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Brunch Boards!

Monday, December 4th, 2017

Good Morning Darlings!

Happy Monday – the first Monday of December. Which means lots of celebrating is around the bend.

If you’ve been with me a while, you know brunch is one of my favorite ways to entertain. Whether in the morning or the wee hours after a black tie gala, bacon, eggs and brunchy foods make everyone happy.

I love this new article by Kate Williams at Southern Kitchen telling you how to put it all together. Visit her here to learn how you can do the same!

Brunch works anytime of the day!

Now get to brunching, my loves!

xoxo, Patti

Stubb Your Ribs + A Giveaway!!

Thursday, May 25th, 2017

Good Morning Darlings!

Summer is here (To me, at least. Memorial Day = Start of Summer).

Are you grilling out this weekend? Need some ideas? I’m here to help!

My friends at Stubb’s Legendary BBQ are hooking us up with awesome tips (clean your grill with an onion?! check it out below) and a couple of coupons for $5.00 off any of their fabulous products. That’ll take care of your rub and sauce needs. Wait, that sounded bad..you know what I mean.

DIY sauce recipes: Kick the ketchup habit with some fun, easy and tasty DIY burger sauces that you can make with some items you might already have on hand.

  • Mustard + Original BBQ Sauce: ¼ cup mustard to every 1 cup of BBQ
  • Bang Bang Sauce: Mix together 1/2 cup of mayonnaise, 3/4 cup Stubb’s Original BBQ sauce, 1 heaping tablespoon of hot sauce and either a tablespoon of honey or some brown sugar depending on what I am cooking.
  • Spicy Mayo: ½ cup of mayonnaise and 3 tablespoons of Stubb’s Spicy BBQ sauce
  • Not Just Basic BBQ:

o    For a sweeter BBQ sauce – add 2 tablespoons brown sugar and 2 tablespoon honey to 1 cup of Original BBQ

o    To give your BBQ sauce a spicy kick – add habanero peppers to 1 cup of Original BBQ (add as many as you like depending on your level of spice)

Tips for Grilling your Meat:

  • Start with a clean grill so your burgers don’t stick and fall apart. My tip is to use an onion to clean your grill. Cut the onion in half, and while the grill is heating up, rub the onion across it. The juices from the onion clean the grill and get it ready for use. Note: I DIE! How cool is this, y’all?
  • Make a thumbprint in the middle of the patty before putting it on the grill. This will help the patty come our nice and flat (not puffy in the middle) and the meat will be cooked evenly throughout.
  • Avoid burning or charring your meat by flipping it every couple of minutes. It’s a myth that you shouldn’t flip your meat! The hotter the grill, the more often you should turn it.

And some recipes to help you win that burger cook off. You go, girl!

Full Recipes:

  1. Toasted Pecan Burger:
  • Ingredients

–       1 pound ground chuck

–       ¼ cup chopped red onion

–       ¼ cup chopped pecans, toasted

–       1 tablespoon finely chopped green bell pepper

–       3 tablespoons Stubb’s Original BBQ Sauce

–       2 tablespoons Stubb’s BBQ Spice Rub

–       Lettuce, mayonnaise, and toasted buns, for serving

  • Instructions:

–       Mix together the chuck, onion, pecans, bell pepper, Stubb’s Original Bar-B-Q Sauce, and Stubb’s Bar-B-Q Spice Rub. Shape into 3 large or 4 average-size patties. (The burgers may be mixed and shaped earlier in the day; refrigerate until ready to use.)

–       Prepare a grill for direct cooking. For a charcoal grill, when the coals are ashed over, rake or spread them out in the bottom of the grill so the food can cook directly over the coals. (For a gas grill, fire up the burners so the food can cook directly over the heat.)

–       Grill the burgers over direct medium heat, first on one side then on the other, 7 to 10 minutes, until they reach your desired degree of doneness. (Medium burgers register an internal temperature of 160°F.) Serve with lettuce, mayonnaise and toasted buns.

  1. Stubb’s Fried Egg Burger with Spicy Mayo:
  • Ingredients

–       ½ cup mayonnaise

–       3 tablespoons Stubb’s Spicy BBQ Sauce

–       2 lbs. lean ground beef

–       1/3 cup Stubb’s Texas Steakhouse Marinade

–       2 tablespoons vegetable oil

–       6 eggs

–       6 hamburger buns

–       Tomato

–       Lettuce

–       Blue Cheese (optional)

 

  • Instructions:

–       In a small bowl, mix the mayonnaise and Stubb’s Spicy BBQ sauce. Set aside.

