I hosted a dinner party for Daniel's best friend Justin and his parents last Sunday evening, which, in my opinion, was s success. Terry was a bit apprehensive with my choice of menu at start as I was planning to do a Thai meal, he thought it would be too spicy for Joanne and Andy, also it wouldn't be suitable for Daniel and Justin, therefore I have to cook separate dinner for babes. Terry suggested to do Moussaka, a dish with Aubergine layers on top of lamb mince then with cheese on top, which would be suitable for both adults and babes. I wasn't keen on this idea as we had lasagna at Joanne's Dinner party, Moussaka would be too similar. Terry started to practise for two weeks on this dish, in the end, I still insisted to go back to my original Thai idea, but ditched his idea of having Chinese dumplings as starter ( because that would be too much hassle for me). In the end I decided on Thai pumpkin curry as main course with some shop-bought desserts as pudding.
I cooked Thai Pumpkin curry with chicken, this idea came- from Waggamma restaurant in Leeds. It is very easy to cook and taste great, both Joanne and Andy liked it. The most time-consuming bit of the whole cooking was peeling the pumpkin and cut it into small pieces, but I prepared this in the morning when Daniel was settle and playing around in the kitchen. I shopped all the ingredients on Saturday and cleaned house on Friday. They came around 3.30pm, the idea was Daniel can play with Justin and I can get on with cooking. But I cooked the Thai dish just before they came and pop it in the oven for slow cook pumpkin so In the end I can still sit down for talk in the lounge while keeping an eye on cooking in the kitchen. The main focus at this stage was left for cooking Daniel and Justin' meals. As Justin preferred fish fingers and peas (lucky i asked Joanne beforehand), I cooked some roasted potatoes and fish fingers and peas for him and Daniel. Terry was in charge of wine and dessert, Daniel played with Justin very well, Justin seemed to like Daniel's toys, Daniel is just the same, Daniel likes Justin's toys when we visits Joanne's house. We had a really good evening.
The key to throw dinner party with little kids is to organise! organise and organise! and keep it simple!
5 comments:
Hi just saw this now. I'm so lazy these days as I have been on annual leave for 3 weeks now and still got 1.5 weeks to go.
Your Thai dish sounds so yummy! My mouth is watering reading it. I'm really hungry now, but can't eat as it's almost 1am in the morning! Better go to bed now. :)
Hamster, thanks for suggesting the Thai food link, it looks really great! can't wait to try some of the receipies on it!
Li, lucky you! Are you taking all your AL in one go then? I've been saving my AL for Christmas...
No I still have some AL left. Christmas time we will have two weeks off and I only need to take 2 days annual leave. Others will be either public holiday or concessional holiday given by our employer. Pretty good deal. :)
My reason of taking leave was my in laws needed a little break. Because my work peak season starts in Nov and we are not allowed to take leave till at least end of March. So it's good to let my in laws have a rest now.
Very jealous of you about your family support network. Sometimes I really wish my mum could be here to help me a bit but she never want to come...
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