How-To Plan a Dinner Party

Another new and exciting adventure in 2012 is I got to plan a dinner party!  It was so much fun and I thought I would take the time to share my experience to make hosting your own dinner party a little smoother and enjoyable for you - the host(ess).

1. Pick a date (2 - 3 weeks in advance)

Pick a date that works for you and most (if not all) of your guests.  Send invitations through Facebook, Evite, email, or good old fashioned snail mail (people still do that, right?).

2. Pick a theme

Every dinner party should have a theme.  This will help you narrow down recipes for your menu and pick out decorations.  Plus themes make everything so much more fun.  Because the dinner party was the same day and time as a Saints/Lions game, we decided to do a classy tailgate party.  Basically, we wanted to take typical tailgate food and turn it into dinner party food.

3. Pick a menu - 1 week in advance

Once we had the theme, I started to look for recipes that would follow our tailgate party theme.  For appetizers, I wanted to set up a bunch of dips (veggie dip, hummus, some type of salsa) with veggies and chips.  For the sides, I found a cucumber salad recipe from Ina Garten and we decided to make cornbread.  I loved the cucumber salad recipe because it reminded me of a lighter and somewhat classier potato salad. And cornbread is just flat out delicious, especially the Trader Joe's mix with actual kernels of corn and honey.  We then decided the entree would be a DIY burger bar with some classy fixings and BBQ chicken with a homemade BBQ sauce for the people who didn't want red meat.

4. Plan out your shopping and cooking - 3 days in advance

You should be shopping for all of your ingredients at least three days before the event.  Grab all of your recipes and write out what ingredients you'll need for each.  Add together any ingredients that overlap and cross out ingredients you have in your fridge.  Don't go overboard with the ingredients either.  If there's something in your recipe that seems a little out there, find out if there's something else you can substitute for.

Once you have all of your ingredients, plan out when you should do the cooking.  Look at the prep and bake times for each item and see if there are times and temperatures that overlap so you can cook 2 things at once or prep one thing while something else is cooking/marinating.  We decided to cook the chicken ahead of time because that takes much longer than burgers, which could be cooked up and served hot right before the party.  Everything else was either made the day before or that morning (but I do not recommend saving a lot of stuff for the morning of!).

5. Set up your space

Leave plenty of time to do this as well.  Write out or print up tags for each of your dishes so that people know what they're eating.  If a guest at your party has a known allergy, you can also put allergens on the tags.  Also, set up your space in a way that pulls people into the party.  Since we wanted people to gravitate towards the living room, we set up all of the appetizers in there.  Once the dinner was ready, we moved the burgers and chicken from the kitchen to the dining room but left the dips for people to snack on.

6. Have fun with it!

Set some time aside so you can mingle with guests while still making sure everyone is good on food and drinks.  This is your party, make sure you leave yourself enough time to enjoy it.  And don't worry if things don't go as planned, chances are your guests will still have a great time as long as there's stuff to drink and eat and good company to be had :)

3 comment(s)

Posted by Ali B at 9:00 PM

Oatmeal

Remember how I said I go on food binges?  Like, how for weeks on end I'll have a grapefruit every day for breakfast or a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch?  I also mentioned having oatmeal for breakfast every day when I shared my baked oatmeal recipe.  I used to make oatmeal from the packets but I've realized that making it yourself is easier and healthier than buying those packets of the flavored oatmeal.

In college, I refused to eat any variety of oatmeal other than the maple and brown sugar kind.  I'd put a packet of that sugary stuff in a mug, fill it with milk, and microwave it for about 1-1/2 minutes.  It was super easy and there's nothing more delicious than a hot breakfast on a 10 degree day (who thought DC got that cold?).  However, when I came back home and wanted my family to eat oatmeal my mom refused to pay extra for the pre-packaged stuff and got the giant tubs of Quaker oatmeal instead.  I probably whined and lamented over the fact that plain oatmeal is disgusting, until I knew how to make it properly.

But let's go back to the pre-packaged stuff first.  Even though Quaker Oats has reduced the sugar in their packaged oatmeals by 25%, the numbers are still pretty outstanding.  260mg of sodium compared to the 0mg of sodium in plain oatmeal?  And 9g of sugars as opposed to 1g of sugar?  The old fashioned oats have 1g of protein and soluble fibers more than the packaged kind too...

