Considering I’m a blogger with a page devoted to healthy recipes, it’s no surprise I love good ol’ home-cooked meals. As exciting as trying out new restaurants is, I get the same buzz from testing out new recipes..when everything falls into place, that is. Fortunately I have a friend who shares this interest (hey Malv :)) so we decided to host a dinner party last night for 5 of our friends…catered by yours truly.

After spending an hour browsing every aisle in Sainsburys (which could have easily turned into 2 had we not been running out of time), we finally got busy (and messy) in the kitchen. With TLC as the key ingredient (corny? You betcha ;)), our menu consisted of the following:

Starters

 • Crudités with houmous & cottage cheese

 • Prawn bruschetta mixture stuffed in peppers

• Sesame glazed carrots

Mains

• Salad with a choice of either Caesar dressing or balsamic vinegar

• Taco chicken in lettuce wraps, served with taco boats, guacamole & cottage cheese

• Paprika roasted butternut squash

• Chinese broccoli and mushrooms

• Miso glazed salmon on a bed of avocado (I had to chuck it in somewhere)

• Cold sautéed spinach

 And of course no meal is complete without DESSERT 🙄 ***see note below***

• Fresh strawberries, grapes & cherries

 • Hot H2O with lemon/green tea, served with biscotti fingers

• Mini pots of heaven Gϋ

 • 0% Greek yogurt and/or vanilla Alpro soy yogurt with a selection of toppings including:

                o M&M’s

               o Chocolate granola

              o Dried apricots

             o Dates

            o Milk & white chocolate chips

           o Ferrero Rochers

          o Peanut butter

          o Chocolate syrup

         o Agave nectar

        o Maple syrup

Click here if you want to see some pictures

The verdict: as our guests couldn’t stop raving about the various dishes, I have a feeling we got their drool of approval :lol:. Everything turned out better than expected and both my stomach and taste buds were satisfied…and stuffed!

The best part: knowing which all ingredients went into my dinner AND the fact that it scores an A+ in the health department!

***Random F.Y.I. about me: during the last wedding I attended, I actually hounded the waiter to get a move on it with serving the dessert…I have issues 😳 !