$10, 10 people, 10 ingredients

I don't know if this is actually only 10 ingredients, but it's close, and it rolled off my tongue better than "10-13 or so ingredients". But 10 people came over for dinner, and I cooked, and it cost $10 a person in groceries (and a bottle of wine for me!).

Cooking for a large group can be intimidating, but don't let it be. A couple of tricks to remember: A) have lots of booze, and snacks so no one is noticing when you freak out in the kitchen, B) when people ask you if they can help, say yes, and give them something to do, and C) don't worry when it's not perfect- most people are super happy to not be cooking for themselves and happy to be hanging out with their friends.

I still say spaghetti is the easiest way to cook for a large group. But here is another option:


Cheesy Factor (1 no cheese, 10 all cheese): 1 (Except the appetizer of cheese, which can be omitted)
Dummy Factor (1 easiest, 10 hardest): a decent 5 just because it's a lot of food
Time Factor (1 shortest, 10 longest): 5


Teriyaki Salmon and Chicken, Sauteed Shrimp, Wild Rice, Buttered Corn, and Pea Pods and Mushrooms for 10
2 lbs of fresh uncooked shrimp
2-2.5 lbs salmon
3 chicken breasts
Jar of Island Teriyaki or Very Tery Island Teriyaki sauce
Butter
Olive Oil
1 lemon
4 boxes of Near East or Rice-a-Roni Long Grain and Wild Rice
5 ears of corn
2 lbs of sugar snap peas
1 package of brown or white mushrooms
Lemon Pepper seasoning

Cheese and Baguette Appetizer
Brick of brie cheese
Brick of havarti with dill cheese
1 loaf of french bread

First thing to do is get the chicken and salmon marinating in the Teriyaki sauce. Season the salmon and chicken with Lemon Pepper seasoning (on the heavy side). Cut the salmon into 6-8 oz serving sizes, and put into ziploc bag(s) with marinade. Cut chicken breasts in half and put in ziploc bag with marinade. Next, get the 4 boxes of rice cooking. Shuck the corn, cut each ear in half, and put in water, boil.

Next, get your appetizer ready. Slice the bread into 1/2 thick pieces, but on a baking sheet, and put in oven to warm/toast slightly. Put bricks of cheese onto a cutting board with little cheese knives. Once bread is warm and toasty, take out of oven and put into a bowl lined with a cloth napkin or towel or something. Voila. Instant appetizer that people can serve themselves.

Now, while the corn and rice are cooking, do some prep work: clean and slice all of the mushrooms. Put about 2 tbl of butter into one large frying pan, and about 4 tbl of olive oil into another large frying pan (don't need to turn on burners yet, just get them ready for cooking). Start the grill.

Start cooking the chicken and salmon on the grill. (This is a great task to give to someone else, by the way, if they offer.) While grilling, start sauteing the mushrooms in the olive oil and shrimp in the butter (season both shrimp and mushrooms with salt and pepper). Squeeze a decent amount of lemon juice over the shrimp also.

While those are sauteing, and the salmon and chicken grilling, check your rice, as it should be about done. Just turn it off and leave the lid on, it will stay warm. Corn should be done too. Take corn out of water, and put into serving dish, along with about 2 tbl of butter, and toss with salt and pepper.

Put the pea pods into hot water that corn was in, and cook for about a minute (by the way, if you haven't figured it out yet, you are making the Pea Pods and Mushrooms recipe that I posted a while back). When pea pods are done, take out, put into frying pan with mushrooms, toss with heavy salt and a little more olive oil and those are now done.

Your grilled stuff should be done, your shrimp done, rice done, corn done, pea pods done. DONE.


The end gets a little hairy, but you will be able to handle it. Especially with people sitting around the kitchen talking and eating bread and cheese and drinking wine, there will be plenty of help. Give them tasks to help out while they chat (grilling, toss the corn, set out plates and napkins, get drinks out and refilled, find serving dishes for you to put things in, etc.). Then just do it up buffet style, which is also great, because then you actually get to eat with your guests, instead of still doing crap in the kitchen.

You are now an official entertainer. Congratulations! You will become an addict to hosting dinner parties once you realize how easy it is to multiply your favorite recipes or try new ones for large groups. Just make sure to actually collect money from people that offer for groceries and tell people it's BYOB and you are good to go!

Improvising: Let's Put a Little Shrimp on the Barbie

Dumb and Dumber is a great movie. I am not sure why, but I still crack up, out loud, whenever I say "Well, g'day mate. Let's put a little shrimp on the barbie". Ha. Apparently, I giggle even when I type it. (I'm easily amused)

This recipe is a combination of a shrimp grill marinade I found online, and a veggie grill marinade from a Giada de Laurentiis cookbook. I used them both separately, and then decided I liked them better combined.

Now I am going to share with you a little lesson I like to call, "how to improvise". This recipe calls for red wine vinegar. Now, I have been adding to my pantry for years, and I don't have any red wine vinegar laying around. I have rice vinegar, white vinegar, cider vinegar, distilled vinegar, and balsamic vinegar. No red wine vinegar. In fact, I have not personally come across another recipe that calls for red wine vinegar (or at least a recipe I would use on a regular basis).

Instead of freaking out, I just decided that red wine vinegar, in my head, tastes like a combination of balsamic and white vinegar. Who knows if this is actually true. But I tried it, the marinade works, and I guess I don't really know the difference. Some day, I will have to actually try red wine vinegar and see if I'm right.

The point is: although I mostly cook things from the ingredients I already have laying around, sometimes I want to get outside of my comfort zone and try something new. Sometimes, this means not having one of the ingredients, but you find a way to make it work. You don't have crushed pineapple? Use honey. You don't have honey? Use sugar. Once you realize you just need to make something sweet, not actually to taste like pineapple, you become better at the improv.


Cheesy Factor (1 no cheese, 10 all cheese): Zilch
Time Factor (1 shortest, 10 longest): 3
Dummy Factor (1 easiest, 10 hardest): 1

Grill Marinade
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup olive oil
1/4 cup tomato sauce
2 Tbl red wine vinegar
2 Tbl chopped fresh basil (or 2 tsp dried basil)
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
* I recommend this with shrimp, zucchini, mushrooms, grape tomatoes, and red onions

Mix everything up in a bowl with a whisk. Pour 1/2 into ziploc bag with shrimp, other half into a ziploc bag with veggies. Marinate in fridge for as long as you have time for. Then skewer shrimp, skewer veggies, and grill away. Use the left-over marinade that was in veggie bag as a baste while grilling also.

Veggie Meatloaf???

I just had the best idea ever. Well, it could possibly be the best idea ever. Or the worst idea ever. But someone, other than me (the ultimate carnivore), should be the tester.

So, when I make my spaghetti sauce, I like to use Italian turkey sausage. I buy that Jennie-O Italian sausage (hot/spicy flavor because mild is pointless). And I take it out of the casing and brown it up like hamburger meat.

Tonight I came up with a similar idea with meatloaf, for my vegetarian friends, that I am dying to hear the results of. So someone (YOU), sack up and try it.

Buy some of those Boca Burgers that smell funny (in my opinion) or your veggie burgers of choice, and ground them up as small as you can (put them in a bowl and use a fork or your hands or whatever- and don't try it while they are frozen, dummy, they have to be thawed). Once you have yourself something that slightly resembles ground beef, try my meatloaf recipe with it!!!

The only thing I am not sure of with this is whether or not the cooking time of the meatloaf in the oven would be the same. My guess is it probably takes less time to cook a veggie meatloaf so maybe try it at 375 deg for 45 minutes and then check it every 15 min until you have the desired consistency.

Do it! Do it! I would try it myself, but a veggie meatloaf goes against everything I stand for. Ha!

Impress Me Spaghetti

Anyone who cooks can tell you that a solid home-cooked meal is a surefire way to seal the deal with a date. If you have a date coming up, and you want to impress them, invite them over for some dinner, a bottle of wine, and thank me later. Even if you don't cook often, or don't think you are a good cook, you can do this. I'll hold your hand along the way.

I cooked this spaghetti for James on one of our first dates, and now we are getting married. I like to believe he fell in love with my witty intellect, superior personality, and stellar good looks. However, I think it was my cooking.

This is a modified version of the way my dad taught me to make my own spaghetti sauce. I love this dish for so many reasons other than dates too. Group dinners, meals with the in-laws, holidays, you name it. This dish is easy to modify for large groups and everyone will be very impressed by your cooking skills.



