The Best of Dinner Club

When Dinner Club was first born, John and I started with simple dishes, and then got progressively more complicated with our tastes, flavor pairings, desserts. We used Dinner Club as guinea pigs, and we served them tried-and-true dishes. We had some food we'd prepared for days (brisket), and some hastily thrown together (like the time we had dinner club 2 days after we got back from Hawaii - lasagna, rum cocktails and braised pineapple).

We have dinner club every 2 weeks, rotating between 3 couples. So John and I cook every 6 weeks, which amounts to about 8 times a year, if you count in scheduling conflicts and holidays and such. So we've probably made 20 meals for dinner club.

A few weeks ago, Kate suggested that we each host a Best of Dinner Club this year to celebrate the end of the year. Each couple would make one of their dishes that they'd made before. Instead of the host picking the dish, we let everyone else decide which of our 20 dishes they wanted to eat again.

Except I can't remember more than 10 of the things we've cooked for Dinner Club. The ones I remember are:

-lasagna
-Brisket
-Stuffed steaks
-Chicken rillettes
-Surf and turf
-Shrimp tacos
-Sesame chicken
-Ribs
-Chicken and dumplings
-Omelets (breakfast for dinner)
-Chicken cordon bleu

Out of 4 votes, 2 people voted for chicken and dumplings. I think people remember dish not only because it was delicious, but also because John and I completely botched the timing by forgetting this dish needs to simmer for an hour. So we served the dessert, pecan pie, first and the entree second.

To stretch out my NaBloPoMo action, I'm gonna what we cooked and recipes this weekend. You'll just have to wait!