Reception Menu, Bridesmaid's Dresses, and Alfredo Sauce

MLK Jr was a busy day.

We met with Tamra from the

Red Blazer in the morning to go over our menu choices for the reception. We really like Tamra, and we're excited to have our reception at the Blazer. We were expecting to do a food tasting, but there was some miscommunication because she clearly wasn't planning on that. We were able to make our choices without the tasting, though. We'll have artichoke dip bites, scallops wrapped in bacon, coconut crusted chicken and filet canapes for the hors d'ouevres (along with the standard cheese & crackers and veggies & dip). The buffet will have BBQ beef tips, chicken marsala, and grilled salmon. I also snagged a few pictures of the dining room before they opened for lunch:

We ate lunch and played a game until Matt had to go to work. After he left, I killed time for a bit playing around with my header (look up... the final is a result of collaboration between me and my baby) and then headed to Marry & Tux in Nashua to meet up with Chris and choose her bridesmaid dress. Mom and Rain came to help, also.

Basically I've told all the girls that they can choose any dress style they like from Alfred Angelo, and to order it in blue. We tried a bunch of different styles on Chris, and halfway through our try-ons Polly came out to help us. She's the one who helped me pick out my dress and she was very helpful. We picked out a few separate pieces that will look great on Chris and placed the order. Polly let me know that the girls need to order this week to be sure to get their dress on time without having to place a rush order and pay an extra $30. Yikes! I thought we'd have until the end of the month, but Polly said they need 16 weeks. We placed Chris's order, then we all went out to dinner at Panera to celebrate Rain's birthday. We were supposed to go to Friendly's, but they went there for lunch. I have to admit, I was bummed because I had wanted to order a sundae. Oh well.

When I got home I did the dishes and made dinner for Matt. He asked a few weeks ago if I knew how to make alfredo sauce, so I decided to try that out. I was expecting it to be very complicated, but it turns out that alfredo is crazy-easy to make. Simmer the cream and butter together until it's reduced by a third, add cheese, more cream, and dashes of nutmeg and pepper and you're done. I made it while I did the dishes. I had some trepidation about how it would taste since it was so easy, but some things in life were apparently made to be simple. It was perfect. When I served it to him I told him it actually might be too good to make just for him. This is definitely "company food." Something to make that's both easy (so you can spend time with your guests) and delicious.