Dinner Party – Here’s a plan to get out of the kitchen and enjoy your guests!
Dinner parties can sometimes be a bit intimidating for the host, especially if the host is the cook for the evening. You can always call a caterer, but it can be fun to show off you creative cooking finesse when you have the opportunity. And it can be fairly easy when you create a menu […]
Chicken Saltimbocca
A classic Italian-inspired dish featuring thin chicken cutlets topped with fresh sage leaves and layered with prosciutto, pan-seared and finished with a velvety white wine and butter pan sauce. One of my favorite dishes to serve at my dinner parties.
Bec’s Pimiento Cheese – Secret Ingredient Mascarpone Cheese
As a southern gal, I love pimiento cheese. I like my pimiento cheese to be creamy with just a hint of spicy. I add whipped cream and mascarpone cheese to Havarti and sharp cheddar to make my spread super creamy, then I add nanami togarashi (Japanese 7 spice – red chili pepper, sansho Japanese pepper, […]
Prize Winning Sausage Chutney Spread
This has been one of my favorite snacks since I ran a catering service years ago. It is so easy and so flavorful. Only 4 ingredients and ready in just minutes! Find chutney in fancier grocery stores – I get mine at Fresh Market. I won the grand prize in a Nabisco Triscuit recipe contest […]
Hark Vineyards Wine Dinner – River & Rail Restaurant
Hark Vineyards is a family-owned winery in Earlysville, Virginia, focused on the belief that beautiful views and delicious wine can bring people together. (Pictured above, R to L, Becky, Becky’s husband Lou and our friend Debbie.) The winery is a multiple gold medal winner at the Virginia Governor’s Cup competition. We enjoyed a wine dinner […]
Clover Club Cocktail
This lovely classic cocktail is made with egg white which add frothiness and smoothness to the cocktail as well as adding the visual of a “white cap” on the top of the cocktail. You can separate egg whites from fresh eggs, but I like to use pasteurized egg whites in the interest of food safety. […]
Calabacitas – Summer Succotash
Calabacitas translates to “zucchini” in Spanish. This flavorful dish will remind you of summer succotash.
Angel Hair Pasta al Limone
Simple, citrusy pasta with lots of Parmesan cheese. If Pasta al Limone is on the menu at an Italian restaurant, I am ordering it. Love, love, love!
The Drink of the Summer – Frozen Aperol Spritz
Frozen Aperol Spritz are so refreshing and fun to serve at the lake or on the patio when the sun is shining high in the sky. I jazzed up my frozen spritz with a charred Serrano pepper strip and a brûléed orange slice. (Char pepper under the broiler. Brûlée orange slice with a little brown […]
English Garden Cocktail
English Garden Cocktails always remind me of (my fantasy) of sitting on the grounds of Balmoral Castle having high tea with Princess Kate. So civilized. This lovely cocktail can be made with your favorite gin, but I like to make it with Empress 1908 gin that is a lovely indigo blue color until it is […]
