About a year and a half ago I started a dinner club with a small group of friends. Being home with the kids, I felt disconnected from the working world. I missed my friends and being able to meet up with them for dinner or drinks after work. With money tight and children at home, it just wasn't possible to go out to dinner or for an occasional drink with friends. Instead, I took advantage of the fact that I cook every day for my family. I'd had a standing dinner invitation for two of my close friends, Victor and Martha each week. They would come for dinner each Thursday and we would catch up on our lives and eat, laugh and drink wine. The Dinner club came about by accident as an extension of this weekly dinner with Martha and Victor. I'd reconnected via Facebook with my old friends Paul and Maritza and extended an invitation for them to join us for a Thursday dinner. And...Wow! it was so much fun. I couldn't remember a time we laughed so much...we had so much fun that we talked about doing it again the following week. Everyone insisted that they would bring a dish next time so I didn't have to cook the whole meal. Then we all started talking about what type of food to bring the following week and unknowingly, the Dinner Club was born.
The dinner club works like this. We meet about once a month and the dinners are themed potluck dinners. (see bottom of post for a list of themes we've had and some upcoming themes for this year) Everyone contributes a dish (Home cooked or purchased) and wine/beer of their choosing to share with the group. To make it easy to communicate with all our 'Dinner Clubbers' as I call us, I set up a group page on Facebook. It allows me to send out invitations and communicate with the group members easily. Everyone sees the communication threads and are able to comment and post what dish they plan to bring. We post pictures of all the awesome dishes and post recipes to share with the group. We have about 30 members to date. Don't panic though, not everyone comes each month. Typically, our dinners are about 12 people but some of our popular dinner clubs get big! Like last year, this year's Cinco de Mayo dinner club was also big! But this year was by far the biggest...we had 27 people for dinner club, 17 adults and 10 kids. We rented a bouncer for the kiddos and set up outdoor movies to keep them happily entertained.
As you can see from the blog photo at the top, our house is not big so all the adults huddle around the dining room table with a folding table extension and plastic lawn chairs and we sit and eat together. (It's cozy.) I love that we are all seated at the table together rather than standing around or sitting scattered about to eat. Sitting down at a table makes it special and allows everyone to talk and share their stories so everyone can hear and be a part of the conversations. It's like a family get-together...it gets loud with laughter and conversations and most importantly, it's always fun.
It makes for a wonderful night out with our friends for not a lot of money and the kids get to have fun too. Much better than spending a fortune at a restaurant for dinner and a bottle of wine and then add a sitter to the tab, it gets expensive.
If you ask me what makes this Dinner Club work so well month after month, I would have to say it works well because of all our friend's enthusiasm and continued support of these dinners. Every month, I am amazed at how excited everyone is to come. Reading the posts and comments on our Group page as they decide what to make for these dinners. I'm always impressed as I watch the headcount rise as the dinner date approaches. I am so thankful for these friendships and gladly open my house up to spend time with all these amazing people each month.
Here's a highlight of some of the awesome recipes and dishes shared at our last Cinco de Mayo Dinner Dinner Club. Everything was incredibly delicious! Enjoy!
(adapted from a Penzey’s
recipe card)
2-3 lbs boneless beef chuck roast
2 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp oregano
2 tsp coarse salt
3 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 15 oz can beef broth
Place all ingredients into crock pot. Cook on low overnight. Shred meat and remove any connective
tissue/fat that didn’t cook down. [Optional
step: cool to let fat harden on top and then skim off.] Mix meat back with cooking juices and cook
for another hour, tasting and seasoning as needed.
Serve with tortillas, cilantro, onions and lime wedges.
Chicken and Shrimp Enchiladas with Jalapeno Cream Sauce
by Lori Castellon
(slightly adapted...I added chicken to this recipe to extend my shrimp, since the crowd was large... recipe from damndelicious.com)
Mango Avocado and Arugula Salad with Cilantro Lime Dressing by Gina Overholt
(recipes from Laylita.com and allrecipes.com)
Cream Cheese and Jalapeno Stuffed Rolls
by Paul Healy
Pillsbury Dinner Rolls (in the tube)
1 cup chopped jalapenos
8oz. Cream Cheese
Roll out dinner roll dough into individual rounds and place 1T of cream cheese and 1 tsp chopped jalapenos to the center of the dough. Fold dough over to enclose and place seam-side down on a cookie sheet. Bake 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes or according to dinner roll package.
Slice plantains into 1/2 inch rounds and lightly fry in oil. Serve.
(recipe from thepioneerwoman.com)
Here's the rest of the amazing dishes we had at our Cinco de Mayo Dinner Club. Unfortunately, I did not get the recipes to these dishes below to share with you all but still wanted to share the photos. (If I get the recipes after I post this, I will update the blog to include them.)
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| Homemade Guacamole by Jaime and Neidin Perez |
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| Nopales Salad by Victor Aguirre |
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| Homemade Guacamole by the Butterworths |
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| Homemade Salsa by Victor Aguirre |
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| Ceviche by Norma Michaelis |
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| Jamaica by Victor Aguirre |
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| Menudo by the Ford-Smith Family |
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| Pozole by the Ford-Smith Family |
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| Lime Cracker Cake by Victor Aguirre |
Potluck themes of past Dinner Clubs:
Italian Dinner Club, Chinese New Year Dinner Club, Mediterranean night (Greek food), Tapas night (Small Spanish dishes) and Martinis and Appetizers night (This was my husband's birthday).
We also had a Comfort Food night which was our anti-Valentine's Day dinner club. Our menu consisted all foods comforting... Nachos with guacamole, Chili dogs, mac and cheese, fried chicken, strawberries and chocolate cake. It was awesome!! (no salad though :))
Southern Cooking night, St. Patrick's Day (Irish food or something green), Christmas dinner and Make your own Sliders dinner club. And then we had our Garlic Dinner Club where all dishes highlighted garlic as a main ingredient.
Our next Dinner Club this weekend will be Cajun/Creole Cooking which is going to be awesome! Some dinner ideas we have in mind for this year are: Caribbean night, Summer BBQ, a Halloween-inspired Dinner and Asian fusion cuisine just to name a few.
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