Plans

Every now and then my sister in law and I like to get together, and just cook for hours. We let other people clean up the mess we make - they get the glorious meal - everyone's happy. We've made lobster thermidor and other complex dishes. Since neither of us has any real culinary training it is often (what's a nice phrase?) an adventure, in timing and general execution, but we eventually finish the dish and it tastes well.

This is what we have on deck for Saturday....

• Appetizers: Brie baked with ??? on top. (To be decided, she's assigned that one, not me.) Crackers, some cherry tomatoes and carrot sticks with ranch dressing for the kiddos.
• Spinach salad, with mushrooms, egg, and a warm bacon dressing; sourdough bread
• Cornish hens, stuffed with shrimp, andouille sausage, rice & cornbread (we'll bake plain chicken for the kids and just let them try a little bit of the stuffing, it's kind of out there for them....) Green beans with almonds & a touch of lemon on the side
• Junior's recipe: carrot cake/ cheesecake cupcakes. I'll be making these Friday evening

My sister in law will also visit the wine store and get something nice to go with all of this (perhaps more than one bottle, something for the early stuff, and then with the main meal. But the cooks can't have tooooo much or I, um, we will end up sitting on a couch staring at the tv....)

Is anybody hungry?