Help! Hosting healthy dinner party?

Snakes and ladders

Silver Member
Hi guys!

I left my job, and have invited a few colleagues over for dinner tomorrow night to wave me off in style :D

There will be 6 of us. Now, I love cooking and have a bit of a reputation for dinner parties: before my healthy eating days, I cooked up huge feasts and people always left feeling like they were going to pop.

However - I fell off the wagon for a bit last week and am desperate to get back on. So I don't want to cook something unhealthy!

So here is the dilemma: What can I make that is healthy, tasty and leave my guests feeling satisfied (and willing to return!). :confused:

Any suggestions are welcome. They are all non-vegetarians (although obviously veggie ideas are welcome too) with massive appetites. I'm a confident cook, so even vague ideas would be welcome, as I might be able to turn them into a meal!

Thanks for your help!

SL xxx
 
Oops I've only just seen this! I would have suggested fajitas, you can make them fairly healthily and low calorie, means you can also limit how many you have and if they're hungry they can have extra! What did you go for in the end?
 
Hey Caroline,

That's a wonderful idea! I'll go with those next time.

In the end I went for something terribly unhealthy! A couple of them texted me saying that they were looking forward to tasting some authentic German food (not know for its healthiness!), so I caved in.

I'd been fermenting my own Sauerkraut, which was lovely, and I made mash. But the really bad part was the pork belly stuffed with German herb dumplings: fat and carbs overdose!

And then my boyfriend made a lovely apple crumble with real custard. I "only" had a moderate portion of each, and no seconds (which is already a big deal for me), but I did have a couple of glasses of white wine. So when I logged my meal on MFP, the calorie count for the dinner was over 2200 calories! :eek:
I knew it was bad, but not THAT BAD. :break_diet:

That should teach me! So even though I had been to a spin class and a Body Pump class that day, and had eaten very little for breakfast and lunch, I was still way over my calories. I think I had a net of about 2100 or something.

On the plus side, I've been very good all of this week (guilt) and I did thoroughly enjoy my dinner. The meat was melt-in-your-mouth soft (except the crackling) and the herbs had really permeated the meat. The stuffing was extremely morish. The gravy I made using the juices, some bones and veg was so aromatic, and the kraut was exactly as it should have been. The buttery mash was also (unsurprisingly, given the butter) delicious. Everyone enjoyed it, and everyone except me had seconds. Snakes was a proud hostess! :cool:

Felt so guilty the next day though that I went out on my road bike, clocked 36 miles, burned 1200 calories in 3.5 hours (and got stung by a bee...).

That made me feel better (not the bee, but the burn!), but it's definitely fajita time for me next time I host a dinner party! So thank you in advance from a future dinner-party-hosting-Snakes :)
 
Yeah but you know what, this is a journey which doesn't have any definite end, it's about making life long changes. Along the way, we can't avoid every unhealthy night, every dinner party, every night out. Those are the things that make life interesting! It's about learning to not go overboard, which it seems like you did great at, well done for not having seconds! And learning to the next day carry on as before, which you did so again well done. We can either sit back and watch life pass us by and those around us have fun whilst we work at losing weight, or we can get on, live life, enjoy it and do the best that we can. I know which I'd prefer! So well done to you for having a great night and keeping it in moderation!
 
Yeah but you know what, this is a journey which doesn't have any definite end, it's about making life long changes. Along the way, we can't avoid every unhealthy night, every dinner party, every night out. Those are the things that make life interesting! It's about learning to not go overboard, which it seems like you did great at, well done for not having seconds! And learning to the next day carry on as before, which you did so again well done. We can either sit back and watch life pass us by and those around us have fun whilst we work at losing weight, or we can get on, live life, enjoy it and do the best that we can. I know which I'd prefer! So well done to you for having a great night and keeping it in moderation!

Caroline, thank you for your kind words. And you are so right. I hadn't really thought about it in terms of a journey with no definite end, but that is what it is. I was quite happy with how I dealt with this night, and I didn't use it as an excuse to jump off the bandwagon, so I can feel good about that.

I want to be skinny, but I don't want to be one of those sour-faced skinny minis who refuses to eat anything but salad! Particularly as cooking is one of my passions and the only creative thing I'm actually good at! So rock on the occasional large meal :)

SL x
 
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