My Easy Entertaining Menu While on Vacation

I love inviting friends and entertaining them at home. WIth the past two years being kept apart from seeing frineds and familiy loved ones, we took advantage of the recent lifted COVID restrictions and entertained a few friends at our vacation home.

We invited Pastor Sue, Florence and our dear friends, D and D. We asked them to come to our vacation home for a dinner party on Thursday, the last night of our week long holiday.

God seemed to know exactly What we needed the day before the party - a cooking day! Wednesday was a rainy day which started drizzling in the morning and lasted into the end of the evening. We took advantage of the indoor time and prepared the following dishes for our dinner party for our friends. Appetizers - egg salad with cumcumber and cheese slices on rice crackers - multigrain taco chips with medium salsa sauce

Main Coursse - beef / pork meat loaf and roasted pork tenderlion served with a homemade mushroom sauce

Side dishes - A steamed vegetable plate - carrots, broccoili, bean sprouts, orange peppers prepared in the Korean style - home made pickled carrot and turnip sticks - baked cauliflower with cresty cheese topping - Korean glass noddles with sliced red pepper, bean sprouts and sllces of meat Desserts - Plate of mixed sweets made up of almond cookies, peanut cookies, moon cakes and Chinese rice crisps - Malaysian mixed fruit, palm seeds, shredded coconut salad with coconut milk. Pastor Sue helped me to peel the vegetables and we even bought some extra dishes from the Collingwood Reuse Store to pretty up our dining table.

The dinner party was a hit! Our guests loved our dishes and enjoyed themseleves very much. With all the food and desserts served to them, we talked and talked and our guests stayed well past 11:00 p.m.

Florence, and D. called us the next day and thanked us profusely for a great dinner. They loved everything and Florece remarked that she had never had such good food at any of the parties she had attended previously.

I was delighted as I made some of these dishes for the first time! Happy that I could try my hands at these new dishes which I learned to cook watching youtube during the pandemic lockdown!

R.T. Vacationing in Collingwood, Ontario, Canada

P.S. Here are some of my favourie dishes served to our guests and ingredients needed for them: Ground beef meat loaf - Put 2 LBS OF ground meat in a big bowl and mix 1/ 2 cups each of chopped celery, onions, and ketchup, bread cubes, 1 package onion powder, and an egg. Coat meat well with all the ingredients. Top with with a ketchup glaze. Bake at 375 degree for 45 to 50 minutes.

Baked cauliflower - 1 full head of cauliflower. Steamed cut cauliflower until veggie is a little soft. Mix 2 eggs, 1/4 cup of olive oil, 1/2 cup of milk, 1 tablepsoon of papprika, salt and pepper, and 2 tablespoons of flour. Mix all the ingredients well.

Put steamed cauliflowers in a baking dish; pour the flour milk mixture over cauliflower. Bake at 375 degrees for 20 -25 minutes. Sprinkle 1/2 cup grated cheese on top. Bake until cheese melt and golden brown.