A four course dinner for four

Jamie is out of town right now doing an Alpha Conference in New York. When he's gone, I always know that I'll need to give myself some time to be alone (its a great time to clean and do projects that I normally wouldn't think about doing)...but also to arrange time with other people so I don't get too lonely.

Tonight, because my mom is out of town, I invited my Dad and brothers over for dinner. Stan couldn't come because he was going to DC for something, but Dad and Jon and James all came over.

They came around 6:45 pm with baguettes, cheese, and wine in hand. It definitely gave the meal an extra dose of class! :)

So here is the augmented menu:

Homemade cream of mushroom soup (with baguettes)

Chopped ceasar chicken breast on top of ceasar salad on top of whole wheat pasta. (It was supposed to be just ceasar salad with chicken, but then I found that 3/5 heads of lettuce were frozen in the refrigerator. I ended up just putting the whole thing on top of pasta, which James said he liked, although I wasn't as enthusiastic!)

I also had bowls of different kinds of chips and sliced red bell pepper to add more food in case there wasn't enough.

Cheese course - a goat's milk gouda, a blue cheese, and a soft round cheese, all with baguette pieces

Chocolate chip cookies that James made

The yummy white wine went with the first three courses.

I think my favorite part was definitely the mushroom soup. I had been wanting to try to make it for a while (since I went to a restaurant with my grandparents and had really yummy mushroom soup there) and I was so happy with how it came out! ...and the fact that I guessed the ingredients perfectly when I was at the grocery store! :)

So, we ate around the table for the first three courses, then moved to the couches to watch the Office and Scrubs while we ate the hot cookies.

It was fun to be with my Dad and brothers again. There's something about laughing with your siblings that is different from laughing with anyone else. Maybe its just that your senses of humor are so familiar to each other that the familiarity adds sweetness and depth to the laughter.