Dinner Party!

I co-hosted a wonderful dinner last week. We were supposed to have 3 women and their kids come, but only ended up with 1. It was a great night, and I have tons of yummy leftovers!

Here is my menu, plus links to the recipes! Enjoy!

The main course was a Minestrone soup made by the co-host. Sorry, I don't have her recipe! She also provided a yummy green salad.

For sides, I made:

Fruit Salsa with Cinnamon Chips - Also from OurBestBites.com. (Can you tell my new obsession?) This dish was absolutely fabulous. I did Strawberries, Mango, Kiwi, Pineapple, and Blueberries. Squirted some Lime juice, and added Sugar. The fruit was amazing on it's own, but eaten with the Cinnamon Chips brought it to a whole new level. Everyone took home leftovers, and I finished up the rest in about a day. A healthy and super yummy treat!

Pesto Alfredo with Roasted Vegetables- The original recipe was found on OurBestBites.com, but I will make it a different way next time! It was good, but needed a few more things.

Croissant Rolls- again, a little bit of a disappointment here. I wanted to make my Challah Bread, but for some reason, my bread maker didn't want to cooperate. It ended the cycle, and instead of a nicely risen bread, I had a pile of goop. :( So, I used the Croissant rolls in a can as a substitute.

Lemon Bars - The perfect "light" ending to a fall meal! I don't have a picture, but the recipe comes from my good friend, Bonnie.

White Chip Lemon Bars

Bonnie

1 1/4 cups flour

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup white chips

2 eggs slightly beaten

The zest and juice from one lemon

Powdered sugar

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees

2. Stir together 1 cup flour and 1/4 cup sugar in medium bowl. Cut in butter with pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Press mixture onto the bottom of 9-inch baking pan.

3. Bake 7 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from oven; sprinkle with chips.

4. Stir together eggs, lemon juice, lemon peel, remaining 1/4 cup flour and remaining 3/4 cup sugar in medium bowl; carefully pour over chips and crust.

5. Bake 10 minutes or until set (you can touch center and it's springy). Cool in pan on wire rack; sift with powdered sugar when completely cool. Cut.

Cheesecake Chocolate Pudding. Okay, this desert was so easy, it was ridiculous. However, when I told the ladies it was "just" pudding, they laughed at me. It's all in the presentation folks!

How to make:
Pour 2 3/4 cup of COLD milk in a large bowl.
Mix in one dry box of Instant Chocolate pudding mix and 1 box of instant cheesecake pudding mix. Stir for 2 minutes, and pour into serving dish.
I used a large, shallow serving dish. When set, I sprinkled candied pecans on top! You can also do fruit, coconut, graham crackers, etc!
The cheesecake flavor was hard to distinguish, but you can do any flavor puddings together!

Lastly, we topped it off with cold Lemonade.

It was a terrific night of food and friendship.

What is your favorite party food?