Christina's Birthday Dinner Party!

First, I would like to apologize for my entire lack of food photos in this post. I'm an out of shape, rusty blogger. Once things started happening I completely forgot about my camera on the side table until long after my guests left.

October 23rd was my 27th birthday. My bosses Jeffrey and Linda had been trying to get up with me for weeks about going out to dinner, them cooking dinner, coming here for dinner, etc. Eventually when we had a plan in place, they had both had dental work so weren't much in the mood for chewing.

(recycled photo)

My butternut squash soup would do the trick perfectly for my birthday dinner party!

I used our rental home's nice dinnerware to make the evening feel more special. I find if you set the table ahead of time and make sure everything is at the ready it makes your guests feel special and the evening runs smoother. The dinner centerpiece was a huge, fresh salad I cut everything by hand for. Lots of the toppings were in small bowls so guests could customize the toppings based on their preferences.

As Johnny pointed out, the orange soup would look great served in these beautiful bowls! With the dinnerware being so busy, I chose to omit dinner decorations, and let the bold plates and bowls speak for themselves!

Appetizers were fresh shrimp cocktail my dad brought, olives, pickles, and bread with a vegetable tapenade. (<--Spell check wants me to change that to tapeworm -- ewwww!)

Dinner started with a huge salad. I used the seeds from the butternut squash as a crunchy topping to connect the courses.

For the seeds I simply tossed them with:

vegetable oil
paprika
garlic powder
salt
pepper

And baked at 350° for about 30 minutes, stirring them a few times to make sure they were evenly toasty and nobody stuck together.

Dessert was a delicious home made key lime pie my boss Jeffrey made from scratch! That's real whipped cream with key lime zest in it! So good!

Disclosure: There are paid links included in this post. Please note, it really was my birthday, and the photos and words are all genuine Christina, unaffected by this opportunity. Just simply a chance to earn a little cash for the upcoming wedding!