Dinner Club’s Next Gathering Will Be an Ingredient-Based Bonanza of Flavor!

Our next Dinner Club gathering is right around the corner and this one’s got a menu that I’m really thrilled about! Now would be the appropriate time to mention that, due to conflicting engagements on our very busy calendar, my husband and I will be unable to attend this Dinner Club. Shed a tear for me; I’m pretty sure that everyone’s heaven is unique and mine is the cheese aisle at Whole Foods Market!

Yes, while I won’t be there to taste each delicious morsel myself, I am counting on my fellow foodies to describe to me in depth afterward just how delicious (or not!) each and every dish was. How else could I report appropriately on it? I’m also counting on the rest of the group for photos, since I’ve vowed to become a better “documenter” of our good times!

The entrée for our meal this month is both delightfully delicious sounding and completely appropriate to the season. It’s a Stuffed Pork Loin with Butternut Squash and Blue Cheese. Fantastic! The wind has whipped itself into a frenzy today in Omaha and the leaves are turning the most fantastic shades of red, gold and yes, a rich squash-color of orange!

This menu is a sharp contrast to the theme dinner we organized for last month, and that’s exactly what makes Dinner Club such a fantastic experience! We fly from dress-up and food organized around a locale that’s far from here…. to an ingredient-based meal that is focused on right here, right now in Nebraska! This one’s all about the meal. The food is important. Not that it’s not always - it is a dinner club; but there’s nothing to distract from the dishes we’ve selected this time. See below for our menu for this month. Each and every item sounds absolutely mouth-watering! Cry for me!

A Simple Table-Setting Can Say It All!



Simple touches on the table



Sometimes a really lushly appointed tablescape is what’s called for. When a meal is opulent or the dishes are upscale you feel the need to “dress it up” with silk napkins, crystal and the like. But in the case of our luau theme dinner, our hostess knew just what would set the mood with her simple, yet thoughtful tablescape for our dinner.

Silk napkins at a luau? No! Absolutely not! We ate barbecue, we drank Mai Tai’s, we came to dinner in our shorts and flowered shirts! The warm tones of her beautiful wooden table were a perfect backdrop to a few tropical leaves, some shells and the adorable tiki-head candelabra she used to light the table.



Her tiki-man candleabra!



Now, we women love an excuse to buy something new, so I wasn’t a bit surprised when I asked her if the shell motif napkin holders were new for the night or something she already had. “No, I bought those!” was her response with a smile. But then again, will it be the last island-themed or tropical paradise dinner we have as a group? I think not. She’ll have opportunity to use those cute shell napkin rings again and if it’s something she wanted, then by all means she should have it!

 

Shell-motif napkin rings



Despite all of this, here is my message: You don’t have to buy much, if anything, to set a table that perfectly suits the mood for a dinner party. Keep the touches simple, borrow if necessary and be creative! Our hostess did and it was just what we needed for our night!

You Really Don’t Have to Go to the Islands to Taste Authentic Hawaiian Flavors!

The host at our last dinner club taught us this lesson: With a tiny bit of research (via our friends Google, Yahoo, etc.), a bit of creativity and some dedication to your craft you too can replicate the tastes of authentic Hawaiian barbecue at home!

First, I must correct myself from an earlier blog posting (or two): I said our host was preparing “kahlua” pork for us. I had that so wrong! I had assumed that he was preparing something including Kahlua-brand liquor in it via a sauce or some other element. That was, in fact, not the case; thankfully, because this was SO MUCH better and more authentic. It was just like what I’ve been served at actual luau events in Kauai or Maui before; possibly even better!

Our host actually researched the Hawaiian technique for preparing “kālua” pork. Via some fact-finding of my own, I discovered on Wikipedia that **“kālua” is a traditional Hawaiian cooking method that utilizes an “imu” or underground oven. The word kālua literally means "to cook in an underground oven" and also describes the flavor of food cooked in this manner - e.g. the kālua pig (Hawaiian puaʻa kālua) which is commonly served at luau feasts.

**Traditionally, extremely hot volcanic (lava) rocks were placed in a hole approximately 6' by 4' by 3' and the hole was lined with vegetation such as banana leaves. A salted pig was placed inside and covered with more banana leaves to preserve the heat and flavor. Then, it was covered with burlap and soil, and left to steam all day. Once removed from the imu, the pig was ready to be served.

Since we have a serious shortage of volcanic rock in Nebraska, among other obvious barriers to preparing our meal this way, Jon (said host) came up with his own system. Bless him for doing so because it was truly delicious! Here are his step-by-step preparation instructions, along with my photos of his work in progress! Try it out yourself and enjoy some authenticity!

