Semi-monthly Potluck

Yesterday we had our little group over for our semi-monthly potluck dinner/games night. We had been talking about doing a gourmetten for quite some time now and I had decided that when it was Ryan and my turn to host, this is what we would do. Such fun! My family does gourmetten on a semi-regular basis (on most major things like gift exchange and perhaps a birthday or two) and we just had one with the Sikma side of the family. So, being inspired by both but more so the latter, I sent out a list of ideas to the participants and from there we decided on what each would contribute. We did a stir-fry style, with pork, chicken, beef, assorted veggies and hamburger. I made a few sauces such as terryaki, sweet and sour and a creamy garlic sauce, and provided others such as peanut sauce and hoisin sauce.

When I host I do have a tendency to focus on little things, like how my table looks and how my house looks. It's an obsession for me for my house to be spotless (or nearly there) and my table to be 'pretty'. Remember my table from last year? Well this year instead of doing a Christmas-y theme, I decided to do something a little different. I love browns and creams so I decided to work with that. This table cloth is actually a chocolate brown...

Since I only owned a white table cloth, it was something I would rather have not ruined just in case something like spilled wine would happen. So, Camia and I headed to Zellers in search of a table cloth that would suit the purpose. I saw one, the one above for $20 and figured that if I used 160.000 of my HBC points to pay for it, I would only end up spending a couple of buck on a table cloth I could use again and again. When I came to the till, the cloth rang up to $15 and I only had to use 80.000 of my points, leaving the difference a small $6 and change for a table cloth I quite liked. It's not free, and still cost $6, but $6 is a whole lot better than $20! It also came with 8 napkins, so I brainstormed how to make or get napkin rings without breaking the bank too...after all, it wasn't a NEED, but a want. In my Christmas bin, I pulled out 3 candle holders I had bought at the VV Boutique last year for $2. I took them apart and came up with this after tying them to the napkin with ribbon from my stash:

I loved the look and it made me feel even better when it was received by everyone else too. And to think that assembling them took me all of maybe 10 minutes. We had such a yummy dinner

and the fellowship was wonderful too.