Breakfast for dinner, or “Brinner” as we like to call it, is a common occurrence around our house. When I forget to set out the meat to thaw at dinner, or look in my pantry and realize I forgot one crucial ingredient at the store to make the recipe I had bookmarked, I turn to breakfast foods to keep us from ordering takeout.

When the folks at Eggland’s Best invited me to host a Brinner Party with some of our friends and family, I jumped at the chance. I love unique party ideas and thought that we could have a fun time with this.

We chose to have our Eggland’s Best Brinner Party outside one evening last week. I made a combination of breakfast dishes as well as some typical picnic food, just to keep things interesting.

Our friends and family enjoyed Dole’s Broccoli Slaw Quiche, Breakfast Pizza Casserole, Deviled Eggs, Egg Salad Sandwiches, fresh fruit salad, BLT Salad and homemade Buttered Salted Caramel ice cream for dessert. (Recipes can be found by following each individual link).

It was a nice, relaxing evening full of great food, fun and friends – just exactly what we needed!

Eggland’s Best would love to give you the opportunity to host your own Brinner party. They will be giving one Dine & Dish reader their very own Brinner kit, which includes:

• 2 Free Eggland’s Best Dozen coupons (Any variety- classic, cage-free, or organic)
• 1 Free Eggland’s Best Hard Cooked and Peeled variety coupon
• 4 Eggland’s Best ramekins
• 1 Eggland’s Best apron
• 1 Eggland’s Best whisk
• 1 Eggland’s Best spatula
• 1 Eggland’s Best egg timer
• 1 Eggland’s Best eco bag
• 1 Eggland’s Best plush egg

To enter, simply leave a comment on this post telling me what your favorite “Brinner” food is.

Readers can enjoy an additional entry by heading over to the Eggland’s Best facebook page and becoming a fan. Leave an additional comment on this post letting me know that you have done that. All entries must be received by midnight CST on Wednesday, July 20th.

Recipe: Simple Egg Salad Sandwiches

• 8 hard-boiled eggs, diced
• 1 cup light mayonnaise
• 1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon dry mustard
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 4 Wheat Sandwich Buns

1. In a bowl, gently mix the eggs, mayonnaise, salt, mustard powder, garlic powder, and black pepper.
2. Cover, and refrigerate 8 hours, or overnight.
3. To serve, spread equal amounts on 4 buns; top with remaining buns to make sandwiches.

This is a sponsored post. Eggland’s best provided a gift card for groceries and a brinner in a box kit for our family. All opinions are my own.

The post Eggland’s Best Brinner Party Giveaway & Recipes appeared first on Dine and Dish.

Dinner Club came and went and I was so caught up in enjoying the company that I totally forgot to take pictures of the food. You will have to take it from me, everything we had was delicious!

I did manage to snap a photo of our table before everyone came. Much to the belief of some of you (DeAnn!), I am not Martha Stewart. I do not have a crafty, creative bone in my body. That is why, when I came up with the idea for the place cards for our Rustic Italian Dinner Club, I was especially proud of myself! My husband and I have a collection of wine corks that we have saved over the past ten years. I decided it would be neat to cut a small slit into the top of the wine cork, use a die cut to cut oval shapes out of card stock scrapbook paper (the paper had a black and white design on the other side) and write each guests name on the blank side of the paper. Then, it was as simple as inserting the card stock oval into the slit of the wine cork. Voila – you have a simple, inexpensive and creative place card for your dinner party!

Now, for those of you here for the food, here are some of the recipes from our Rustic Italian Dinner Club menu. Each couple is assigned to bring something. I was in charge of the main dish and the bread. If you haven’t started a Dinner Club yet, I hope that my posts encourage you to do so! With the right group of people, it can be a lot of fun!

Appetizer: Ali’s Amazing Bruschetta

Salad: Rustic Italian Summer Salad

Bread: Italian Cheese Bread

Side Dish: Bacon Wrapped Green Beans

Main Dish: Spinach Chicken Manicotti with Creamy White Sauce (I used Manicotti instead of Cannoli & added garlic. Recipe recommended to me by SB’s Bea from On My Plate)

Dessert: Italian Cream Cake

The post Dinner Club #2 Rustic Italian (Recipe: Chicken Spinach Manicotti) appeared first on Dine and Dish.

