Local HQ Young Singles under 40 Progressive Dinner with some local families in town!
Such a good time! T'was just a private get together among friends! Jason Cocomise pulled it all together. My group started off at Philip and Adar Nice's home. They have a lovely home and are such a wonderful and serving couple! How this progressive dinner worked is that the married host homes would provide the soup and salad course, and the main entree course. The single men were assigned to bring the wine, and the single ladies provided the appetizers and desserts. I was assigned to bring the appetizer to the Nice's. I love Pinterest! Yeah for it! I made chocolate dipped mandarins sprinkled with course sea salt, and stuffed bacon wrapped jalapeño peppers! They came out well. If you want the recipe, I'll put it at the end of this post. Here are a few pics from what we experienced at the Nice's home. Thanks to them for having us over in their home, and thanks to Stephanie Szabo for being their helper too!
MOVING ON....
The next course was the soup or salad course. Our group had the
opportunity to have this portion of our meal in Charles and Tasha Wittsell's home. They chose to serve us a swanky salad shown below served with a nice glass of red wine.
VIDEO
A sneak peek of what we experienced with the salad course in the Wittsell's home. We were treated like royalty with just the salad course! Charles and Tasha are an amazing and super vibrant couple! Thanks to them for hosting us! Enjoy the below video if you wish!
MOVING ON.......
The next course was the main entree dinner course. Our group had the opportunity to have this portion of our meal at Jason and Brooke Cocomise's home. They are such a fun and lovely couple! T'was soooo happy to have the main course with them. Thanks to them for opening up their home and having us over and also to Callie Cocomise for being their helper!
VIDEO
Here's a sneak peek of what we experienced during the main course in the Cocomise's home. Of course, it was Italian! ....oh and soooo good. Pasta with Brooke's special stuffed meatballs! Enjoy the video below if you wish!
MOVING ON....
The next course was the dessert course. Our group had the
opportunity to have this portion of our meal in Steve and Tarah Hercus' home. They are such a friendly and super talented couple! It was sooo nice to kick back and relax with this course in their home. Thanks to them for opening up their home to us!
VIDEO
Here's a sneak peek of what we experienced during the dessert course in the Hercus' home. Enjoy the below video if you wish!
This is like the ultimate dream kitchen in my book at least! Stainless steel everywhere, and pot and skillets hung from the ceiling like a master chefs kitchen.
....and the Mr.'s man cave is classically rocking with instruments
...and kneeling chair....you sit on your knees in it instead of how you would normally sit.
...and their bed is hung from the ceiling. It doesn't touch the floor. They did this themselves.
....Wow, I have to say that Steve is the ultimate handy man husband. Who would think to have a hanging bed from the ceiling that they did themselves. Impressed!
We finished off the dessert course with a little glass of white wine and that was it! My groups dinner from start to finish went from 4:30pm-9:45pm. Wow! What a night well spent with friends, married and single! What a great extended family fun time this was! I hope we can do it again sometime in the future!
HQ SINGLES BRUNCH!
That same Sunday morning, we had a local HQ singles brunch. It was a chicken and waffles motivational brunch for the HQ singles, but since I knew the Progressive Dinner was later that night, I kept my diet at brunch and didn't have any gluten, and just had the below plate of fruit. Yummy enough! Here are a few pics from that brunch. I had a crazy super hectic busy day yesterday with prior commitments that kept me restrained to time, so I couldn't stay for it all, but stayed as long as I could.
...had a lovely table. I sat with Ben Young, Andrew Miiller, Paulette Corey, Katherine Harmon, and Sarah Stewart. All masculine and feminine lovelies! :-)
Going back to last week....a fun evening and dinner with Jessie and Ariel Hester. Wow! It's hard for me to believe.... I use to have them over when they were AC students, and now they are married and having me over! Life!
VIDEO
BELOW: Deepika Azariah and I tried out the new health food restaurant in town called "The Real Cafe"
where everything is organic and grass fed meats, etc. I absolutely
like it! We both tried the stir fry...mine shown below. The food is healthy and delicious too! The food was great,
but I have to say having a friend like Dee made it even better. This
gal classically rocks! Anyone is blessed who has her as a friend.
Thanks to Tarah H. for tweeting about The Real Cafe when she
went...that's what gave us the know and incentive to go! The lovely
Sherry B. and I went out to Coolgreens one evening last week too, but
unfortunately, I
somehow didn't take any photos. ;-( Too bad for the records, but I
wanted to say something so Sherry knows how much I think she classically
rocks....sweet gal! :-) Good times with friends! Friends are such a
blessing, and to be able to get together often with them is an even
bigger one. We're all going to try to take advantage of that even more
this year than ever!
With 80 degree F weather in February this past weekend, the niece and I took advantage of it and took a walk after services. So fun! My niece is such a joy!
She didn't want to leave when I told her it was time to go back inside. Look at the face! :-)
......still keeping up with piano last week. My piano teacher had me to review key signatures with the circle of fifths. Surprisingly, I remembered some of it from way back in like 1987 when I learned it as a little muchkin! Moving forward now!!!!!......No social good times this week...all in balance....but the week after next. Just kidding! We'll see what happens.....so much work and overcoming to be done! Life is exciting!
RECIPES to Appetizers that I made for Local Progressive Dinner if you want....
Stuffed Jalapeño Peppers!
(got these recipes from Pinterest....can't claim these recipes as my own.)
INGREDIENTS
12 jalapeno peppers
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
2 cloves minced fresh garlic
8 oz cream cheese
1 cup sharp cheddar cheese
12 pieces of turkey bacon's
DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 400 F. Cut peppers in half as shown and take out all the seeds. Throw seeds away. Melt cheeses together, and then mix in all other ingredients evenly in with cheese. Fill each pepper with the mixture. Cut turkey bacon slices in half. Wrap a half a slice of turkey bacon around each filled pepper and secure with a tooth pick. Place in oven and bake for 20 minutes, and voila....yummy stuffed jalapeno peppers!
CHOCOLATE DIPPED MANDARIN'S
INGREDIENTS
8 seedless mandarin's (halo's/tangerine's work best)
8 oz semi sweet chocolate
course sea salt (note this is not the regular table salt...it's super course)
DIRECTIONS
Peel mandarin's. Melt Chocolate in a double burner sauce pan, so chocolate won't burn. Dip half a mandarin in the melted chocolate, put on plate, and sprinkle course sea salt over the mandarin half with the chocolate. Let cool to harden. Repeat process until done.