Using your hands, mix the ground beef and marinade. Divide meat into six patties.

–       Prepare the grill for direct cooking. Cook the burgers for 6-7 minutes on each side for medium doneness.

–       Heat a large non-stick skillet on medium heat. Add 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil. Crack eggs into skillet and cook until the whites are set but the yolk is still runny, approximately 3 minutes. If you prefer your eggs over easy, flip and cook for an additional 15-20 seconds.

–       Assemble the burger in the following order: bottom bun, lettuce, tomato, cooked burger, blue cheese (optional), then egg. Spread the spicy mayonnaise on the top bun and place on top of the egg.

  1. Stubb’s Stuffed Burger: 
  • Ingredients

–       2 lbs. ground beef

–       3/4 cup Stubb’s Original BBQ Sauce

–       2 tablespoons Stubb’s Beef Marinade

–       2 tablespoons Stubb’s BBQ Spice Rub

–       7 oz. can of nacho sliced jalapenos

–       3/4 cup shredded cheese

  • Instructions

–       In a large bowl, mix the ground beef, Beef Marinade, and Bar-B-Q Spice Rub together with your hands.

–       Use about 1/3 cup of meat and press it into a thin patty with your hands. Top the patty with one tablespoon sliced jalapenos and two tablespoons shredded cheese, leaving at least a ¼” rim around the edge. You can adjust toppings per your taste.

–       Press out another thin patty. Place the second patty on top of the first patty and use your fingers to seal the two patties together well. Repeat another five times to make a total of six burgers.

–       Grill burgers over medium-high heat for 4-5 minutes per side, flipping once during cooking. Baste with Stubb’s Original Bar-B-Q sauce during last 3 minutes of cooking.

–       Serve on a bun with your favorite toppings.

Okay – leave a comment and you might be one of the winners of those $5 Stubb’s Certificates. If you do not comment, I will use them all myself, make all of these burgers at my house and not invite you. And nobody wants that.

xoxo, Patti

 

Martha and Snoop – Together Again

Friday, August 12th, 2016

Good Morning Darlings!

I love a good dinner party. I mean, duh! So I cannot wait til this fall for Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg’s new dinner party show.

You can read all about it on Vanity Fair.com

I wonder if anyone would watch it I taped our dinner parties? Tell me below in the comment section (which is finally fixed).

I will be glued to my seat waiting for this show. With a gin and juice, natch.

xoxo, Patti

Chop It Up, I’ll Eat It

Friday, August 5th, 2016

Good Morning Darlings!

Golly gee whiz, it is HOT here in Georgia. Yes, I know, it’s August. But wow, all I want to eat is chopped salad these days. I’m on a kick and taking Eric with me.

Here is one of the salads we’ve been enjoying recently. I’m a big fan of California Pizza Kitchen and love their BBQ Chopped Chicken Salad. I could eat it everyday. But that would get pricey, so I learned how to make it at home. Would you like to make it for yourself? Let me help!

You can make this at home, too!

You can make this at home, too!

I didn’t say I was dieting, I’m just beating the heat. Add a Corona – don’t judge.

The recipe is from Food.com, and I can’t lie, I used tortilla chips and bottled ranch dressing and then threw it all together. If you have the time to follow all these steps, bless your heart.

INGREDIENTS:

4

DIRECTIONS

  1. To Make the Fried Tortilla Strips: In a deep, heavy frying pan, heat several inches of vegetable oil to a temperature of 375 degrees. Working in batches if necessary to prevent overcrowding, carefully add the tortilla strips to the hot oil, submerging them with a metal skimmer or slotted spoon. Fry the tortilla strips until evenly golden, 1 to 2 minutes. Carefully lift them out with the skimmer or slotted spoon and transfer them to paper towels to drain and cool. Set aside, uncovered.
  2. To Make the Garden Herb Ranch Dressing: In a mixing bowl, use a fork to stir together the mustard and cold water, forming a paste. Set aside for 10 minutes. Add the remaining dressing ingredients to the bowl and, using a handheld electric mixer at low speed or a whisk, blend together just until smooth, taking care not to incorporate too much air into the dressing. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate.
  3. To Make the Grilled Garlic and BBQ Chicken: Preheat a stovetop grill or the broiler. In a mixing bowl, stir together the olive oil, garlic, soy sauce, and salt. Turn the chicken breasts in this marinade and leave to marinate at room temperature for about 15 minutes. Grill or broil the chicken breasts until cooked through, 5 to 6 minutes per side. Chill thoroughly in the refrigerator. Cut the chicken breasts into 3/4-inch cubes and, in a bowl, toss with the barbecue sauce to coat well. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate.
  4. To Make the Salad: In a large mixing bowl, toss together the lettuces, basil, jicama, Monterey Jack cheese, beans, corn, cilantro, dressing, and half of the Fried Tortilla Strips. Transfer the salads to chilled serving plates. Surround each salad with diced tomatoes and the remaining Fried Tortilla Strips. Top each salad with chunks of Grilled Garlic BBQ Chicken and drizzle the chicken with the barbecue sauce. Garnish with the scallion.

