My neighborhood’s Gourmet Dinner party group met a couple of weekends ago for our monthly themed dinner. I hosted this time with a Seafood Extravaganza! Dinner Menu. I’ll be sharing the entire menu with all recipes on this post- just click recipe titles below to reach actual, printable recipes.
EIGHTEEEN friends came to my dinner. I know, crazy huh? Before you think I’m too crazy to do this, I need to let you know that I just hosted the party, planned the menu, and each couple brought a dish. That’s much more manageable and un-crazy. For my table decor, I went with some simple white tablecloths, blue dishes, sand-colored napkins, sea-inspired candles and a few shells and starfish. Oh, and the most important table decoration of all… fish swimming in vases! (Don’t worry- the fish were ALL taken home by my guests to add to the fish tanks in their homes, but not before our friend Brad thought it would be fun to terrorize them by swishing a butter knife around in the vase. Geez, Brad.). They made for pretty cute centerpieces though.
And if you look closely, you’ll see some salt-water taffy scattered on the table too. My guests enjoyed nibbling on those after dinner, and they fit into the theme just right. Warning: black striped taffy usually means that it tastes like black licorice. In other words, chew it up, then realize how gross it is and then spit it into your napkin. Uck.
We set up a simple serve-yourself bar in our backyard. Something for everyone.
Featured beverage: the Sea Breeze Cocktail, of course!
Appetizer #1: Bacon- Wrapped Scallops with Spicy Cilantro-Mayonnaise
Appetizer #2: Smoked Salmon Deviled Eggs
Appetizer #3: Hot Crab and Artichoke Dip
Appetizer #4: Shrimp Ceviche
Side Dish: Summer Gratin
Main Dish #1: Baked Salmon with Creamy Coconut-Ginger Sauce over Coconut- Ginger Rice
Main Dish #2: Tequila-Lime Shrimp Tacos with Chipotle Cream
Dessert: Key Lime Pie The dinner was a smashing success! And by that I mean that the plates were licked clean, there was a lot of whooping and hollering and toasting going on, our last guests left at about 12:30AM, and I needed Advil the next day. All of the seafood came from Anderson Seafoods (via overnight delivery, arriving fresh and perfect! Many thanks to Anderson Seafoods for managing to get the seafood to me in the midst of our crazy Southern California Blackout!) Favorites of my guests were the scallops and the salmon. It was a lot of food! I over-planned a bit since I was serving 18 people. A couple of appetizers would have been plenty, and we definitely did not need two entrees. The key lime pie was much loved too. I’d kinda like to do a wild & crazy 7 Deadly Sins Dinner Party next (recipes based on themes of the 7 deadly sins), or maybe some kind of 70’s throwback recipes dinner. I’m running out of dinner party ideas… so let me know if you’ve got any?!