Jon prepared two separate 8# cuts of pork shoulder for our group of 12 (with plenty of leftovers for sandwiches and snacking) Here’s his recipe:

         Trim some, but not all, of the fat from the top side of the pork shoulder(s).

         Score the shoulder with criss-cross cuts.

         Sprinkle the shoulder with extra coarse pacific sea salt, freshly minced garlic and fresh black pepper making sure some of the salt gets down into the score marks.

         Place the meat on an outdoor barbecue smoker. Place strips of bacon on top of the meat to make sure it stays moist.

         Smoke at about 220 degrees with natural hardwood lump charcoal and hickory for 3 hours.

         Loosely wrap the meat in banana leaves and continue smoking for 4 or 5 more hours.

         Remove from the smoker, wrap the meat in new banana leaves (the smoker will make the others very crispy) and double wrap the meat in foil.

         Place the meat in an oven at 220 degrees and cook until it reaches an internal temperature of 185 degrees(about 8 hours).

         Remove from the oven, wrap it in more foil, wrap it in two towels and place it in a cooler. Pack the cooler with extra towels to make sure there isn’t much space.

Unwrapping the pork after taking it out of the cooler

         Remove the shoulder from the cooler. Remove the banana leaves, bacon and trim the fatty pieces.

         Place the pulled pork into a warm crock pot (with some of the juices from the foil) or serve to guests by unwrapping and shredding the meat as a meal presentation as they would at an actual luau.

         Sprinkle each serving of pork with a little pacific sea salt as it is plated.

Pulling apart the smoked meat

Jon at the helm of his ship!

** Quoted from wikipedia.

Dinner Club’s Luau Night was a Feast for the Senses!

We’re off to a fantastic start! It’s amazing to me sometimes how well everything seems to come together for this group. With just a small bit of planning, we end up with a meal and an evening that always seems to mesh just perfectly.

 

Our Bar/Beverage Table



Our host and hostess had us all set up for a night of enjoyment with thoughtful decorative touches to their “beverage table” and dining table, as well as some extras like tiki torches out front to welcome us and silly cardboard cutouts for goofy photo-ops (which, of course, our group was more than happy to make use of)! Everyone dressed the part; showing up in their island-wear as if we were arriving in Honolulu for vacation!



As far as the meal goes, the surprise of the night was how well cheddar cheese pairs with pineapple as a side dish. One couple’s “Baked Hawaiian Pineapple” made an interesting and tasty pairing with the Kalua Smoked Pork we had as the focal point of our meal. Who knew? But that, after all, is why we push ourselves to try new things. I’ll blog more on the pork recipe later. It deserves special commentary all its own!



Plating up the salads



For the nights “Best Dish” I’d have to say that the Kalua Smoked Pork wins, but with “Coconut Chocolate Pie” and the “Papaya & Avocado Tossed Salad” as very close seconds. All of these dishes were things none of us had previously prepared and they were beautiful as well as delectable. The pie was creamy and delightful but not overly rich and the salad had such a welcome balance of sweet from the papaya and the bright tang of lemon in the dressing.



Coconut Chocolate Pie



I posted the recipe for the salad previously. Try it sometime! The only thing I did differently than printed was to garnish the greens with the papaya, avocado and onion on each plate rather than “tossing” them all together. For a plated, rather than buffet or family style, meal this worked better for presentation and does nothing to change the flavor.



More to come on the specifics of our luau, but for now it’s efficient to simply say it was “brok’ da mout”! That’s Hawaiian for “really delicious”!

Enjoying our meal together

Let’s Talk Beverages: They Really “Pull a Meal Together!"

What evokes Hawaii?

Yes, the warmth of the sun on your baby-white-from-Nebraska-skin, the crash of the ocean tide against ancient volcanic rock, the rich smell of salty sea air filling and renewing your lungs….. But wait! We don’t have any of those things! It’s October in the Midwest!

Alright; we’ve had decent weather thus far, but still, what can we do to bring a bit more of the spirit of the islands to our first Dinner Club gathering of the year? We’ve got the papaya, we’ve got pineapple and coconut and as previously mentioned; we have a Smoked Kahlua Pork that should be an amazing interpretation of time-honored luau food!

The only thing that this, and most themed dinners, requires is a cocktail or two to set the mood. I am not - I repeat, am not - typically a “fruity drink” kind of gal, but in this case how could I not partake (at least before dinner)? Yes, I’ll probably drink wine with my food. Some of our group will drink their beer of choice. We believe in everyone being happy, but we do bring forth offerings to one another via our menu book that suggests to “bring your own cocktail of the islands”. (See my last posting for a page out of our booklet.)

I know for example that our hostess will be providing her own special blend of Mai Tai for us to sample, but this group is pretty good about getting creative… Can’t wait to see what drinks help me go to that place in my mind where I’ve the loveliest shade of bronzed skin, a breath full of the freshest air anywhere and a cocktail in hand! Cheers!

