Tag: dinner

Co-op dinner time

Jose and Sally

It’s been a while since we’ve had one of our infamous dinner clubs at our house. I always had lots of fun having folks over for a themed meal — with everyone participating in the cooking and eating of the meal.

Granted, we do have our weekly small group which sometimes takes on the dinner club idea with everyone pitching in for the meal, but even participation in that’s been slacking as of late.

But I came across an interesting article today, talking about building community around the preparation and enjoyment of a family’s evening dinner.
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Dining with friends

italian-dinner

It’s interesting how often food is mentioned in Scripture.

We see it parallel our spiritual lives in so many ways.

What goes in, must come out.
Man cannot live on bread alone…
Take and eat, this is my body…

Even the early Christians were known to partake in a “Love Feast” where everyone joined together and shared their meals and life together. I liken it to what Max Fincher calls, “The Gospel of Welcome.”
Continue reading Dining with friends

Interesting potluck themes

Potluck dinner
Potluck dinner | Photo by Jonathan Blundell

As part of our weekly community group meetings (most every Saturday at 6 p.m. – come join us) we always start out with a meal/snack of some sort. I think I’ve been delegated the food committee chairman and I have to admit, sometimes I’m at a loss for ideas.

I’d love to go all out each week, with “gourmet cuisine” but it seems that getting folks together once a week tends to be hard enough without adding an undue burden of everyone having to come up with a new dish/meal.

So here’s the question:

What creative potluck & party themes have you seen or would you like to see at a get together/party?

Some great potluck ideas I’ve enjoyed in the past:

  • Greek/Mediterranean
  • Cajun
  • Mexican – always a big hit
  • Italian
  • Baked potato bar
  • Make your own pizza
Sampling of the food (Greek/Mediterranean)
Greek Mediterranean night | Photo by Jonathan Blundell

I did find one great thread that suggests building your potluck meal around dishes that contain one main ingredient (ala like Food Networks Iron Chef) or dishes with the same color.

A few other great potluck ideas:

  • The last meal – everyone brings a dish based on the first letter of their last name. Blundell’s bring beans, Lehmann’s bring lima beans, Ellcey’s bring eggplant, etc. etc.
  • Brinner – Breakfast for dinner. Pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage, etc.
  • Vegetarian – This could be a great win, or a flop depending on your group 🙂
  • Thanksgiving – Who says you can only have turkey, pumpkin pie and all the fixings on Thanksgiving day? Why not have a huge Thanksgiving dinner in the middle of July as well? For that matter, you can probably come up with any number of holiday meals to have “out of season” and probably save some cash as well since no one else will be fighting you for a 20 lb turkey.
  • Slow cooking – Only dishes cooked in a slow cooker are allowed. This might be fun to see how creative people get.

Another great idea to always encourage is for everyone to bring extra copies of their recipes to the potluck dinner. That way if folks try a dish they really love they can go home with the recipe and don’t have to hope someone remembers to send it to them later.

I’m also thinking I need to get more people in on The Pioneer Woman’s website and/or cookbook and do a Pioneer Woman Cookbook theme…

So, there’s the task I want to know what other clever/successful themes you’ve come up with… comment away!

Bachelor Dinner

bachelor dinner

bachelor dinner
Originally uploaded by Jonathan D. Blundell


A strange thing tends to occur when I’m left to eat dinner on my own — I think its something I picked up from my dad — I tend to come up with some different creations.

I usually take advantage of knowing Laurie won’t have to eat what I fix, so I tend to pull things out we might have left over that I know she won’t likely eat later as well.

Tonight was no different. As she rushed off to St. Arbucks I cooked up some turkey meatballs we got from Costco and made a super tasty sauce to go with them.

The sauce was made of canned jalapenos, sliced green onions, HEB BBQ sauce and a bit of water to thin it out.

Topped the meatballs and sauce with cheese and I had quite a tasty meal (and lunch left over for tomorrow).

I also made some homemade chips with some left over corn tortillas. I basically cut the tortillas into quarters, splashed some EVOO on them, added some salt and cajun seasoning and baked them at 350 for 10 minutes.

They tasted great but the texture wasn’t quite right on most of the chips. But some of them got just the right heat, oil and everything else and were superb. Now if only I remember what I did differently with those chips :-).

NOTE: The tortillas in this picture were only stand-ins for the real tortilla chips. The real ones were still “getting their tanning on” when this picture was taken.

God’s dinner party

dinner

God, who gets invited to dinner at your place? How do we get on your guest list?

“Walk straight, act right, tell the truth.
Don’t hurt your friend, don’t blame your neighbor; despise the despicable.
Keep your word even when it costs you, make an honest living, never take a bribe.
You’ll never get blacklisted if you live like this.”

(Psalm 15)