Monday, July 18, 2011

needing ideas

Hey blog folks, not much to report on my end -- it's HOT in Minnesota, and I'm not really cooking at all, not eating much besides salads, cereal, sandwiches, ice cream, popsicles, and the like. :) (I don't know about you, but I need a good excuse -- like a heat index of 106 and no air conditioning -- to justify cereal for dinner.) ;)

Anyhow, needing some advice -- I am having my staff from work over for dinner on Friday night, and I'm having a hard time coming up with something spectacular to make. I know, I know . . . I shouldn't be having a hard time with this, but there are multiple factors involved: the heat (I won't want to turn the oven, or really even the stove, on,) minimal prep (I'll need to throw stuff together when I get home from work, since they will arrive in a few hours,) and also the fact that I am cooking for myself and five other women -- only one of which is a vegetarian, and four of which are not originally from the US. I'm feeling challenged, coming up with something we'll all enjoy! Any ideas?

Thankfully, I have a full batch of lavender-strawberry lemonade left from my last party, so I've got beverages covered, at least! :)

4 comments:

Ali said...

Hey Catherine! Go back to your old standby...tacos! I made a huge batch of taco-spiced lentils before I went on vacation and they were so filling and delicious! Tell them it's taco "meat" and they'll never know the difference.

Then you can do fresh guacamole, fresh salsa, or a slaw on the side (I really love the Smitten Kitchen lime mango slaw).

Or, a cold soup party with gazpacho and/or vichyssoise? Here's when I did that with 2 types of gazpacho http://greenandlean09.blogspot.com/2010/07/white-gazpacho.html. Bread and cheese is the perfect accompaniment for that.

Whatever you decide will be so great! Have fun!!

Basil said...

You could have a salad sort of theme, if you wanted to make 2 or 3 salads. Like, maybe lettuce, bean, and pasta salads. That wouldn't be too hard... I don't think! Good luck!

Anonymous said...

I like the salad theme. A good broccoli slaw can be made the day before or morning of, as could some tabouli or other grain based salad. Toss a green salad and a fruit salad and then you're set.

Eileen said...

Are there good tomatoes and corn in MN yet? If so, you could do a raw tomato-corn salad with cubed feta (or if you don't want raw corn, just cut it off the cob & blanch it really quickly). Caprese is always good, too. I also like the grain salads with whatever tasty vegetables are around, some kind of bean (usually chickpeas), & vinaigrette. The lemonade sounds like the perfect hot weather drink!