Dinner Party

Disclaimer:

I'm new to this whole food blog thing, so I apoligize

that there aren't more pics, I will do better, I promise!!

I wanted to host a dinner party for a few friends from work. To spend time together, eat good food, play Michael Jackson The Experience on Wii, but mostly to show off our super cute fall decorations.

So I invited my Big and my Little from work. I should preface this by saying that at work we have a "sorority" Kappa Kappa Chemo. (Yes, we're dorks) So the girl who oriented me, and the one who I oriented came over and we partied like only nurses know how. Meaning: Wine, Beer, Margaritas, Just Dance, and Michael Jackson, The Experience. Oh What a Night!

We had homemade tortilla chips and a fiesta dip for a pre-dinner snack. The chips were just flour tortillas cut into eights and baked at 400 deg. for 8-10 minutes.

I seasoned some with butter and salt, and others with butter and garlic/onion mix. The dip was a multi-layer fiesta! Beginning with a mix of refried beans and diced green chiles, next came a sour cream and taco seasoning mix, followed by blended peas (instead of avacado), onion and garlic, topped with diced tomatoes and cheese.

The dinner included garlic mashed potatoes, creamy broccoli casserole, and prime rib of beef. It was super tasty but there were several changes I would make in the future.

The Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes:

Our grocery store was out of the head garlic, and the recipe called for two heads to be oven roasted and them mashed up with the potatoes. With this lack of fresh garlic, I used about 2 tsp of minced garlic in the jar. It was good, but I definitely could have used more. Other than that, they were good mashed potatoes.

Creamy Broccoli Casserole:

The recipe called for only one can of cream of chicken soup, it definitely needed two. Also, It could have stood to have some rice in there. I usually make a broccoli rice casserole, where I add rice and use chicken broth to cook the rice right in the casserole. It called for bread crumb and italian cheese to be sprinkled on top during the last 5 minutes of cooking. This was delicious! I used italian seasoned bread crumbs, but any would be good.

Prime Rib of Beef:

I will start of by saying I have the hardest time cooking meat in the oven. I just can't get it to be tender! It is gradually getting better, but my wonderful husband has stood by me and faithfully sawed at whatever I put in front of him. It isn't until I make the comment that it's really tough that he says anything. He's so good to me. :-D

But I digress:

It called for carrots and onions to be chopped up and put on the bottom of the cook pan. Then mix salt/pepper/onion powder/garlic powder and rub it onto the roast. This formed a VERY crisp crust. It also kept the roast moist on the inside. It was just tough. I don't think I'm cooking it slow enough or long enough.

After dinner we had drinking and dancing: