Hosting An Adult Dinner Party (Sort Of!)

Since moving out of my parents house 4 months ago I’m a changed woman, I now like to cook. I now own several recipe books that aren’t just gathering dust, or propping up wonky chairs, and actually use them. Not only do I like cooking, but I’ve discovered that I’m kind of good at it, and since which I’ve started experimenting a little with different ideas. I’ve started to like to cook so much that I’ve even invited friends and family members round to taste my cooking. Their all still very much alive and healthy, so I guess I’m doing pretty good at this.

Recently Ocean Finance got in touch and asked me if I’d like to host my own little come dine with me, and show off my new fancy cooking skills. We decided to invite our friend’s from up north, Andrew and Luke, to come down to the south and visit and thought what better timing and decided to use them as my guinea pigs dinner guests.

I decided to serve a selection of nibbles instead of a starter, mostly because our guests just drove 300 miles to come see us so it was nicer to sit and catch up for a while rather than get straight into the food. I served up some olives, sun-dried tomatoes, mozzarella and tomatoes, peppers and a roast pepper dip. We sat nibbling and drinking cups of tea, while we caught up on everything since the last 6 months we saw them!

After an hour or so I decided it was time to feed my guests properly, and made chorizo and chicken paella. This is probably one of my favourite meals, and something I learnt while I was at university. It’s pretty simple to make, I just use a giant wok and fry the chorizo, chicken and peppers, and then add paprika, the paella rice, and stock, and leave it until it looks like this. I used to add prawns to this too, but Chris won’t eat them so it’s easier to leave them out. Everyone seemed to enjoy it, apart from Andrew who decided to pick all the peppers out as he didn’t tell me he didn’t like them. Well there’s always one moany come dine with me guest isn’t there.

For dessert I decided to make something I’ve never made before, apple Betty. Not only had I never made it before, but I’d never heard of it either! Having recently joined Slimming World, I saw this as one of the recipes and thought I’d give it a go as it looked pretty tasty. It’s made up of apples, raisins, and cinnamon, and I served it with fromage frais. I might have actually made a little too much of this, but it meant everyone got giant servings so good thing it was delicious! Once again everyone seemed to enjoy it, minus Andrew because apparently he doesn’t like raisins. Dammit Andrew.

The rest of the evening was spent drinking lots of wine, and catching up on hilarious stories of things we’ve done together. It was only when we had guests round that it dawned on me that I only had three wine glasses, so Chris got his in a pint glass. We’re classy.

As we were playing come dine with me, I asked my guests to give me a score and this is how I did –

Chris – 9/10. Not really sure if this is an achievement, as he’s my boyfriend I guess he has to be nice..Luke – 8/10. Well Luke was a guest staying in my flat so he might have just been being nice, but he did eat all the food and even asked me for the recipe for apple Betty a few days later!Andrew – 6/10. Because I put peppers and raisins in his food, which he didn’t tell me he didn’t like. I don’t think your opinion counts on this so much Andrew…

Personally I give myself 10/10. I didn’t burn anything, nothing was dropped on the floor, and my cat didn’t eat the food when no one was looking. I was also challenged to do this all for under £50, and I came in under budget so that was a success. Here’swhat I spent –Starter nibble things – £8.55Paella – £8.60Apple Betty – £10.45Wine – £18.50Total – £46.10

So all in all quite the little successful dinner party, well, if you don’t listen to Andrew. A couple of other bloggers have been doing their own come dine with me’s, which you can see more of here. I’m certainly going to be holding another dinner party after it wasn’t as stressful as I thought it would be!

What would you serve at a dinner party? What do you think your guests would rate you?

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