A Saute Dinner With Friends #SauteExpress #shop #cbias

One of the things that have been important to me and to Fred is growing our relationships with people from church. One of the ways we’re trying to do that is with some delicious dinner ideas. We want to keep them coming back, right? =)

He and I talked about who we have growing relationships with and would love to get to know better. Since I’m new to the area, I have a very tiny pool of people to choose from. We made a list of about 8 couples.

I made a long list of grocery items and I was going to need and I started searching on Pinterest for some tablescape and decorating ideas. I left all of my seasonal decorations back in Minnesota so I was starting over until I can get my stuff here. I headed to Walmart to start off getting things to make the table look fall-ish. Not only that, I needed a couple of serving dishes because neither of us had any. Look, we’re already starting to get things for a future home…awwww

There was a lot too choose from and it certainly wasn’t easy. I had to do all of the choosing myself and thankfully, Fred and I seem to have the same taste, but I’ll admit, he’s fun to shop with.

Next I went shopping for all of the groceries we were going to need. I wanted to wait until close to the party. I love fresh everything when possible, especially my veggies and meats.

As we got closer to the party, we’d only heard back from two couples. errrr Not good news. I’m determined to have a blow out one day. hahahaha Our party was on Sunday night and had hoped to hear from everyone else before the day showed up.

Well, we got to church and one gal apologized because she just isn’t an email person and hadn’t seen our email until that morning before church. The night before Fred had heard from our friend, Steve and he’d been in an bicycling accident and wasn’t going to be able to come. After church, Fred heard from another friend who’s wife ended up sick and they were one of the couples we’d heard from who had been able to come originally. That left us with only one other couple coming. Yea, I was a sad panda, but thankful for our friends who were able to come.



I headed over to Fred’s so we could start getting our dinner ready. We were going to have:

Chicken
Tilapia
Broccoli
Asaparagus
Potato Slices
Salad

I had bought Land O’Lakes Sauté Express® Sauté Starter in Garlic & Herb for the chicken, broccoli, and potato slices. Fred was going to use the Lemon Pepper with his tilapia. When I got to his place, he already had his asparagus cut along with his potatoes sliced. This is a man who is good in the kitchen. This was going to be another “first” for us and that was cooking a meal together. It went really well! He’s so fun to be in the kitchen with!

I got my chicken going and all I did was brown my chicken and add two cubes of Garlic & Herb Saute Express so it could saute. While that was going, Fred got the asparagus salt and peppered and melted some Garlic & Herb to pour over the potatoes. He just sliced the potatoes and baked them in the oven with the butter poured over them. He also chopped my broccoli so I could get that ready to steam as we got to the end of the dinner.

The best part was that this entire meal, to cook, took about half an hour. The chicken was the longest to cook and the rest was done in about 15 minutes. I’ll tell you, the last thing that was cooked was the steamed broccoli and added a cube of melted Garlic & Herb and honestly, they’re lucky that it made it to the table. I may have snuck a sample and it was scrumptious!

So, I allowed it to go to the table and we were all able to try a bit of everything. We did forget to make garlic bread, but stuff happens, right? What was so nice was our dinner was on the table just a few minutes after our friends arrived. We timed it just perfectly and I’ll admit, that’s something new for me. Usually food comes out a bit at a time and somehow (my Fred) was able to make it all happen on time!

We sat down with Bob and Gail and had an amazing time of fellowship. We oooo’ed and awwwww’ed over the food. I even tried the tilapia. shhhh don’t tell Fred I’m not a big fan of fish. He cooked it perfectly and the Lemon Pepper Saute Express he used made it delicious!

Our dinner together was wonderful and we all enjoyed what landed on our plates. The broccoli was devoured and none of us had anything left on our plates when we were done eating! We even had to wait a while to have dessert because we were all so full.

It was nice because it gave us time to get to know each other so much better. Fred and I had been on the mission trip to Peru with Bob, but there wasn’t a heck of a lot of time to just sit back and chat. As we digested our delish dinner, we talked about everything under the sun.

We finally had dessert and then it was time for Bob & Gail to head out and we needed to clean up so I could head home to my boys. We’re really hoping to make these dinners more of a regular thing and by having these Sauté Express® Sauté Starter cubes in my fridge, I’ll always be prepared in case we want to do something last minute.

And for the record, I’ve bought two more boxes and picked up a box of Italian Herb to try. I think, though, that since there’s also a Teriyaki flavor out as well, our next meal with be with that one! lol

Be sure to visit my Google+ page to check out my shopping trip and more pics of Fred and I in the kitchen getting ready and our dinner. =)

Do you have dinner parties and if you do, what’s your favorite thing to make?