Progressive Dinner Activity

Remember that Progressive Dinner Activity I mentioned in my previous post (if not, here it is)? It’s a fun activity for a group of people 10+.

I’m in a fellowship group for my church. There are at least 5 groups in the East Bay, some with catered to families with kids. Occasionally, we’ll meet with other groups to get to know them a bit better, but it’s always hard to find an activity that we all enjoy (usually our activity will consist of food). This past Friday, we hosted something called a Progressive Dinner.

Progressive Dinner

Here is how it works – You have homes host an appetizer, a main course, and a dessert. The host will cook the meals (preferably prior so they can join in on the fun), and the other groups will travel from home to home for each course. 3 Locations for 3 different courses, and everyone gets to travel to visit homes and enjoy food.

Our dinner was a bit more complicated since we had over 30+ people. Our variation was the 3 homes hosted all three courses, while the travelers would go from home to home. Different groups of people so that we could get to know everyone a bit better.

My group got fancy – we made menus for the table so that people could see what courses we were making. We also gave little goodie bags to everyone who came over (yup, overachievers!).

Our appetizer – Fresh crab cakes on a toasted Hawaiian bun with a dressed arugula salad

Crab cakes
^^^ Mounds and mounds of crab cakes!

Appetizer

Main course – Miso salmon on a bed of wasabi infused mashed potatoes and a side of seasoned green beans

Miso
^^^ Look at that glaze!

Main Course

Dessert – Cast iron s’mores (so easy and so fun)

Dessert

Smores

Smores Done
^^^ Mmm… Mmm… Mmm… Those crispy tops!

Then we gave out these cutie little goodie bags

Take Home

Goodie Bag

These treats were simple to put together – 1 graham cracker broken in half, half a Hershey’s bar, and 2 marshmallows, put together in a sandwich bag, and tied with twine and a tag. Want to recreate this? Just download and print my tag here!

What do you think about this activity? Is this something you can do? What are some other fun activities that big groups can partake in? Please give me some ideas because we need some fresh thinking!

With Love,
Jay
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Find my crab cake recipe here

The Past 5 Days (According to my iPhone)

The past 5 days have been so much fun! I’ve been going out a bunch, with friends and family.

Starting on Wednesday, look at this delicious roasted chicken! If you want to recreate it, check out my recipe here. With the leftover chicken, I usually make chicken salad for sandwiches. It’s a great recipe!

Chicken

Moving onto Thursday, my in-laws picked me up at 10am, and I spent the entire day with them, until 9pm. Most people would find this frightening, but I’m fortunate enough to have lovable in-laws. I’m not even lying to you. We went out for Dim Sum in a very well-known restaurant called Koi Palace (a must if you are ever in SF). Afterward we headed over to Westfield to shop in Union Square!

Here I spent a nifty amount on some clothes at Madewell. I’ve been eyeing a pair of jeans, and I figured it’s finally time to spend some money on some quality products. I’m at that age where it’s about quality over quantity, and it’s important to invest in key wardrobe staples. I’m happy to say that at 26, most of my “college clothes” aka tanks, low-rise jeans, and t-shirts have been donated or sold. I’ve started buying grown up clothes, but I still I get moments of weakness at XXI (don’t you?). Got these Madewell Skinny Skinny Jeans and also the Perfect Chambray Shirt in a light wash (the one and only one left at Madewell located in Colorado; I’ll get it via mail this week). So excited for these pieces and can’t wait to show them off in Japan in 2 weeks!

Jeans
Madewell Skinny Skinny Jeans – Rip and Repair Edition

Chambray
Perfect Chambray Shirt – Similar Here

After shopping we went over to dinner at Shanghai House again (I went here in my previous post). Twice in a month. I’m such a lucky girl! And of course, Purple Kow again! I introduced this to the in-laws, and they enjoyed it!

Purple Kow

On Friday, I hosted a progressive dinner for Bible Study groups all around the East Bay for our church. I’ll share more about this in a separate post. Basically, different groups of people come for different courses of dinner (appetizer, main course, and dessert). It’s a really great activity! Anyway more in my next post.

Progressive Dinner

Saturday was a girl’s day! 3 girls and a mall means lots of shopping (yup, again). One of my friends, Jess, was willing to get some new clothes to change up her wardrobe, so I was on a mission to get her some new clothes. We made her try on a bunch of different things to get a sense of her style, and she ended up getting some items. I love helping people shop! I seriously find joy in it! To reward my hard work, I bought myself a sweater from Zara and a t-shirt from Brandy Melville. Yay! I’m going to be stylish in Japan! After shopping we got some groceries and made dinner at home. The rest of the night was filled with makeovers – testing out make-up and doing facials. So fun!

Facials
^^^ This picture actually creeps me out quite a bit!

Just a few random things – Olive and Lily (MG’s sister’s cats) are still staying with me. There’s not a dull moment having three cats playing in the house.

Lily
Lily is a people kitty. She doesn’t play with the other cats. When she tries, it ends with hissing and fluffy tails.

Olive
We joke that Olive is Chubs’ girlfriend. They wrestle and run around the entire house like it’s a playground.

Chubalee
And here’s my Chubalee, wanting to play fetch with that little fuzzy white toy. Oh and he’s standing next to my new booties I ordered for Japan. Aren’t these uber cute?

Sam Edelman
Sam Edelman Petty bootie – Yay! Gosh, I’m ready to go to Japan in my new cute clothes!

What have you been up to? There are days where time seems to go by too quickly and that was exactly how this past week has been. How about you?

And a very important question, what kind of Fall staple pieces are you buying to gear up for colder weather? Do share!

Happy Monday,
Jay