School-Night Dinner Party
Grilled Steak, Blended Chimichurri, Fluffy Cream-Cheese Mashed Potatoes, Caesar Salad, and a Broma Bakery Cookbook Exclusive Mixed-Berry Skillet
A dinner party, on a school night?! Going to class 7 hours a day on top of creating content has been draining on my free time to say the least. I have to be super-efficient with my time if I still want to be able to have a social life, which brings us to a SCHOOL NIGHT DINNER PARTY. It seems impossible to cook, clean, and host a dinner party for 6 between getting home from work and my bedtime of 10:30pm. But trust me it is more than possible and I highly recommend and I’m going to break down exactly how I did it with menu, recipes, and shopping list!
For this week’s school night dinner party I got home around 5pm, sat on the couch for 30 minutes scrolling, started cooking at 5:30, and had dinner on the table by 7 (with a little help grilling the steaks). My friends very kindly helped cleanup after but I was in bed by 11pm. Having a busy life and maintaining friendships is HARD, but having good friends one of the best parts of life and hard things are worth putting effort into. I hope this makes it a little easier to put some time with friends, family, whoever on the calendar and have an amazing school-night dinner party.
What’s on the menu?
Dessert
My friend and one of my favorite creators, Broma Bakery, just released her new cookbook Sweet Tooth (out in bookstores and online now! I have already purchased 3 copies), so of course, I had to make a recipe from it. If you’re unfamiliar with her, her recipes are TRULY never miss, and she is one of my favorite follows. She gave my substack followers a free cookbook exclusive for her mixed berry skillet recipe, which comes together in 15 minutes of prep and is gluten-free. I paired it with some Vanilla Strauss Ice cream and it was 10/10, legitimately nothing was left in the pan.
Salad
A Caesar salad is a classic; I found this new dressing (It’s called Girardis) I really like it; and I definitely recommend it for this recipe if you can find it. You can also add croutons to this but I didn’t since I’m gluten-free and didn’t want to make them homemade bc it’s kind of a hassle.
Side
We learned how to make these perfectly fluffy mashed potatoes in culinary school, and I can never go back. It’s like I’ve never tasted a mashed potato before. They melt in your mouth and are like soft, fluffy clouds.
Protein
Steak is one of my favorites to cook for a crowd. It’s easy to prep, cooks fast, and you can send your significant other outside to cook it while you cook inside so the kitchen’s not too crowded.
Sauce
Blended chimichurri is a fast and easier swap for traditional chimichurri (which is made with 30 min of chopping). This recipe comes together in 5 minutes and perfectly compliments the steak.
Drinks
One of the best perks of being a student in Napa is the 25% student discount at the luxury grocery store across the street. They have a fantastic wine selection, of course, and the best discounts, so I get really nice wine for up to 50% off. I picked up this bottle of 2021 Hudson White Study on my way home, and it was delicious and paired really nicely with dinner . My neighbor who worked in the wine industry brought over a VERY nice bottle of red which he says he signed an NDA about but a 2018 Sonoma Valley Eco wine would be similar. Both paired deliciously with dinner.
What are we shopping for?
Instacart is a roll of the dice, in my opinion. Will you be cursed with a male shopper who doesn’t get the one thing you placed the order for and checks out before you pick a substitute? Perhaps. Unfortunately, it is very convenient, and you can copy and paste this whole shopping list into the app, too, so it’s what I recommend doing to save time.
I hope you enjoy! Happy hosting and have a great rest of your guy’s week!
Oh my gosh I am so glad you posted about Broma's cookbook! Have been following them for years and their chocolate chip cookie recipe has been my go to! Bought the cookbook so quick! 😍
This is a weird question---but do you know why I may not be able to access the pdf files when I click read? (For reference I am a paid subscriber).