Italian Dinner Party Theme

I love Italy and just about everything Italian that I come across.

As a English person, Italy has given so much. Where do I start?

How about the architectural style for our classical buildings, the best national food (pizza), those lovely red cars with their accompanying Formula 1 racing team.

Then there is even much of the English language, our road system and ancient history, all courtesy of the Roman invasion.

So what could be better than throwing an Italian dinner party for your friends?

I’m sure you already have a vision for the excellent, full-on Italian experience – the steaming pasta, the fragrant tomato sauce, the wonderful vegetables, the light fruity red wine, the energetic conversation, the loud opera music (OK, maybe not that last one!)

It’s all pretty excellent! Just provide it for your guests and they should have a lovely time.

So how should you plan an Italian dinner party?

First of all, look at your guest list. Does anyone on it detest Italy? Unlikely I know, but if there are one or two, cross them off the list now.

Then send out the invitations. Can you do this in a colourful, Italian way?

How about printing in green, white and red, to pick up on the Italian national colours? An image of the Trevi fountain, or a fancy red car would probably enhance the look as well.

You could also ask your guest to dress “Italian” or bring along something they love about Italy. That should get the conversation going!

Choosing the menu should be quite easy. Will it be pizza or pasta?

No, hold on a minute. There is much more to Italian food than that!

If you have been to Italy, or even to just a good Italian restaurant, you will know that wonderful fish, meats and vegetables appear throughout Italian cooking.

Just check out a cookbook or a cookery website, and you will get lots of ideas to impress your guests.

Pasta with seafoood in various forms, is one of my favourites.

Also, I like chicken with mozzarella cheese – quite a few recipes have this as a core ingredient.

The cheese course is good in Italy. Creamy , blue cheeses that go so well with a glass of red wine.

Then there are the deserts, or “Dolce” I should say. It’s all pretty good!

I think an Italian dinner party is an excellent themed evening. Do one soon and impress your friends!

Some Great Fall Dinner Party Recipes

Autumn is here and you can just feel it in the air!

After a summer of the usual lunches, dinners and entertaining, the Dinner Party season really begins with the arrival of fall and winter.

No matter if your guests are old or young, or whether you have a special theme for your dinner party, always attend to these simple basics…

Put plenty of advance thought and planning into your dinner party recipes, clean your home to make it look tidy and fresh and set the table nicely – these little things will greatly improve your dinner party and make sure it’s a success.

Are you stuck for a recipe? Chicken Parmesan is a fall dinner party recipe favorite, because you can prepare it quickly on a busy night.

Here’s a quick outline of how to prepare it…

Half an hour before dinner time, put the ingredients of the Chicken Parmesan together and put it in the oven, setting the timer for twenty or so minutes (this will depend on the size – make sure chicken is fully cooked before serving). It is a good idea to serve Chicken Parmesan with baked sweet potatoes.

After putting the Chicken Parmesan in the oven, you can turn your attention to the vegetables.

Take sweet potatoes which are fat and short. It is easy to bake them in the microwave oven. Put in one small sweet potato for each person at dinnerand set the timer for eight minutes.

With the main course well underway, you can assemble an accompanying salad, preferably made with spinach or mixed greens.

When the Chicken Parmesan, the orange sweet potatoes and the green spinach or mixed green salad are put on the plate, it will look great. And the combination will taste very nice too!

Take loose leaf spinach, wash and dry it, and then toss with spinach salad dressing. Slices of boiled egg can be used for garnishing, but this is optional.

For dessert, fresh baked apples will be great! But if you have a little more preparation time, why not try one of these apple recipes?

Here are some easy-to-make, fall apple recipes.

Apple Crisp

4 cups sliced apples, 1/2 cup oatmeal, 1/3 cup softened butter or margarine, 2/3 cup brown sugar, 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 cup flour, 3/4 teaspoon nutmeg.

Put sliced apples in a greased pan and mix the other ingredients till the mixture is crumbly. Then spread over the apples. Put this dish into the oven (preheated at 375 degrees) and bake for 30-35 minutes.

