A Summer Dinner-ish Party

Take a peek inside the menu I planned for a summer dinner-ish party for my family. I wanted to do something to thank them for all of their incredible generosity in helping with my wedding, so I wanted this menu to be slightly elevated and fun, while still being simple and approachable.

You might be wondering, “What is a dinner-ish party?” And that’s a great question. In this case, it’s what happens when the time that works for everyone to get together is 3:00 in the afternoon 🙂

The menu criteria was simple:

1. Easy to transport (because ‘dinner’ was at my grandma’s house)
2. Satisfying, but not too heavy
3. Elevated, but not too fancy

I started by identifying a few ingredients, mainly summer produce, that I knew I wanted to use and planned around them. I came up with a variety of appetizers that I knew would go over well and had varying levels of complexity.

So here it is: A Summer Dinner-ish Party Menu

1. Charcuterie Board
   1. The key here is to have variety in flavors and textures. I chose three different meats (prosciutto, salami, summer sausage). Three cheeses (one soft and mild, one hard and sharp, one hard and mild). Pistachios. Honey. Raspberries. Apples.
2. Peanut Butter Blondie Bites
   1. This one was kind of an experiment. I used my recipe for gluten-free peanut butter blondies, but put it into a mini muffin tin instead of an 8×8 bar pan. This made it simple to have bite-sized servings without any extra cutting.
3. Marinated Olives
   1. I followed a recipe from JennEatsGoood, and it was delicious. This was one I was able to prep ahead of time and just transfer to a serving dish when it was time to eat.
4. Tomato and Corn Salad
   1. This recipe is from the Wishbone Kitchen Cookbook. It was definitely a crowd favorite. It’s a mix of sweet corn, cherry tomatoes, olive oil, basil, chives, lemon juice, and some seasoning. I’ve made it a few times since then and cut everything up smaller to make it into a dip instead of a salad. Both ways are incredible.
5. Goat Cheese, Peach Jam, and Pistachio
   1. It’s as simple as it sounds. I topped goat cheese with the peach version of the jam I talked about in this post and chopped pistachios. I served it with some crusty bread (literally just gluten-free bread that I tore into chunks and toasted). This was maybe my favorite dish of the day.
6. Watermelon
   1. I chose this because it was easy to cut up ahead of time, it’s inexpensive, and it goes a looong way.
7. Chocolate Covered Pretzels
   1. Thank you Trader Joe’s
8. Popcorn
   1. This one was also great for its price-to-volume ratio.
9. Strawberry Lemonade
   1. I’ll admit, this wasn’t my favorite, and I wouldn’t do it again. At least not the same way. I modified JennEatsGoood’s peach lemonade recipe, but since I already had peaches elsewhere on the menu, I wanted to switch it up. I didn’t really account for the difference in sugar between peaches and strawberries, and this ended up being really tart. Everyone still drank it, but I’d love to give the recipe a do-over with peaches next time.

This menu ended up being the perfect combination of simple and fun, make-ahead vs. make on the spot, snacky yet filling, and elevated but not over-the-top.

What are your go-to dinner-ish dishes?