The Dine & Dish Dinner Club officially launched this past Saturday and we had such a wonderful time. I am so disappointed that it took us so long to get moving and get it off the ground because it really was a wonderful evening of food, friends and laughter. My husband and I made fajitas using this Beef and Chicken Fajita recipe from Cooking Light, which was a delicious hit! The couple who was going to bring dessert ended up getting sick that day, so I decided to tackle Fried Ice Cream. Delicious, fun, impressive and fit the evening perfectly!

Many people have asked how I got our dinner club started. Considering we just had our first one, I am no expert, but since it was such a success (lasting until 1am) I will share what we did to get our first Dinner Club off the ground.

• We decided to include five couples in our dinner club to start with. I invited two couples and asked each of them to invite one couple each. The couples we invited are people who we love to hang out with but don’t get to see as often as we would like to. The requirement was that they had to be willing to commit, were interested in food, and were fun.
• We have set our Dinner Club up to meet on an every other month basis, so six times a year.
• We will have the Dinner Club at our house each time we meet, but will rotate hostessing responsibilities. The “host couple” is responsible for finalizing a theme, the main dish, the adult beverages, the music play list and “the questions” (more about this later!)
• Everyone else is to sign up for an appetizer, side or dessert. (For inspiration, I told everyone to look at restaurant menus that fit our theme or to Google “Southwest Menu”.)
• Everyone brings a copy of their recipe to share with each couple. There is no going to the store to bring something not homemade. Even if you think you can’t cook, this is an opportunity to stretch yourself some and to make something from scratch.
• For those of you who have read about my dinner parties in the past, I always do “get to know you” type questions. They are slid into the place cards and after we are done eating, we go around the table and each person reveals their question. The first person gives their answer and then we go around the whole table and answer that specific question. Then we move onto the next persons question. Sometimes the questions are tame… sometimes a bit more controversial or racy. It makes for a very, very fun evening and is a signature part of my dinner parties!
• Choose a theme for each time you meet. Our next theme is “Rustic Italian”. Some other themes to consider – “Take me out to the ballgame”, “Cook from a famous chefs cookbook”, “Wine Country”, “Greek”, “Purple Foods”… the possibilities are endless!
• Keep it low stress. The idea of the Dinner Club is to have a fun, adult night out with good friends. It is not something that should be stressed about. Invite people who you know won’t take things too seriously.
• Just do it! If you are considering starting a Dinner Club, I suggest doing it right away. You will have a blast and it will make for a night that your friends look forward to each time you meet.

If you have a Dinner Club that meets regularly and have advice on getting one started or want to share what has made yours successful, leave your comment on this post. I’ll do a roundup of advice in a few weeks.

Print

Fried Ice Cream

Fried Ice Cream (from Recipezaar)

Prep Time 6 minutes minutes

Total Time 6 minutes minutes

Servings 4

Author Dine & Dish

Ingredients

• 1 pint ice cream
• 1 beaten egg
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 1/2 cups of sweetened corn flakes
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 beaten egg
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
• cooking oil for deep fat frying
• whipped cream optional

Instructions

• Place 4 scoops (about 1/2 cup each) of ice cream in a small pan.
• Freeze for 1 hour or till firm.
• In a small mixing bowl stir together egg and vanilla.
• In a pie plate carefully stir together cereal and cinnamon.
• Dip each frozen ice cream ball in the egg mixture, and then roll them in the cereal mixture.
• Return coated ice cream balls to freezer and freeze for 1 hour or till firm.
• Reserve the remaining cereal mixture.
• In a small mixing bowl stir together egg and vanilla.
• Remove coated ice cream balls from the freezer. Dip balls in egg mixture, and then roll them in the remaining cereal mixture and return to pan.
• Cover and freeze for several hours or till firm.
• In a deep fat fryer or a heavy saucepan, fry frozen coated ice cream balls one or 2 at a time, in deep hot oil (375°F) for 15 seconds or till golden brown.
• Drain on paper towels; return the fried ice cream balls to freezer while frying the remaining balls.
• Serve immediately with whipped cream (if desired).

