Dinner Menus

Dinner is the meal we are most likely to want to work for and savor. It’s a capping of the day’s accomplishments and a celebration to look forward to every 24 hours. The final meal of the day can be carefully planned to perfection, anticipated and enjoyed with others or simply on your own, but spontaneous gatherings with friends often have a magical quality no amount of preparation can achieve, other than keeping on hand what you need to whip up a meal on a moment’s notice.

One trick to pulling off a successful dinner party is to not make it too complicated. You can serve absolutely anything you want to, but if you are looking here for menu suggestions you’ll find that most of these consist of a main course with salad and bread as accompaniments. You can make the salad a little ahead of time and don’t have to be juggling the timing of hot vegetables along with other dishes. Bread is always a good addition and keeps you from worrying about whether you have enough food. If you love to bake desserts, great – you can do that ahead of time, too, but it is also permissible to serve a dessert you didn’t prepare, such as ice cream, sherbet, fruit, or even cookies someone else made. If you are determined to show off a baked dessert, brownies are pretty quick and easy. If a guest offers to bring something, dessert, salad or bread are all good candidates.