Dinner for Eight

Corey and I are having a dinner party tonight with six of our friends. I thought I would share the menu with you:

• Iceberg wedge (by request)

• Pesto grilled chicken


• Tomatoes provencal


• Steamed green beans with bacon and lemon


• Cooking Light bacon mac and cheese


• Raspberry ice cream cake
  

Corey and I drag out the good china and silver almost every time we have friends and family over....what good is all of that gorgeous china if you never use it?! What I find amazing is how people complain about hand-washing china....once you get an extra pair of hands and two sinks full of hot water (one soapy, one not), it actually takes LESS time to hand-wash the dishes than it does to rinse and load the dishwasher. And good silver actually acquires a superior patina with steady use, PLUS it doesn't tarnish as quickly. So we've dragged out the good china for tonight.

Also, as you can tell from the photo, I am a big fan of mixing and matching china. We didn't register for a full set of anything....instead we picked complimentary patterns (in our case, greens and golds) that would look nice on the table together and only registered for the pieces that we'd actually use. So we ended up with dinner plates and dessert plates in four different china patterns (two fine, one everyday, and one Christmas pattern) that we mix and match in new combinations whenever we have people over.

I thought I would share the recipe for the raspberry ice cream cake that we are having tonight, as I was able to make it ahead and freeze it overnight. I adapted this from a Martha Stewart Food recipe that I found a few months ago. Also, it only has three ingredients, so it is perfect for cooks on a budget or cooks who need a little help from premade items.

RASPBERRY ICE CREAM CAKE

Recipe Notes

This dessert is so easy, and it can be made as early as the night before you would like to serve it. After preparing, just wrap in foil in the freezer and take it out to thaw 30 minutes before you would like to serve it.

Ingredients

• Premade butter pound cake


• Ice cream (I used Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla)


• Raspberries

Instructions

1. Slice pound cake horizontally into three sections.


2. Spoon softened ice cream onto the bottom layer of pound cake and spread around evenly with the back of the spoon.


3. Top with a single layer of raspberries.


4. Add second layer of pound cake on top of raspberries. Repeat steps 2-3, then top with top layer of pound cake.


5. Wrap in foil (I double-wrapped mine to prevent freezer burn) and freeze for at least four hours and up to overnight.


6. Set out for 30 minutes before serving.