So what am I getting at here?  I know I wanted to share a list of workouts and activities you can do to keep yourself healthy and active during the winter months, but there's more to it than just that.  Living a healthy life also means being aware of what you eat and making healthier decisions when it comes to what you put inside your body.  You'll feel amazing when you couple your workouts with healthy meals.  Also, I find that when I eat healthy first thing in the morning I tend to make better decisions about what I snack on for the rest of the day.

So here's how you make delicious oatmeal:

(Yield: 1 serving)

Ingredients
- 1 c water
- 1/2 c old fashioned oats
- pinch of salt (cut out if you're watching your sodium intake)

Bring water to a boil and add the oats.  Reduce to a simmer and cook for about 5 min, or until all of the water has been absorbed.  If your oatmeal starts bubbling and foaming, lower the heat or else the oatmeal will be slimy.  Remove from heat and serve immediately.

Now here's where it gets interesting...
Remember how I said that I loved the baked oatmeal because you could put anything in it?  Well the same is true for regular oatmeal.  I personally love to eat mine like hot cereal by pouring milk over it and sprinkling a tiny bit of brown sugar on the top (I just can't get away from the brown sugar!).  Instead of milk, you could serve it with yogurt and top it with any fruit or nuts you may have on hand.  Shredded coconut, bananas, and pineapple would be delicious, don't you think?

I hope you enjoyed this other side of the winter workout series!  How would you enjoy your old fashioned oats?

1 comment(s)

Posted by Ali B at 8:52 AM

The First Day of the Rest of Your Life

About two months ago, I was told that today is going to be the first day of the rest of my life.  That's because today is my first day of student teaching.

I've had many mixed reactions from people who went through their student teaching.  Some people loved it while others said it was one of the hardest and most exhausting things they've ever done.  I hope that my experience will be a mix of both.  Student teaching is what you make of it.  You can go in when the kids get there, teach your lessons, and leave when the kids leave.  Or, you can come in early, tutor kids to help them catch up, bring in your own experiences and lessons, and stay after for extra curricular activities.  I really hope to do the latter.  I have been lucky enough to be placed in a school I've loved working in and have had the pleasure of getting to know many of the teachers, students, and parents.

I've also had many mixed reactions about the grade I'll be teaching - 5th grade.  I wanted to be placed in this grade because I want to see if I have what it takes to work with older kids.  I love the challenge that comes with teaching an older crowd and I feel that, like myself, these kids are at such a pivotal point in their life.  They're starting to develop themselves as individuals and will be going through a lot of changes as they advance through middle school.  The begin to discover what their interests are and where they fit in with the rest of the world.  I feel like kids these age need a lot of guidance, and I'm excited at the prospect of getting them ready for middle school.

Unfortunately, it looks like I won't be able to give the blog the attention I have been giving it in the past few weeks.  That doesn't mean I'm going to stop posting, of course, but the posts may be a little less frequent.  I was very fortunate to have a long winter break because it gave me time to decide in what direction I'm going to take the blog this year and store up some posts for the upcoming weeks.  I hope to also share my experience as an up and coming teacher, not just to other teachers but to young professionals in general.  I feel like your quarter life mark is an exhilarating time because it is full of change and new experiences.  Starting from scratch in a new job is always difficult, and I hope to keep inspiring others with my story.

I have really loved watching how much my blog has grown over the past few weeks and I deeply appreciate all of the new followers and reading the comments you have left me.  I love being able to teach others about how to stay active and healthy and yet at the same time sneak in some recipes to indulge in.  I love sharing my story and hearing about your own in all aspects from changing jobs to changing running shoes.  I hope you will continue to follow my journey over these next few trying weeks as I slowly start to discover what it means to be a teacher.

5 comment(s)

Posted by Ali B at 7:56 AM

Creamy Tomato Sauce

I. love. cream. cheese.  Seriously.  I could eat it with a spoon.  But, I hate cheesecake.  I really do.  I've tried all different types of cheesecakes and I want to like them because they come from cream cheese but to me, cheesecake just tastes like cream cheese gone sour.  I'm sorry, I know it's supposed to be these silky, decadent cake that melts in your mouth but honestly I cannot get over the fact that it tastes like overripe cream cheese.

