auntdot
Head Chef
- Joined
- Aug 25, 2004
- Messages
- 2,418
If you are looking for a meat dish, beef bragiole is one that I remember at least from the sixties.
The prep work is not overly onerous but it does take some time.
Antipasto platters have been around for years and you can get ingredients in most supermarkets (OK, most of it will be from the can and jar and some deli meats, but have done some that are quite respectalbe. Of course if you can find an Italian deli you would be all set). Prep takes almost no time and covered with cling wrap the dish can be made a few hours before.
Also an antipasto always gives people a chance to relax, have a glass of wine (or two) and talk.
Then a pasta course. Maybe fettucine with clam sauce, or shrimp fra diavolo over spaghetti, or can make a baked ziti (can be prepped the night before and cooked before service, or cooked and warmed at the party).
Meat course, or seafood, and some sort of veggie dish.
Or salad.
And if you can find some desert that will travel from an Italian bakery/deli before you leave NJ, one that will keep a day or two, you have that knocked.
Don't know if this is too much.
The most important thing is you are all together, so don't kill yourself. It is wonderful you still have your parents.
If it doesn't quite match what was at the first event, well, your parents may not even remember the menu themselves. I don't remember mine, of course we ate almost nothing because we had to mingle so much. And that was a little less than thirty years ago.
Enjoy.
The prep work is not overly onerous but it does take some time.
Antipasto platters have been around for years and you can get ingredients in most supermarkets (OK, most of it will be from the can and jar and some deli meats, but have done some that are quite respectalbe. Of course if you can find an Italian deli you would be all set). Prep takes almost no time and covered with cling wrap the dish can be made a few hours before.
Also an antipasto always gives people a chance to relax, have a glass of wine (or two) and talk.
Then a pasta course. Maybe fettucine with clam sauce, or shrimp fra diavolo over spaghetti, or can make a baked ziti (can be prepped the night before and cooked before service, or cooked and warmed at the party).
Meat course, or seafood, and some sort of veggie dish.
Or salad.
And if you can find some desert that will travel from an Italian bakery/deli before you leave NJ, one that will keep a day or two, you have that knocked.
Don't know if this is too much.
The most important thing is you are all together, so don't kill yourself. It is wonderful you still have your parents.
If it doesn't quite match what was at the first event, well, your parents may not even remember the menu themselves. I don't remember mine, of course we ate almost nothing because we had to mingle so much. And that was a little less than thirty years ago.
Enjoy.
.
Just pretend that hammer is a cast iron skillet! 
