Girls Weekend

What do you get when you have a group of longtime friends, together for an entire weekend, away from jobs and kids and housework and every day life?  A pretty darn good time.  When you add snow, cocktails, a rousing round of Cards Against Humanity AND the knowledge that no one has any place to go for 3 days, you get one heck of a fun adult slumber party.

There were 8 of us.  Well, 9 if you include the Bartender who bravely “volunteered” to stick around for the weekend and do one of the things he does best:  Tend the bar.

I wanted a menu that provided good, warm “comfort food” for the main course and meals that easily fed a large group.  And, because this was a group of friends that hadn’t all been together for a while, I wanted food for the weekend that allowed me to do a lot of the work ahead of time so that I could spend the time with my friends rather than just in the kitchen.  This menu fit the bill for Friday night:

• Old Fashioned Cocktails
• Blueberry Martinis
• Beef Stroganoff
• Baby Green Peas
• Homemade Dinner Rolls
• Tangerine Mousse

And here’s what our party planner looked like:

Day Before:

• Got all the grocery shopping done
• Started setting the table

Day Of / Morning:

• Finished setting the table, including the friendship quotes place cards
• Made the cake layers for Saturday night’s dessert
• Made the broccoli cheese sauce for Saturday night’s dinner
• Started the meat marinading for the beef stroganoff
• Made the Tangerine Mousse

Day of / Afternoon:

• Started the stroganoff cooking
• Started the rolls in the bread maker
• Took a break to help shovel the driveway so we could get the cars the last 10 yards to the house
• Shaped the bread dough into rolls and let them rise for about 45 minutes

Just Before Serving:

• Got a little distracted (perhaps it was the blueberry martinis) and started the noodles (for the stroganoff) a little later than I should have.  It takes a few minutes to get a big pot of water to boil.  We just used the time to open bottles of wine, light the candles and have another martini.
• Baked the rolls for 18 minutes
• Started the water boiling for the peas
• Got everything into serving dishes, everyone seated at the table, and dinner was served!

Happy Entertaining!