Gobble down like hungry badgers. Crack open another cold beer. Sit in the air conditioning and watch Stranger Things. OMG, I love that show!

What are you doing to beat the heat?

xoxo, Patti

Making Meatballs – How Did I Do?

Thursday, October 29th, 2015

Good Morning Darlings!

You all know I love to cook and entertain. When I saw this video, I about lost my mind and knew I had to try this recipe.

I bet some of you have seen this meatball stuffed with mozzarella video, too, right?

Here’s what my meatballs looked like before adding them to the sauce in the crockpot.

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And here’s what they looked like all cooked and ready to gobble down.

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Don’t you love that tiny plate? I get them at CB2. Here is a link to their new holiday line which I must order immediately. How cute are these? No, I don’t advertise for CB2, but hey, if they feel like sending me the new line, I would not complain. 🙂

So, how did they turn out? Not as expected. Here are my notes:

1. Make bigger meatballs so you can stuff a bigger piece of cheese inside. For some reason, I thought I counted 22 meatballs in the video. Math is not my strong suit. My cubes of mozzarella were small and totally disappeared in the meatball. NONE of the meatballs had that cheesy center I was hoping for. Next time: Make 15 big meatballs with a much bigger cube of cheese. Heck, slather them all with a thick layer of mozzarella cheese. You can never have enough cheese.

2. Brown the meatballs before placing in the crockpot. I know this rule, but got lazy and thought they would be just as good. Nay nay my darlings. The sear really adds to the flavor, so I will be taking this extra step next time.

3. Make your own sauce. DO NOT USE JARRED SAUCE. This probably goes without saying, but I’m saying it anyhow. I make mine with an entire bottle of red wine. Do not judge me.

4. Don’t use almond milk in place of whole milk in meatballs. I thought this substitution would work. It did not. I think it contributed to much tougher meatballs than I would have preferred.

5. After making the meatballs, put them in the fridge overnight and then reheat. Why? They get greasy and after a nap in the fridge, you can skim all that fat off and have nothing but meat and sauce.

Verdict: I would definitely make these again, but with the above tweaks. What a fab way to feed a crowd. Eric and I made spaghetti with this and each had 3 meatballs, which left us with a ton of meatballs and sauce leftover that went straight to the freezer for a busy night. I don’t know about you, but November is going to be crazy busy around here!

Happy cooking!

xoxo, Patti

Raising A Glass With Nobilo Icon

Friday, December 6th, 2013

Good Morning Darlings!

How wonderful to see you all – I have been very busy.

What’s new? Click to continue »

Eating Here and There

Wednesday, September 26th, 2012

Good Morning Darlings!

I have been so busy, but you have been on my mind.

Join me inside?

What’s A Purloo? What’s A Syllabub?

Tuesday, September 18th, 2012

Good Morning Darlings!

What’s a purloo? What’s a syllabub?

Great question! See inside for the answer…

Still Dreaming of the Beach

Tuesday, July 31st, 2012

Good Morning Darlings!

So, we took a look at what I envision the beach vacay to be. Now let’s talk about what to make to eat.

What says ‘beach food’ to you?

Backdoor Italian

Wednesday, May 23rd, 2012

Good Morning Darlings!

Last night, my friend and business partner, Carrie, were out and about scouting locations for our newest Atlanta Movie Tour. This one will be based on Atlanta’s favorite housewives and will be called The Keeping It Real Tour.

It goes on sale next week and will start on June 25th (shameless plug!)

Anyhoo, after a few locations, we decided we needed a nosh, but didn’t want to cook.

What should 2 hungry entrepreneurs do?