Weeknight entertaining

Weeknight entertaining is easy to do if you plan a little bit ahead. We enjoy seeing our friends in the city during the week as we are usually in the country on the weekends. So on the weekend, I knew my good friend MB was coming for dinner on Monday night. On Saturday, I started marinating my chicken, I roasted and peeled my golden beets for the salad and toasted the walnuts. Easy. Here’s my menu:

APPETIZERS
A platter of sliced soprasetta, thin breadsticks, fresh fennel sticks, a little bowl of basil olive oil with salt, pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice, pistachio nuts, Siracha peas and a large square of Spanakopita from the Greek store, warmed and cut into four.

DINNER
Baby spinach salad with roasted golden beets, toasted walnuts, goat cheese and a sherry vinaigrette (wash and chill spinach, cut beets, arrange all, make vinaigrette & drizzle)
Buttermilk roasted chicken (all your work was done on Saturday)
Corn on the cob (easy to roast in their husks, 350 degree oven for 25 – 30 minutes)
Tomato, mozzerella and basil with olive oil, salt and pepper (easy – just wash, slice and arrange)

DESSERT
Baklava with fresh strawberries (wash and dry berries, cut store-bought Baklava)

I wanted this dinner to be casual, easy and serve some of the freshness that is left from the farms upstate. I’d say I succeeded! All 4 of us were content and happy. You may think why salad/salad with the beets and tomatoes but the beet salad was served as a first course and the tomatoes and mozzerella were served with the meal and it didn’t feet that way. Both were delicious. Besides, I didn’t want a plate with just corn and chicken on it for the main meal. This chicken is my son Zach’s favorite. Try it and you’ll know why. Those of you that have young teenagers at home can even put this in the oven for you when you’re on your way home from work. I used to instruct Zach to do this over the phone when we still lived in Jersey.