Hosting Supper Club

Thursday night's Supper Club was a hit. Here's how we structure ours: when the time rolls around to host, you take care of the entire food portion of the meal -- appetizers, main course, dessert. The people who join you just bring a bottle of wine. We find that it works out really well that way because if someone has to cancel last-minute, you're just down one person and one bottle of wine ... you don't have to worry if they'd signed up to bring a side dish.

As I mentioned, we've been getting together for over ten years, so we are really comfortable around each other. We pick at each other, we wear our stretch pants, we tell embarrassing stories on ourselves, we let it all hang out. 

I kept it simple this year and went with some easy apps, a one-pot meal done in the slow cooker, and a dessert that I made the day ahead.

I had castellvetrano olives (my favorite), kalamatas, and a cheese and cracker tray.

I just served the appetizers right on the kitchen island since that's where we always congregate. I set up my Swarovski tree and had a few more holiday decor items displayed.

In our dining room, I had everything set out so all we had to do was grab our bowl and serve ourselves right out of the slow cooker in the kitchen.

The tortellini dish was out of this world. I don't think you could call it a soup because it's super creamy -- more like a cheesy pasta dish. Everyone loved it. I used turkey sausage in it, and I served it with garlic toast.

And our Millionaire Pie was delicious -- we ate almost all of it, and I finished off the last two slices after lunch the next day.

We ran two separate gift exchanges "Dirty Santa" style (or Yankee Swap, White Elephant, whatever you may call it) -- a $5 gift exchange before dinner and a $15 gift exchange with dessert.

I was really excited about my $5 gift for the swap. I found this air plant for $4.99 at Aldi. It's living! How cute is it?!

Truth be told, I didn't snap a photo of the one I gave as a gift before it went home with its new owner, but I did go back yesterday and I bought another one for myself.

So, everyone went home with full bellies and two new gifts. I'd say it was a successful night!