Cheesy Factor (1 no cheese, 10 all cheese): 1 (other than some sprinkled parmesan, which you can omit)
Dummy Factor (1 easiest, 10 hardest): 4
Time Factor (1 shortest, 10 longest): 4

Spaghetti
1 Tbl olive oil
1/2 cup chopped onions
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
1 large can (30 oz I think?) of crushed tomatoes, drained
1 small can of mushrooms, drained
2 Tbl crushed pineapple
1 tsp dried basil (or 1 Tbl fresh basil, chopped)
1/2 tsp dried oregano (or 1/2 Tbl fresh oregano)
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
Italian sausage, cooked, drained (optional)0 I like to use turkey italian sausage and cook out of casing
Spaghetti noodles, cooked in boiling water, drained.

Cook spaghetti noodles as directed. In a large pan, add 1 Tbl olive oil to pan over medium-low heat. Add onions and garlic, season with salt and pepper, and cook until soft and onions translucent. Add crushed tomatoes, mushrooms, pineapple, basil, oregano, salt and pepper. Mix together and simmer for 20 minutes. Serve sauce over noodles. (If making meat sauce, add ground, cooked italian sausage at the end, simmer for another 5 minutes, then serve.)

(Note: make sure to continually taste the sauce while it is simmering. If you like it sweeter, add more crushed pineapple. If you want stronger herb flavors, add more basil and oregano. If you like a little bit of spice, add more pepper, or even some crushed red pepper. ) And beware of splattering while simmering. You can use a lid on the pan or a screen if you have one.

This is really easy and it's actually fun and rewarding to make your own spaghetti sauce. You can freeze the leftover sauce too and use later. Serve with some garlic bread and a caesar salad and you are all set.

Party Pinwheels

My nana and papa have a Christmas Eve party for my dad's side of the family every year. And every year, my nana makes these things she calls "pinwheels" and they are, basically, little wraps full of cream cheese and diced veggies. They may not sound that exciting, but they are. Trust me.

I probably should have posted this recipe before the 4th of July, in case some of you needed an idea for an appetizer or dish-to-pass for your 4th of July BBQs and parties. Oops. But I would definitely take them to your next party or barbeque and I promise all guests will be thanking you.

Although, you should know that you guests will also hate you because it is impossible to stop eating them. And since they are mostly cream cheese, you're bound to be angry at yourself after you finish the batch.


Cheesy Factor (1 no cheese, 10 all cheese): 9
Dummy Factor (1 easiest, 10 hardest): 4
Time Factor (1 shortest, 10 longest): 4

Party Pinwheels
2 8-oz packages of cream cheese, softened
1 package Hidden Valley Ranch dressing mix
2 green onions
4 12" flour tortillas
1/2 cup diced red peppers
1/2 cup diced celery
1 small can black olives, drained and diced

Mix all ingredients, spread on tortilla, roll and wrap tightly. Repeat with other 3 tortillas. Put on plate in fridge and chill. Right before serving, slice into 1/2 inch pieces.


So good. So so good.

Cheesy-Potatoes. Fat-free, Calorie-free, Meatless.

I just can't help myself but share this wonderfulness with the world: Cheesy Potatoes! We are going to have these at our wedding, even, they are that good. They are so delicious and so easy. And soooo NOT good for you. But if you tell yourself over and over that they are fat-free and calorie-free, you will soon believe it.


Cheesy Factor (1 no cheese, 10 all cheese): 7
Dummy Factor (1 easiest, 10 hardest): 1
Time Factor (1 shortest, 10 longest): 6


Cheesy Potatoes
1 bag frozen hash brown potatoes (country-style)
1 stick of butter (sliced into 1/2 or 1 in pieces)
1 bag of shredded cheddar cheese (2 cups)
1 can of Cream of Chicken soup
1 16 oz container of sour cream
Casserole dish

Preheat oven to 375 deg. Mix all ingredients together in casserole dish. Cook in oven for 1-1.5 hours (at least an hour, but also until top has a little golden brown to it).

Finger, fork, bowl-licking good. And once again, good for breakfast with side of scrambled eggs.

Variations:
- Vegetarian: So, I make these for my vegetarian friends, and I don't tell them that one of the ingredients is Cream of Chicken soup, and they never know the difference. So, sorry, herbivores, but there is, in fact, a meat-flavored product in this. But you haven't noticed by now, so don't worry about it. If you now feel the need to make a change, I have to say you are being ridiculous, but if you must, use Cream of Mushroom soup instead of Cream of Chicken soup. Weirdo.
- Lower Fat: I can't exactly call this version "low-fat", so we will call it "lower, fat". Instead of butter, use margarine. Instead of Cream of Chicken soup, use the fat-free Cream of Chicken Soup. Instead of sour cream, use light or fat-free sour cream. But whatever you do, don't skimp out on the cheese. Leave the cheese be.

