Gewürztraminer which also wasn't too sweet for our palates.

 Paprika's noodle dish consisted of poolee rice flour noodles with carrots, red pepper, green onions, water chestnuts, tofu and chopped peanuts also with a peanut sauce that was SPICY!  (she graciously had the sauce on the side for the wimpy, wimpy, wimpy Couscous)

"LUG LUG" ???

HOT! HOT! HOT!

Grapes completed the nutty night with a scrumptions Peanut Butter Pound Cake with Peanut Butter glaze and Chocolate drizzle.  Thankfully she persevered through not 1, not 2, but 3 cakes to bring us this beauty.  Though we would have devoured this in whatever form it came to us!

Check in next month when we transport ourselves to Paris!  Vin, Fromage, Pain..I don't see mes amis having any problèmes with this theme!! 

January Dinner Club  W. I. T.

Upcoming Dinner:  January 8, 2013

Hostess:  Paprika

Ingredient:  Peanuts/Peanut Butter

December Dinner Outing

Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures, but with the help of the Internet I improvised!!

Thanks to Couscous' diligent Groupon purchases, we were able to have our dinner outing at the Improv Comedy Club.

While it was a day that was difficult to find laughter, it was good to go out with friends and share some of life's best medicine so we didn't fall into the abyss of tying to understand something that is incomprehensible.

While Paprika couldn't join us, we had a stand-in, CW, who was a great addition to our group and was out for a extra special celebration - END OF FINALS WEEK AND SEMESTER!!!  WOO HOO!!

While the food wasn't the greatest, the drinks were tasty......

 

 The comedians were a riot....  

 

A healthier and much needed stress reliever for us all.

So another year of food, friends and fun wraps up!  We wish you all a 

and hope to see you in 2013!!

December Dinner Club

After a year of traveling from Italy to Ireland to Poland; challenging ourselves with how to break open a coconut, make our own pasta, and limit our dishes to specific letters and numbers; we scared ourselves at times with dishes concocted from oranges to strawberries to squash, but mostly we found comfort in sharing dinner with friends.  So now we take time out to recharge our creativity and enjoy a night out on the town!

End of the Season Farm Challenge:

Well, it was a fun and enjoyable season of farm goods from the Kretschmann Organic Farm and CSA!  We tried new things - some we enjoyed, some need some tweaking and some we will just forego our share and let someone else try to cook it!!

Here are some final dishes from the fall harvest!

Orange glazed acorn squash - Delish!

Slow-Cooker Baked Potato Soup - needs some tweaking!

Butternut Squash Gratin - passed the Thanksgiving Test!

Comfort Food!!

We all have those 'comfort foods', whether it's cold outside, we're feeling under the weather or it's just plain been a bad day.. these foods make us feel better. Sometimes it's a favorite childhood dish that mom made... sometimes it came from a box. Grapes hosting this month and we had a special guest... Olive. (and no one prepared from a box!!)

Dinner was served at a Thanksgiving ready table complete with Pilgrim hat/autumn leaf placesettings.

Our selections of wine included:

                                                              Zen of Zin                            Mementos                            

Gnarly Head                   

For our first course, Paprika brought her mom's "should-be-famous' dill dip with veggies and pretzels!

Grapes served individual Chicken Pot Pies... no worries.. she made Vegetarian pot pies for the veggie lovers!

Saucy made a delicious Mac & Cheese with a secret 'saucy' ingredient... butternut squash. YUM!

and for dessert, Couscous brought her childhood favorite cake.. a spice cake with a maple syrup icing.. Man, i NEED that recipe. It was simply delightful for dessert... and breakfast the next morning!! :)





Stayed tuned for our December dinner club info!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!!!!

November Dinner Club

Upcoming Dinner - November

Hostess - Grapes

Whatever You Want - Comfort Foods