Dinner Party Recap

Appetizers:
crab dip with crackers
homemade hummus with pita

Main course:
BBQ meatloaf
garlic mashed potatoes
roasted asparagus with balsamic and parmesan
mushrooms and caramelized onions

Dessert:
Guinness chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting

Beverages:
We ended up drinking 4 bottles of wine (2 chards, 1 pinot grigio, 1 verdejo), several bottles of beer, and 3/4 of a bottle of blueberry vodka.

I made everything from scratch...and I had made everything before except the cake.  The cake turned out really good though - it was chocolate-y, but not too sweet, and dense and moist thanks to the beer.  I bet it would be good to substitute a belgian raspberry lambic or something in place of the Guinness.  I also learned I should not try to frost a cake drunk...messy.

I've also decided that 6 people is about the max you can have at a dinner party before it becomes work.  It really only took me a few hours to throw everything together food-wise, but cooking for more would have required some better oven management on my part.

It's nice having some seating in my kitchen in the form of a bench (thanks, Mom) because when Anne and Billy arrived at 7 I was still mixing up the cake batter and they could sit in my kitchen and talk to me.

After stuffing ourselves silly, we played a round of BS - a game where you make stuff up and then have people bet on whether you are telling the truth or not, and a rowdy game of Scattergories... where I think I made Keenan choke when I wrote down "muff" for things you keep hidden that start with the letter "m".  Ha ha.

Anyways, thanks to everyone for coming over.  Hope you had a good time.  My kitchen is almost back to normal after two loads of dishes...