4th of July and Hot-Dog Meatloaf

The 4th of July in HB was amazing! We had a great BBQ at our house, complete with the red rocket (our red beer bong). Then a bike ride to our friend Javier's to watch the fireworks over the HB pier. It was so amazing. However, I am not feeling so great today, thanks to the red rocket, and thus, will probably be posting lots of recipes until I feel better.

I love meatloaf. My mom and dad's meatloaf (I actually can't remember whether my mom or my dad made this, so I will give them both credit). It's pretty easy to make and it is absolutely delicious, but don't be scared when you see it because it looks strange when you take it out of the oven, that's just how it is. I always serve it with brown gravy and smashed redskins. Oh, and there is no ketchup in this meatloaf. And if you try to put ketchup on it or in it, I will kill you.


Cheesy Factor (1 no cheese, 10 all cheese): 0 Blah!
Dummy Factor (1 easiest, 10 hardest): 4
Time Factor (1 shortest, 10 longest): 5

Mom and Dad's Meatloaf
1 lb lean ground beef (ground round?)
1 cup onions, minced
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
1 eggs
1/2 cup milk
4 slices of bread
2 Tbl Worcestershire sauce
2 Tbl A-1 sauce
Small loaf pan or tinfoil
1 can or jar of beef gravy with mushrooms (optional)

Preheat oven to 375. In a large mixing bowl, combine the meat, onions, garlic, 1 egg, milk, Worcestershire sauce, and A-1 sauce. Tear bread slices into little crumbs into bowl with other ingredients. Mix together with hands (if consistency is too dry, add a little more milk, if it's too runny, add more bread, if not sticking together, add egg), and mold into loaf shape. Put meat mixture into loaf pan (or use tinfoil to make your own loaf pan). Put into oven for 1 hour. After an hour, just check the center of the loaf to see consistency (if loaf looks like it could be sliced, take out of oven, if still pink color at all, or crumbly, put back into oven for 20 minutes). Serves 4 normal people. Or 2 really really hungry people.


This actually sounds way more difficult than it is. I happen to like my meatloaf a little on the "fall-apart" side because is it super super moist. Keep in mind that the more fat in the meat, the more grease you will have in your loaf pan while cooking, and you may want to drain off the top of the loaf here and there while cooking. I prefer to use ground round, as it is a little more lean. You could try turkey burger too for a "turkeyloaf". Oh, and you can buy a loaf pan super cheap, or even better, disposable loaf pans for like $2 for a 3-pack.

This isn't the prettiest meatloaf by any means, but trust me when I say it's delicious, even though it looks strange. Just cover it up in yummy gravy. Oh, and do yourself a favor, don't try to make your own gravy. Just buy a can or a jar of it, they are super good and it saves you a lot of work.



Cheesy Factory (1 no cheese, 10 all cheese): 2
Dummy Factor (1 easiest, 10 hardest): 2
Time Factor (1 shortest, 10 longest): 4

Smashed Red-Skin Potatoes
2 red-skin potatoes per person
Sour Cream
Milk
Parmesan Cheese

Boil red skins until soft. Drain water from pot, put potatoes back in pot. Add a spoon-full of sour cream for each potato. Add a dash of milk, and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Using a masher (or fork if not using a non-stick pan), smash the mixture together (add more milk for smoother consistency). Serve hot.


If you don't have a masher tool, get one. You can buy one at the grocery store for like $5. They are awesome. Pampered Chef has something called a "mixer" tool I think, and it works great for this too.


Random note: Filipino Meatloaf
My fiance is Filipino. And for whatever reason, Filipinos put hot-dogs in everything, including meatloaf. My soon-to-be father-in-law make a meatloaf, that I'm not even sure is meat to begin with, but it has peas, hard-boiled eggs, hot-dogs, etc. It's more like a left-overs loaf where you put whatever you have laying around into a "meatloaf".

So what can you take away from this?? If you want to master your own meatloaf, put whatever ingredients you want into it. The basis for any meatloaf is meat, bread (or breadcrumbs), milk and eggs. Everything else is up to you! And from the Left-Overs Queen, here's an idea: if you have leftover hot-dogs from the 4th of July, put 'em in your meatloaf! Ha!