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I cannot help but think each year our annual Christmas party just gets better and better. Just when I think we can’t top the year before, we do.

Our 2007 annual Christmas party was a success with great food, even better friends and lots of laughs! To catch you up, I am turning to my Pamela Barsky Dinner Party Journal to give you the recap. (If you entertain a lot and don’t have one of these journals, get one!! They are great!)

The Occasion: Our annual holiday party with my original M.O.M.S group

Guests: Sara, Mark H, Kathy, Mark D, Bobby, Joanna, Tina, Dave, Nick and I

Cocktails / Wine: I didn’t even keep track this year, but I can tell you I didn’t have one bad glass of wine. They were all really good. I now wish I would have kept track!

Menu:  

• Appetizers – Stuffed mushrooms, shrimp cocktail
• Main Course – Delicious salad brought by Mark H, Rosemary Clover Leaf Rolls (remember these tasty gems?), My famous Buttered Carrots, Tina’s delicious potatoes au gratin, Crab Cakes with Lemon Garlic Aioli, Cedar Plank Salmon
• Desserts – Kathy’s amazing Red Velvet Cherry Chocolate Torte

Memorable Outfits: Everyone looked great and no one got made fun of like last year 🙂

Memorable Moments/Conversations (too many to recount all of them!):

• Well, our oven catching on fire stands out as a big one! Nick was making the second salmon and since the weather was so bad, we had to change plans and he had to make the cedar plank salmon in the oven. He prepped the boards and made the adjustments for the oven vs the grill. As we were eating, Nick all of a sudden flies out of his chair and screams “FIRE!!”. Inside our oven was a raging inferno, caused by the cedar plank catching on fire!
• Every year I pass around questions for all of us to answer. Since we all know each other so well and hang out often, these questions often take us past the basic stuff that we normally talk about. The question about accepting an indecent proposal if it meant you would have enough money to save your child’s life sparked quite the debate. We learned a lot about each other with the question of who you would go back and make amends with if you could. The boys had some great answers for if the past year was a food, what food would it be? (Mark – “chili… a bunch of crap thrown in together, but when it is done it is pretty damn good”).
• Who knew that Chuck Norris jokes could be so funny? Apparently, to the guys who had their fill of wine for the night, Chuck Norris jokes are pretty popular. I don’t think I have ever seen Mark H laugh so hard! The girls were laughing just as hard watching the guys laugh so hard!
• Our Dirty Santa Gift exchange is always fun! Poor Joanna got picked on for the guys gift she brought, which wasn’t bar equipment or alcohol related. Apparently, there is an unspoken rule among the guys about what to bring and it has to be in one of those two categories!

Embarrassing moments:

Well, the oven catching on fire was a bit embarrassing. It is a good thing I know these people so well or I might have been mortified 🙂

Next time I will: Do everything the same. It was great! Oh, and per Bobby’s request ask the question “If we were all on an island and one of us had to be voted off, who would you choose and why?”

Next time I won’t: Have cedar plank salmon in the oven. It was delicious, but it is just a whole heck of a lot easier to do on the grill!

Thank you to Kirsten of Kirsten’s Home Cooking Adventures for one of the best crab cake recipes I have ever tried. Here it is for all of you to enjoy. Happy Holidays!

The post Crab Cakes with Lemon Garlic Aioli Recipe appeared first on Dine and Dish.

The evening started at 6:30pm. Our two oldest children were down the street with a babysitter. I took the chance on keeping the baby here, thinking she would go to bed early. She was such a champ… I put her down at 6:15 and she didn’t wake up until 11:30pm, right when our guests were leaving. I could not believe I was that lucky!

Taken from the pages of my lovely Pamela Barsky dinner party journal, I’ll give you the scoop.