I'm always thinking of new things to eat with cream cheese, but it normally just comes down to different types of crackers and jellies (which is not a terrible thing, obviously).  Then one day I saw a commercial where a woman was swirling a block of cream cheese into her tomato sauce.  Best pasta sauce ever.  Next time we wanted to make pasta sauce at home, I convinced my mother to let me throw in half a block of cream cheese.  And by convinced I mean strong armed.  As I put in each cube of cream cheese my mother stood behind me making those mother disgruntled sounds and said, "Weight Watchers would not approve.  I should have taken out my portion and let you fatten up your own sauces."

Ok, I don't blame her for getting worked up.  1 oz of cream cheese is worth 3 Weight Watchers points.  Oops.  So don't go having this cream sauce every night.  And that brings me to my next point - Paula Deen.

First, whether or not she has diabetes and how she chooses to live her life knowing that she does have it is her own business.  On the other hand, I understand completely that people are upset because she's a hypocrite and she took that shady endorsement deal.  But she wasn't standing there pretending her food was healthy, she was just dishing out what Food Network was paying her to dish out.  Many of her recipes, like the bacon cheeseburger between two Krispy Kremes and the deep fried cheesecake, are in my opinion just for shock value.  And yeah everything does taste better with butter, but don't go using a whole stick in your mashed potatoes.  A conscientious person should look at her recipes, think "I need to replace that with low fat dairy" or "Is that extra cup of mayonnaise really necessary?" and not just follow her recipes blindly.  And besides, have you seen any of the other shows on Food Network?  This morning I watched the Pioneer Woman whip up 4 sticks of butter to put on her french toast, which she coated in 4 egg yolks and 2 cups of half and half.  Really?  And by the way, this serves 8 people.  What I want you, reader, to take out of this is that you should always read a recipe very carefully before you make it.  See how many servings it makes or if there are any lighter ingredients you can substitute in.  Read the reviews and comments and see how other people have modified a recipe.

Take this recipe for example.  I tried to keep this creamy sauce as light as possible by using a lot of tomatoes and only 4 oz of cream cheese.  And as far as cream sauces are concerned, this sauce is not heavy at all.  It would go really well with any pasta dish or these grilled chicken and mozzarella raviolis that we buy at Costco.  It's definitely an indulgent sauce, but also a treat.  Plus, it's incredibly adaptable, so feel free to tweak the spices to fit your taste.  And again, you could certainly substitute low-fat or reduced-fat cream cheese for regular cream cheese.

I'm not here to bash anyone; I'm as much of a sucker for the Food Network as the next person.  But, I do know the difference between a healthy meal, a once in a while meal, and an avoid at all costs meal.  I've said it before and I'll say it again: life is all about balance.  Balance between the foods you eat, the exercise you get, and the other things that make you feel happy and healthy.

Creamy Tomato Sauce

Yield: 4 cups

Prep Time: 10 min

Cook Time: 30 min

Ingredients

-                2 tbsp olive oil

-                ½ yellow onion, diced

-                2 – 3 cloves garlic, minced

-                1 (28 oz) can crushed tomatoes

-                1 (14.5 oz) can diced tomatoes

-                2 tsp oregano

-                2 tsp basil

-                4 oz (1/2 block) cream cheese, cubed

-                salt and pepper, to taste

-                1 (6 oz) can tomato paste (optional*)

Directions

Heat a large pan over medium heat and pour in the olive oil.  Add the onion and sauté until onions are translucent.  Add in the garlic, crushed tomatoes, diced tomatoes, oregano, and basil.  Allow to simmer over medium – low heat for 20 minutes. 

Add in the cream cheese and stir until the cubes are melted and incorporated completely (about 10 min).  Taste and add salt or pepper, if desired.  Serve immediately over pasta or store in the refrigerator. 

*If you find your sauce to be too thin, add in the tomato paste.  If too thick, add water.  

1 comment(s)

Posted by Ali B at 12:19 PM