Diners’ Club

Ale’s college roomies, D & C, are both married to nurses, LM & AW.  LM & AW are lovely girls, and great cooks! While we were all at the Halloween Eve wedding a few weeks ago, I told them about my new Barefoot Contessa cookbook.  LM had the brilliant idea of having an Ina Garten themed potluck to break in my book! After checking all our schedules, we decided this past Sunday would work best for everyone.  We held it at our house and it was a blast!

AW made lobster chowder (with girnmous chunks of lobster, yum!) as well as a french apple tart (served with vanilla ice cream of course!) LM made potatoes au gratin and roasted carrots with parsnips and I made lemon thyme chicken and cranberry oat bars (not an Ina recipe, but I promised you kids a cranberry recipe and I had to deliver!)

Everyone had an awesome time and all the dishes got rave reviews. AW suggested we  continue this and make it a monthly tradition! We’re going to do Food Network stars and then maybe move on to classic cookbooks like Joy of Cooking, and then maybe blogs (hello! Pioneer Woman!).  We decided to pick this back up in January! So excited! All us girls commented how awesome and  stress-free a themed potluck was! You only have to worry about buying and preparing a few dishes versus planning a full evening. Even the boys were into it because they kept trying to name Food Network chefs they liked, or disliked (all the Italians in the room HATE Giada DeLaurentis because of the exaggerated manner in which she pronounces things in Italian but whatever, us girls do NOT care). It was an evening well spent and highly recommend you try it!

And because we were having such fun, I didn’t take any pictures. But lucky for me, there was just enough left overs to make lunch the next day:

I wish I could share with you how fragrant this was!

Do you participate in any clubs? (book, food, knitting, running, etc)