We had a friend and her two kids over for dinner last night (her husband couldn’t come at the last minute), and made a simple but great menu. I forgot to take photos of anything once it was done, though, so there’s only prep stuff!

Our dining table, built in 1790 or so, is lovely but only fits four comfortably. We could probably squeeze six if we had to, but it would be very, very tight. So we lined up the kitchen table with the dining table and diguised with placemats and things. I’d forgotten to get flowers, so I just lined up some plums and apples with the candles.

I made roasted potatoes with rosemary (Mom’s classic), steamed some green beans and dressed them with olive oil and lemon juice, and we grilled sausages from the Coop. Super-easy and I was able to do nearly everything before anyone arrived.

Potatoes—20 small new ones:

Quartered and boiled for about five minutes:

A handful of garlic to be crushed and thrown in with the potatoes while they roast:

Tossed the potatoes with olive oil and threw on a baking sheet with the garlic and some sprigs of rosemary:

Lots of salt and pepper, and then roasted in a 450 degree oven for about 45 minutes, tossing them once. They were perfect, crispy and creamy.
The beans:

were good too. We grilled 10 sausages and I laid everything out on a long white rectangular platter (sausages/beans/potatoes), which looked great and made clean up easier. Of course I didn’t take any photos of the finished food. We had a chocolate cream pie for dessert (Ben’s favorite), but I only have a pic of that from while it was chilling in the fridge:

Definitely a menu I’d cook again, though if the second adult had been at dinner I would have been short on potatoes.