Here are a few different Mai Tai recipes to sample:

Pineapple Mai Tai Recipe

Found at: (www.hawaiiforvisitors.com)

Pineapple Mai Tai Ingredients:

4 ounce orange juice

4 ounce pineapple juice

1 ounce lime juice

1 ounce dark rum

1 ounce light rum

1 ounce triple sec

1/2 ounce grenadine

Pineapple Mai Tai Instructions:
Mix all ingredients, shake with ice, and strain into a glass. Garnish with a cherry and a pineapple wedge.

The Perfect Mai Tai

Found at: (www.allrecipes.com)

Perfect Mai Tai Ingredients:

2 c. light rum

1c. dark rum

1c. almond flavored syrup

1 c. 151 proof rum

1c. orange curacao (orange flavored liqueur)

1c. simple syrup

10 limes, juiced

½ gallon fresh orange juice

Perfect Mai Tai Instructions:

In a large jar or drink cooler, combine the light rum, dark rum, 151 rum, orange liqueur, almond syrup, simple syrup, and lime juice. Stir and top off with orange juice. Do not use grenadine if you want the true Mai Tai! Serve in 8 to 12 ounce glasses with ice.

Makes 32 servings (My kind of recipe!)

Aloha! The Gretna Dinner Club’s “First of the Year” is This Weekend

How we all look forward to our first Dinner Club of the year! Our volleyball season (and our summer) has ended and we’ve had a fall packed full of kids’ sporting events, school start-up and not nearly enough “me time” to go around. What’s the perfect cure? A great meal with friends that doesn’t cost you restaurant expenditure in addition to the ever-present babysitting bills!

You pay for the ingredients for only one dish, make only one dish and go enjoy an entire meal in the comfort of someone’s home instead of a loud restaurant, where you’re often situated around a long table where you can only engage in conversation with the two or three other people seated directly opposite or beside yourself.

Dinner Club offers opportunity to sip a glass of your favorite cocktail as you all arrive. You can mill around and talk to everyone, catch up on what they’ve been doing and all the while enjoy the delicious smells that begin to emanate from the oven or stovetop.

Below is our menu for this weekend: our Luau night! The focal point of this meal is a “Kahlua Smoked Pork” that is being prepared by our host couple. I know they have big plans to slow-roast it on their smoker outside for many hours and it should be falling-apart delicious in time for our meal!

Our Dinner Club Year Is Gearing Up to Begin!

Hey all! It’s just over one week until our very first Dinner Club for the year and I’m very excited to get “down to business”! The purpose of this blog is to share on what our group is up to, so here it goes….

This year’s (2010-11) dinner club season should prove to be both fun and delicious! We’ve got some really great ideas planned for our get-togethers; including meals that are thoughtful to ingredient themes, as well as dinner parties that obviously will include amazing food, but are planned more around our costumes! More on the specifics of those later!

We’re beginning this year with a dinner theme that is obviously not a new one, but let me assure you our group will most certainly do it justice in terms of flavor and flair! Our “Hawaiian Luau” starts off this season. Our group usually finds that fall is the most difficult part of our Dinner Club planning year, both in terms of scheduling and our time-crunch in being able to prepare. Everyone in our group has involved kids, football dedications, and so on.

I would encourage you, if you’re reading this blog for ideas on how to start a group of your own, to begin your own gatherings with a simple theme that will be easy enough for you to pull together. You want to have the décor matter, but you don’t want to start with something that will be overwhelming to pull together in terms of time and cost. As part of our group’s planning for this particular meal, we made sure to mention that everyone should feel free to “dress” for the event, but to keep it casual, simple and comfortable.

In other words, if you’ve got a grass skirt and coconut bra already in your closet, as I’m sure a few of our folks do, then by all means!.... However, if you want to pair your comfy jeans with a Hawaiian shirt or simply a lei around your neck, so be it.

I’ll follow up with more on our Luau, including pictures afterward, but for now here’s a recipe that I’m making for the night. (I’ve been assigned the “salad course”.) We found this one on www.tasteofhome.com. I’ve never made it before, but it sounds terrific! I’ll let you know how it turns out, as well as what I would change about it after making it once. There’s always something I’d do differently!

Papaya-Avocado Tossed Salad

 From Taste of Home.com

Ingredients

• 4 cups torn red leaf lettuce
• 4 cups torn green leaf lettuce
• 1 medium papaya, peeled, seeded and sliced
• 1 large ripe avocado, peeled and sliced
• 1/2 cup sliced red onion

Dressing

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 3 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon grated lemon peel
• 2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon salt

Directions

• In a large salad bowl, gently toss the lettuce, papaya, avocado and
• onion. In a jar with a tight-fitting lid, combine the dressing
• ingredients; shake well. Drizzle over salad; toss to coat. Yield: 8
• servings.

