Happy Sunday!

We began talking about dinner last week-this week we will go witht the flow on the subject.  Dinner, if you are able to gather the crowd is a great meal.

While I’m going to talk about side dishes and recipes to perk things up at the dinner table-I thought I’d share the meal I served last night.

As I’ve mentioned-dinner at our home can be a quickly put together romantic dinner for two or for an entire clan-in minutes.  So it was yesterday!

Our married daughter wanted us to join her family at the county fair.  We are not County Fair people and it’s expensive-so I said “we’d love to see you and your boys, but we have our Saturday errands, so why not just come on over around 4 for dinner?”

Sounded good to them, our son and his girlfriend said they’d be home for dinner and then we asked my parents to join us.  

Suddenly, we had a dinner party for 10!  No fear, no worries.  What’s cooking-whose hands are still on the “hot wax” and anti-inflammatory regimen for the time being put together this menu:

BBQ beef ribs and chicken thighs
Our new family favorite cauliflower/spinach/white bean/feta salad
tater tots
fruits salad with bakery cookies

How was this little work you ask?  One, I broke down and gladly asked for help!

Hubby seasoned the ribs and popped them in the oven for a 2 hour pre-bake.  Dry rub on the thighs.  My future daughter-in-law chopped the cauliflower for me, spinach was in the bag, beans just had to be drained.  The dressing takes about 3 minutes to make and toss in.  Tater tots (darling oldest grandson’s favorite) took about 25 minutes, given how many people we had.  My mom brought the cookies and fruit salad.

We served on fancy paper plates and plastic cups.  I had to put up the dishwasher for the flatware and serving platters.  But the cookie sheets were heavily covered with foil-so there was no cleaning needed.

Whatscooking was still tired, but it was a fun evening for all.  

Rachel Ray is right with her theme line:  a great and healthy party is never more than 30 minutes away!

Let’s talk about that cauliflower salad and a few other great sides on Wednesday!