It's been a year!

Hey everyone! So as of the first day of February, I have been officially living on my own for a whole year!  Who would have thought I'd survive living on my own?  Trust me, I didn't.  Now to celebrate this, I decided to have some close friends over for dinner.  Now,  I'll tell you it is hard to try to schedule a dinner will most of friends because everyone seems to be either juggling 2 jobs or a job and school- so to make plans that work for everyone takes a lot of planning.  Luckily, I managed to pick a night that worked for everyone (Sunday night).  I did however, worked all day that Sunday so I had to make sure I had enough time after work to cook the meal.

 The menu for the night consisted of butternut squash soup for appetizer, a pot roast for dinner and creme brulee for dessert.  I also threw in some prosciutto wrapped dates with goat cheese to start.  Since I came up with this whole dinner party idea the Tuesday before, I didn't have much time to cook everything on the day of.
 
I started with making the soup on Friday night but not finishing it off with cream until the night of.  Then I made the creme brulee Saturday morning before heading to work.  (Creme brulee can be stored in the fridge for up to 3 days)  Then when I got home from work Saturday, around 2 in the morning I decided to set the table.  The Sunday morning before I left for work, I put the pot roast and vegetables in my Crockpot to cook all day while I was away.

 
Wine glasses, mason jars (for water) and twine wrapped utensils were simple enough to set but still classy enough to make it seem like a real dinner party.  If you haven't guessed by now, I love hosting things.  Just having friends over for drinks and food brings such a warm feeling to my insides.  You can say I'm the Monica of my Friends group.

So the night began right at 8, when my friends started showing up and the wine bottle was cracked open.
Everyone was having a good time, while I was having an equally great time adding the finishing touches to each course.  And as soon as I was ready, dinner began.

The butternut squash soup was a big hit among everyone, especially paired with a french baguette.  Following soup we had slow cooked pot roast with potatoes and baby carrots- which was so delicious I had to go for seconds myself.

And to finish off the meal; creme brulee.  Now I was going to buy myself a little baking torch to top off the desserts but I changed my mind last minute and went for the cheaper version of setting the ramekins under my broiler.  Still they tasted delicious.  After dinner, we all went out for some bowling and just had so much fun.  I've really got to host more of these dinner parties because I had almost as much fun cooking and planning the menu as I did eating and sharing them with my friends!

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Cheers,

-Miguel