My Supper Club Menu: Roast, Cauli Mash, Green Beans, PIE.

Last Thursday night, it was my turn to host Supper Club at our house. This group of girls and I have been getting together since 2004 ... yes, coming up on our twelve year anniversary! 

When our group first started getting together, I was young (22) and learning my way around the kitchen. Now I am old as sin (34) and still learning my way around the kitchen. But one thing I've gathered for sure in these twelve years is that it is NOT fun to play hostess and be chained to your oven or stovetop while everyone is having fun and mingling without you. So my menus have changed from highly-involved (think: sauteeing) to very low-touch (think: crockpot). 

Here's what I served last Thursday night. Everyone who came brought a bottle of wine but I handled appetizers, entree, sides, and dessert. 

For appetizers, I had a simple little cheese, salami, and olive board. Take a sneak peek, by the way, at that divine cutting board. I'll be sharing the source for it on Friday!

The cheese I served is an inexpensive but truly yummy Aldi find. It's the dill havarti block and it's $2.99. You just can't beat that. I also had butter crackers, wasabi crackers, red pepper flake jumbo olives (from the olive bar at Harris Teeter -- my favorite olive beside castelvetranos!), and sliced salami. 

(I know I may get some questions about that awesome cow cheese marker I have. It came in a set as a gift from my middle sister. I can't find it online at all! But if you are looking for a similar type of cheese marker to designate your cow/sheep/goat cheeses, HERE is a fun porcelain set on Amazon Prime and HERE is a cute hand-stamped option on Etsy).

Another really easy appetizer is the pre-made mushroom profiteroles that I love. They are from my grocery store, Harris Teeter, and found in the frozen area where you'd buy the little stuffed quiche shells. They are Harris Teeter's HT Traders brand. 

I took a page from one of my favorite bloggers, Samma from Spice And Sass, and went with the old-school, sodium-laden way of making the infamous Mississippi Roast. I used two beef tenderloin roasts for our group and had PLENTY left over. I was eating leftovers for days, and not complaining a bit about it. I served these with some white dinner rolls for anyone who wanted to sop up those yummy juices. 

The perfect accompaniment was the cauliflower mash that I love to do. I just steam a bag of garlic-seasoned cauliflower, pour it over a half of a block of lowfat cream cheese, add some salt and pepper, and mash it all together with a potato masher. A little bit of shredded cheese (any kind) gets added in to the mix, more cheese and paprika on top, and bake at 350 degrees until cheese is melty and bubbly around edges. Embarrassingly easy but a crazy hit. I doubled the recipe this evening and made it in a 9x13. We had very little remaining, and I think it was just out of courtesy. Nobody wanted to take the last two bites. 

Lastly, I just made some green beans that I simmered for a while in salty seasonings and a little bit of olive oil. 

And for dessert, as I mentioned last week, we had Chess Pie! You can find that recipe here. 

Dinner was simple, yet the girls said it was the best dinner served within the last year at Supper Club (!!!!!!). What a true compliment! I'll take it. 

And for those of you who love hearing about the cost of hosting, this was a truly economical meal. I already had the salami and crackers on hand. The olives were pay-by-the-pound and I'm pretty sure it was around $2 for them. The cheese, as I mentioned, was $2.99 at Aldi. The beef tenderloin roasts I got were on BOGO sale so I got both for around $14 total. Seasoning packets, butter, and pepperoncinis were all from Aldi, super inexpensive. The cauliflower steam bag is typically on sale for $2.28 at Harris Teeter (Birds Eye is the brand). The green beans come frozen in a bag at Aldi and I love them because they are nice and skinny and long. I think that makes them seem a lot more gourmet than anything you'd find in a can :)

If I had to estimate, I probably had $30 in the dinner total. Definitely an inexpensive way for feeding seven girls!

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!