Dinner Club Recipe Book

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Laura Bilbrey and I recently collaborated on a recipe book for dinner club. We gathered a collection of memorable dishes from everyone involved and put them all together with pictures we've taken over the past three years of dinner club. I can't believe it's already been three years!! I cannot wait for the finished book to arrive in the mail!!! Such great memories!

Luau Dinner Club

Saturday night was our monthly dinner club and our group is growing not just because of new babies that are on the way, but we've had some new ladies join our small group at church. Now they've all become fun additions to our dinner club as well!

We had the most festive time at Lyz's where our theme was Luau.She had awesome decorations...the whole nine yards.I tried my hand at coconut shrimp this month, and it turned out REALLY yummy! We even had festive beverages.

Laura made raspberry punch, one was a gingerale version and the other a sprite version all complete with umbrellas of course!Getting ready for dinner as everyone introduces their dish.

We had lumpia, sweet potato and banana casserale, pineapple salsa, kabobs, french toast, fritters and yummy desserts too...homemade donuts, coconut cake and fruit medleys.

SO MUCH GOOD FOOD!The luau continued outside as well complete with tiki torches. It was a beautiful night.There was laughter and wonderful fellowship all around.

I love you girls!
Thanks Lyz for such a festive dinner club meeting!

(And thanks to her mom, Katherine Loftus, for making my hair blonde and beautiful.)

April's Dinner Club: Italian Night

Andrea threw our April dinner club and the theme was italian. I was so excited to try something new, but unsure where to begin. I decided to make one of my favorite dishes I always order out in restaurants...Penne a la Votka. The sauce turned our pretty well for my first go round.

The table was set beautifully!

All the yummy Italian food...manicotti, penne, pasta salad, italian style green beans, egg plant appetizers, bread of course, italian cookies for dessert and Italian sodas to drink.

Us girls that night...here's the non-prego group (haha...prego...like the jarred tomato sauce)

And the prego gals...aren't they adorable!

Due in May, June and August

Good and delicious times!

Dinner Club: February family recipes

This month's dinner club theme was family recipes (that you have never made of course), so I decided to give my Nana's lasagna a go. I gave her a call and reviewed the recipe. Then Friday right after school I raced to the store and picked up the ingredients. I sadly was going have to omit the meatballs and sausage this time around due to time constraints...it had to be ready to leave the house that night at 6pm.

I started out by boiling the noodles and making my sauce. Then I layed my first layer of noodles covering it with the sauce and spooned dollups of Ricotta cheese in an alternating pattern. Finally I covered that layer with mozzerella. I would have put the meat on alternating with the ricotta had I been using meat. Then I layed my next layer and did it all over again until I ran out of noodles and the pan was full. I added more mozzerella on top with some parmesian too. I then covered the tray with foil and stuck it in the oven to bake for an hour so all the cheese would melt and everything would be nice and hot. Then it was off to Laura O's for our dinner club. We had so much good food from corn pudding and sweet potato biscuits to brunswick stew, green beans, and a sausage pasta dish and for dessert there was homemade apple pie and strawberry cookies.I didn't get an after shot until we had dug into the lasagna...oh well...it was yummy and pretty easy to make. I'll definitely be using the recipe again...especially to bring people because it cooks and transports pretty easy.

Sadly I somehow missed getting pictures of all of us at the dinner club this month, but I did get a shot of all the food on a plate. Can you say DELICIOUS! Next month's theme...Alice in Wonderland...should be interesting to see what will be on the menu that night.