Apple Mallow Bake

6 cups peeled, thinly sliced apples, 3 cups mini marshmallows, 1/4 cup cinnamon candies.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Combine apples, cinnamon candies and 2 cups marshmallows in an ungreased 9×5 inch loaf pan. Put the remaining 1 cup of marshmallows on top. Bake this uncovered, for 45-50 min.

Apple Cake

4 cups diced fresh apples, 1/2 cup vegetable oil, 2 teaspoon vanilla, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 cup chopped nuts, 2 cup flour, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 2 cup sugar, 2 well-beaten eggs, 2 teaspoon baking soda.

Combine apples, sugar, vegetable oil, nuts, eggs and vanilla thoroughly. After adding flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon and mix. Bake in greased 9×13 pan for an hour. Serve the dessert warm with ice cream, cool whip or cream.

I do hope these delicious fall dinner party recipes help make your party a hit.

The Art of Organizing and Sending Dinner Party Invitations: Make Your Guests Want to Attend Your Function

Dinner parties can be so much fun.

They are a great way for adults to get together and enjoy each other’s company, and perhaps play a few games and get to know each other a bit better in the meantime.

On the quest for dinner party fun, dinner party invitations are the first stop.

The dinner party invitations can really make or break anybody’s dinner party, and so it is important to make sure that your dinner party invitations make the right first impression.

If your dinner party has a theme, you might want to consider using the theme on your dinner party invites, to let your guests know just what type of a good time they are in for at your affair.

Organizing Your List

The first step in sending out dinner party invitations is to properly organize your list.

When it comes to making dinner, you have to be sure that you are making the right amount of food, and so organizing your list of people to send invitations to is of utter importance.

It sounds crass to say, but don’t invite people to your dinner party, you either would not like to spend time with, or you think may not come.

It is a waste of time and a waste of paper, and if a person that you don’t want to show up to your dinner party actually does, it could ruin your fun and potentially ruin the fun of everybody else at the party as well.

It sounds good to invite people just so they feel invited, but if they take you up on your offer this time, you might be sorry!

Make Your Own Invitations

If you really want to get creative, you can make your own dinner party invitations.

A die cutter, some construction paper, and a nice calligraphy pen are really all a person would need to make some great dinner party invitations.

This is a great way to bring across your theme as well, so if you are having a themed party you can put some hint to your theme on your dinner party invites.

This will make people really want to come, so that they can see what you have got up under your sleeve!

Buy Pre-Made Invitations

Buying pre-made dinner party invitations is another way to go about sending them out. This is great for people who barely had the time to host a dinner party in the first place, let alone make their own dinner party invitations.

If that sounds like you, you might want to consider buying a set of pre-packaged dinner party invitations to send out to your guests. If you use good taste in selecting them, you can still get just as good of a response as if you made them yourself.

Having a dinner party can be a lot of fun, if you know what you are doing.

If possible, include the menu with your dinner party invitations so that people can opt out of a dish they don’t eat or are allergic to. These things do happen, and you want to be as prepared as possible.

Outside of that, have fun with your dinner party and your dinner party invitations. Your affair is bound to be a blast!

Hosting a Murder Mystery Dinner Party is Fun and Easy

If you have ever played Clue as a child, you have probably thought about having a murder mystery dinner party sometime or other as an adult. They are so much fun and all over television and the movies.

The fact that there is a mystery involved tends to draw lots of people to these parties and since everybody has a common goal – to solve the mystery – everyone has a fabulous time at the party.

What is a Murder Mystery Dinner Party?

During a murder mystery dinner party, a person invites several guests to a real dinner party. There is real food involved, but sometimes people wear costumes to these parties. Depending on what you want, obviously costumes are optional, but great fun.

Once arriving at the dinner party, everyone eventually finds out (that is if they didn’t already know) that they are suspects in the murder. The only thing is, somebody is guilty and everybody wants to find out who it is.

