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This weekend is already flying by!  It always goes by way too fast, especially when you’re trying to balance work and play 🙂  How was your weekend?  I had the wonderful opportunity to host a Buitoni Pasta Party for some of my friends Saturday evening, which included lots of good food, conversation and vino to wash it down.  Join me for a tasty re-cap!  

Friday . . . started with a quick morning bike ride before work.  I always love fitting in some activity if I can beat the super hot heat.  It’s really been getting to me here, so I haven’t been able to get many long rides in.  I’m hoping it will start cooling down after August.  After work I had a ton of errands to run, which included picking up groceries for the dinner party.  Once I got home and cooled down, I got to prepping and chopping and cooking so that there wouldn’t be too much to do on Saturday. Whew, long night, but I love being in the kitchen!

Saturday . . . morning was spent cleaning and finishing up the last few things for the party.  Chris and I also made the drive out to Pahrump to see my little 5-yr old sister’s first gymnastics/dance recital.  oh my goodness, lots of cuteness!!  Sure brings back a lot of good memories.  I LOVED my dance recitals, so much fun!

After getting back from the long drive out to Pahrump, we had a few hours to get situated and ready for our guests to arrive at 6:30pm.  Well, it turns out 4 of our guests (2 couples) had to cancel last minute 🙁 and we were forced to go to plan B:  Invite more friends!  There were only 5 of us total, but it really turned out to be a fun evening and we got to chat with some fairly new friends and catch up with one we hadn’t seen in awhile.  Always nice.

To start I made prosciutto wrapped stuffed dates and I have to say this is my favorite appetizer.  Salty, sweet, creamy all rolled into one tasty bite!

I used black dates, honey dates, and a few medjools from the China Farm date ranch and stuffed them with about 1/2 log of herbed goat cheese from TJ’s, 3 oz of 1/3 less fat cream cheese, and a dollop of honey, then wrapped them with thinly sliced prociutto and sprinkled with local basil.  They were divine and the perfect salty sweet combo.  mmmm  these are going to be a must on the party menu from now on for sure.

I also had a some crackers and roasted cashews for munching.  We chatted and enjoyed some 2007 Honig Rutherford Sauvignon Blanc.  This wine is great for summer!  I really enjoyed this one because it has a rich mouthfeel with butter and luscious fruit, but not a lot of oak. Perfection.  Here are the tasting notes from the 2008, but I would definitely say the oak and mineral are just accents, not the main component of this wine.

Peach, honeydew melon, white fig and floral notes are complemented by vanilla, nutmeg and lemon peel. Fruit forward, with a rich mid-palate accented by toasty oak, and a long, crisp, minerally finish.

Chris also had the crazy idea for a Pizza Atomica Challenge before dinner.  Now, if you recognize the word ‘atomica’, usually this means something that is really, really hot, like burn your mouth off hot.  Crazy, right?  So the details of the challenge were whoever ate the blazing hot pizza the fastest would win the challenge + this oh so fashionable t-shirt below (Chris used an iron decal that he made right before). hehe

And here are all the peppers!  We didn’t use all of them, but boy I didn’t want to go near them.  There were mostly serranos, as well as mild green and HOT orange peppers that I got at the farmer’s market.  I didn’t partake in this challenge, but I heard those orange ones were definitely HOT!

Here are the pizzas divided among 4 people.  I didn’t want my mouth on fire, so I was in charge of keeping time and seeing who finished first.

The winner finished in 1:24 and didn’t even break a sweat!  Everyone else was pretty much dying, crying and blowing their noses for some time afterwards.  Funny!

Ok, now on to the FOOD!

I won a contest through Foodbuzz to host a Buitoni Riserva Dinner Party during the month of July.  I received coupons for their new Riserva pastas and hosted a dinner party featuring them, along with a vegetable side dish.

I wanted to try the mushroom agnolloti, but the store that I went to only had the spicy beef and sausage version.  I wasn’t going to complain and gave it a shot!

For a sauce I made a batch of tomato sauce in the crockpot and it was ready to go by the time dinner rolled around.

To contrast the rich, dark and concentrated flavor of the cooked tomato sauce, I paired it with a fresh bruschetta topping made with local tomatoes, lots of fragrant basil, garlic, salt and pepper.  And finally to top it off I reduced down some balsamic vinegar to add a tangy sweet finish on top.  It was heaven!

Although this version of ravioli has quite a bit of sodium (yikes), they had a great flavor and just the right amount of heat that didn’t take over everything (like those pizzas).

For the vegetable side dish, I utilized the bounty of the farmer’s market and made simple roasted mini squash and potatoes with herbs de provence.

This is my absolute favorite herb blend and I like to put it on pretty much anything.

I saw these squash at the farmer’s market and just about squealed in delight at the sight of them!  I go crazy over anything mini.

Aren’t they precious?

I didn’t chop anything, but mixed them with a bit of olive oil, herbs de provence, garlic powder, salt and pepper and roasted them at 425 for about 20 minutes.  They cooked pretty fast since they were so teeny.

This was my favorite 🙂

All together now . . .

It doesn’t look like much ravioli but I actually only ate about half since they are so filling.

aaaaaand for dessert I decided to pair my love for limoncello with cream cheese and made a limoncello raspberry cheesecake.  Oh boy.  I made two versions, one alcoholic and one with just lemon, both which turned out really well.  I was expecting more people, so now I have way too many leftovers!

The first version was from CookingLight and only used cottage cheese.  I really liked these lemon cheesecake bars, although I would have liked to have more filling.  I swirled some raspberry jam on top too.

The next version was Giada’s limoncello cheesecake squares.  I used less butter, less sugar, used 1/3 fat cream cheese, added one egg white instead of all whole eggs, and some fresh raspberries inside.  This one was really good, although the liquor flavor was just a bit too strong.  I would use a 1/3 cup next time instead of half?

I’ve been getting more into coffee actually since we purchased that new coffee maker.  I don’t have too much when we do make it, but it’s just a nice ritual in the mornings.  I recently made the mistake of buying some Kona coffee to try because it is pretty expensive and of course I’ve found it to be my new love.  We’ll definitely have to save it for weekends and special occassions.  Alongside the cheesecake I did make a small batch of Kona coffee and it was pretty much heaven.

It was a wonderful evening!!  Thank you to Buitoni for the pasta! I always love having dinner parties with good food and friends 🙂

Well, today is for playing catch up and I’m not making the best progress at the moment.  That to-do list keeps growing and loading down my shoulder!  Thanks for stopping by & don’t forget to enter my ReGen giveaway!

What were you up to this weekend?