Nutrition Facts: 1 cup equals 145 calories, 12 g fat (2 g saturated fat), 0 cholesterol, 47 mg sodium, 10 g carbohydrate, 3 g fiber, 2 g protein.

Make a Delicious Tuesday Night Meal!

Hey everyone! Looking for a quick, easy and delicious Tuesday night meal for your family? I’ve got it right here – Rotisserie Chicken Casserole! This was passed on to me by a friend in Arkansas, but I’ve changed it quite a bit from there. I don’t have any idea where it originated, but I’m sure that was several versions ago.

I promised to work in recipes on my blog and I intend to deliver. No, this isn’t the type of dish we would typically make for our dinner club. We normally do plated meals, but I want to make sure there’s something for everyone here – even in the middle of the week, before you have a dinner party or whatever on the weekend.

Maybe your fledgling dinner group would like to start out simple? Maybe you prefer casserole to fancy-pantsy? Maybe you don’t have a group at all or even intend to start one, but you’d like something new and different to take to the church potluck on Sunday afternoon?

This recipe is fast and delicious and perfect for fall. It’s not super-heavy, stick-to-your-ribs winter food. Pair it with a gorgeous salad and you’ve got it! Enjoy!

Rotisserie Chicken Casserole

2c. shredded, cooked chicken (Store bought rotisserie chicken – one bird equals approx. 2cups of meat)

1c. cooked rice (regular or instant)

1c. green onion, chopped

¼ c. celery, diced

½ c. real mayonnaise (not miracle whip)

1 can cream of celery soup

Dash of Tabasco

Corn flakes

Butter or Butter flavored cooking spray

Sauté the celery and green onion with one tablespoon of butter until just tender. Mix together the chicken, cooked rice, celery and onion mixture, mayonnaise, soup, and Tabasco. Season with salt and pepper to taste and pour into a sprayed 9x13 dish.

At this point the casserole can be cooked, frozen or refrigerated.

When you are ready to cook, top the thawed casserole with a layer of whole corn flakes and cover with dots of butter or spray with butter-flavored cooking spray.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30-45 minutes until bubbly. Serves 4-6.

**Tips to make this healthier / less calories if you’d like:

• Use brown rice (they make an instant one too)
• Use light or olive oil mayonnaise (although it’s supremely better with the regular!)
• Light or low fat canned soup
• Definitely spray the cornflake layer with butter-flavored cooking spray instead of dotting pats of butter over the top!

Welcome to the "Let's Do Dinner Club" Blog!

Our dinner club has been in existence for years and we're getting ready to enter our "dinner club season" yet again! Although I've penned an entire book on the subject already, publishing it will surely prove to be more of a feat that putting words to paper (or computer, as it is)! Hence, the blog of the same title has been born, today, Monday October 4th, 2010.

Why? Who cares, you might ask? Or likely are asking! Why do you care what I eat?

My answer is simple: You should care more about HOW and WHY we eat as a dinner club group than what we eat! Yes, the food is yummy too, but that’s not wholly the point!

The Gretna Dinner Club came into being as a form of entertainment, a source of fun and an incredibly creative excuse to get together with our friends. I wouldn't be writing about the subject at all if it were not for those of you out there who have already questioned me at length about what our group does.

"You're so lucky you have friends who will do that!" is one of the phrases I hear most often when asked about what we do. The secret truth is that our group is no different from you and your friends out there who would like to find a more stimulating and interesting way to get together than the same old - same old things you've already done a thousand times.

In fact, our group has already inspired one other sect here locally to start their own dinner club and I know there are many more of you out there who have heard of such a thing and don't know how to start; or maybe you have friends that get together regularly, but don't know where to go from here. Maybe you feel like you don't have enough ideas or creativity to launch on your own?

I plan to write for this blog in several ways....

One: To keep you updated on what our Gretna Dinner Club group is currently doing. I'll tell you what we have coming up for themes, food, recipes and fun! Plus, I can follow up with you afterward and let you know how it goes! I swear to include the good and the bad. Yes, sometimes we love some food ideas better than others! I also swear to include pictures! (Some are already shown below from our previous dinners.)

Two: To include excerpts from my writing in "Let's Do Dinner Club". There's a ton of useful information in there for anyone who doesn't know how to get started or has stalled out on ideas.

Three: To include anecdotes from our dinner club past. Our group has been going since 2006. There are so many fun evenings already in our past. How could I let them die out? Ideas we've already used, menu's we've created together..... Someone else could benefit, right?

So there it is! I hope you're out there listening and ready to enjoy! Feel free to come here for recipes, inspiration and updates on our crazy-fun dinners! See you soon!