Dinner Party

A couple of weeks ago I had my four of my best girlfriends over for dinner.... We were celebrating the approaching birthday of one, another's adorable baby who is now 3 months old, and the other two were visiting from not-too-far-away, but still too far to see them all the time.

I love when the girls come over for dinner. It gives me an excuse to pull out as many wedding gifts as possible, and make everything a little fancy because you KNOW the girls will enjoy it, whereas the boys could really care less.

I found this adorable birch centerpiece to put a vase of flowers in, and I pulled out my linen table runner, and my multi-colored clothes napkins and set to cooking.

To start we had some cheese & crackers and some delicious lamb chops in a cranberry chutney with port (recipe here). Sounds heavy, but it was just a bite, and they were SO good. Of course there was red wine - ooh, and another wedding gift, this fabulous pitcher from C+B filled with lemony water.


We tried not to fill up too much - as dinner included the following:

- Brusell sprouts with smoked uncured bacon that I splurged on at whole foods.
- Food & Wine's Creamy Polenta with a Wild Mushroom Ragu - made with marscapone, yum, it only called for 1 tbsp, but we added more.
- Petite filets (another splurge from whole foods) that I marinated in red wine, evoo, garlic & salt & pepper, then cooked on the grill
- GF Rosemary & Thyme Against the Grain baguette, toasted (also regular baguette, as I am the only one GF)

DELICIOUS.

There was dessert too, but I didn't take any pics! I'm so bad with remembering to take pictures.

The company, food & wine were all perfection. I love girls nights.