At the same time, the guilty person knows they are guilty and have to play along. Hopefully, you will have a reasonable actor to play the “guilty one”!

There are different clues that guests have to follow in order to find the truth.

As a host, you do not in fact need to know who the guilty one is. If you plan on playing yourself, there is a often a way of not knowing in advance who the guilty one is, so you can be fully involved in the game yourself.

How to Plan a Murder Mystery Dinner Party

Many people start out on the murder mystery party by picking up a kit. These kits are widely available and contain basically everything a person would need to know for the story. The kit usually contains items for everyone, including a story about what happens and then a packet or kit for everyone containing the individual clues and things they would need to play the game.

As many people as can play, are as many people as should be in attendance at the party. Needless to say, it is important to get a firm RSVP for these things. Imagine what would happen to the party if the murderer never showed!

Prize or No Prize, These Parties are Fun

Many party kits contain a prize or a suggestion of one for the winner, but the more interesting parties usually have other prizes, like movie passes or a free dinner somewhere. It doesn’t have to be anything big, but everyone likes to win something and that could only increase the fun at your murder mystery dinner party.

Having or going to a murder mystery dinner party can be a lot of fun, but it certainly isn’t your average party. If you are planning one for you and some friends, try and only invite people of whom you are fairly certain will come and add something to the game.

Poor sports sometimes slip through the cracks, as do flakes and neither of those adds to the fun of the party.

Thai Dinner Party Ideas

Anybody can throw a dinner party, and it shows; many dinner parties end up being boring, lame or awkward, despite the best (if misguided) intentions of the hosts.

Sometimes, to throw a great dinner party you have to think outside of the box and do something that everybody else hasn’t done yet.

Leave people talking about it the next day and inviting themselves over again, and you’ll know that you’ve done a great job.

A Thai dinner party is a unique way to achieve great results.

What is a Thai dinner party?

A Thai themed dinner party is exactly what it sounds like. Creative, exotic Thai dishes are served.

You can decorate your house accordingly and create an atmosphere that is reminiscent of Thailand or Thai restaurants.

You can take a Thai style dinner party in any direction you want. It could take on a luau style of theme, or it could become a more formal affair.

What are the key elements of a Thai dinner party?

Most importantly is, no surprise here, the Thai food that you will serve! Get creative and get authentic, never cop out and serve something you can pick up in a box in your grocery store’s international foods section.

Thai food offers a lot of pleasing elements and can combine spicy, sweet and sour flavors.

A great idea for a first course is a soup

Lemongrass based soups or coconut and curry soups or just a few of the many different, great Thai soups.

From there you can serve more appetizers, along the lines of wontons or even skewers.

Main courses can include fish and seafood, as well as chicken, beef or other meats, often served with noodles a la pad Thai.

Spicy peanut sauces and curries are typical sauces and rice can be served in separate bowls so that people can take as much or as little as they want, while choosing whether or not to combine the rice into the main entrée itself.

If you’re up for it, you can try to create your own spiced or creative ice cream flavor for a desert.

Or make Thai iced tea, serve traditional Thai beer or spice up a classic drink recipe, such as a mojito.

Really, the Thai food is the most important aspect of this kind of dinner party. The food is easy to prepare and the sky is limit, get as creative as you can possibly be!

Atmosphere is also important for a Thai style dinner party.

Candles and incense can used for ambience as can silk clothes or wall hangings. You could hang a colored cloth on the wall – make it bright and visually appealing.

Use exotic, brightly colored flowers such as orchids as centerpieces or spread them throughout the house as decorations.

Think about Buddhist themes, statues and overall simplicity and elegance. Bamboo and woods are other popular Thai accessories.

As mentioned, a Thai dinner party can go in any direction you want it to. If you have a great backyard and great weather, you can play some tribal music, serve tropical drinks and party.

To go more formal you can carefully pick excellent wines to match the spiciness of Thai food and relax with slow paced, stringed Asian music.

Either way, this is a great way to change up the routine and show your friends how the dinner party is really done!