The Occasion: 4th Annual Christmas party with my old M.O.M.S group, who have now become some of our best friends

Guests: Sara, Mark, Kathy, Mark, Joanna, Bobby, Nick, Kristen

Cocktails / Wine: Oh boy…we drank a lot. The wines were Sebastiani 2003 Cabernet, 3 Blind Moose 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon, Leaping Lizard 2004 Chardonnay, Bloom 2006 Riesling, Blackstone 2003 Merlot, Blackstone 2005 Sauvignon Blanc, Turning Leaf 2000 Merlot, Cecchi 2003 Chianti Classico, Knob Creek Whisky and water, Jameson’s and water, and a few random cocktails thrown in. Yes – we were all feeling it the next day.

Menu:

• Appetizers – Sauteed Shrimp, Garbanzo Bean Dip with Pita Wedges, Bacon Cream Cheese Stuffed Mushrooms
• Main Course – Tossed salad with Raspberry Vinaigrette dressing, Show Off Pork Roast, Garlic Potatoes Gratin, Green Bean Supreme, French bread rolls served with butter or olive oil and fresh herb dipping oil.(Everything was delicious!)
• Dessert – Black Cherry Chocolate Pie, Peanut butter pie

Memorable Outfits: Nick’s purple button up shirt and Bobby’s sweater vest were quite the topic of conversation for their “Metrosexual” style. Joanna had really cute shoes on as well, which made for great conversation too!

Memorable Moments:

• Our dirty Santa gift exchange… it was so much fun. The gift I gave, which was a big Christmas Snowflake platter with a certificate for my homemade Cinnamon Rolls delivered to their house got stolen the most (by girls and guys) and ended up getting kept by Sara. I got some incredibly comfortable, fluffy, soft slippers.
• I placed “getting to know you” type questions at each persons seat. We are all really good friends, so know each other pretty well, but these questions were about things we never really talk about. It was fun getting in deeper conversations with our friends.
• My girlfriends opening their “Quote Mark” bookmarks that my friend Karen Beth made.
• Playing Apples to Apples. We were all in tears laughing so hard during some parts of the game. This is one of those games that get funnier and funnier with each glass of wine, as everyone tries to argue their case.

Memorable Conversations:

• Our soul mate conversation. Bobby and Joanna apparently have different views on the whole soul mate thing. It was funny to see how worked up Joanna was getting as Bobby just egged her on.
• The answers to the question “What career would you choose if salary wasn’t an issue?” and “What’s the best decision you have ever made?”
• Any conversation with Bobby is memorable. He’s an attorney and can debate just about anything.
• There are so many more…at the risk of boring the one person who has read this far (hi Mom!), I’ll quit here!

Most embarrassing moments:

I can’t really think of anything. Mark D got a little animated trying to prove that the card he put down during Apples to Apples should win and he knocked over a full glass of red wine on our cream colored tablecloth, breaking one of our Noritake Crystal wine goblets. Its not a party unless something gets broken 🙂 My husband was very diligent today, working on getting the stain out, and he completely succeeded. Yay!

Next time I will:

Start the meat later. It was ready when we were having appetizers. It was still hot when we sat down to eat dinner, but next time I’ll time it a little better.

Next time I won’t:

There is not a single thing I would do differently besides the timing of the meat. It was a perfect evening spent with a wonderful group of friends.

The post Dinner party diaries – The Annual Christmas Party appeared first on Dine and Dish.

6

servings

1¾ hours 45 min prep

While browsing through the December issue of Food and Wine Magazine, I found the perfect wine to pair with our meal. Zisola… a tangy blend of wild berries with a rustic, leathery note. This wine was featured in Ray Isle’s article Exciting New Wines of 2006.  At a very reasonable price of $19 per bottle, it will be a nice addition to our dinner party’s meal.  I can’t wait to give it a try.

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I’ve decided to make a project out of this dream of ours. In the year 2007, we are going to host at least one dinner party of some sort each month. Some may be ellaborate, some may be simple, some may be kid friendly, some may be adults only.

My plan is to make a theme for each month, and from that theme I’ll plan the party. We’ll share with you the various tips, plans, accessories, etc. that we come across that have made our journey to this goal possible!

If you are in the area and want to attend a Dine and Dish event, feel free to give me a call 🙂

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