Dinner parties take many forms, including an informal outdoor picnic-style party.
Dinner parties can have menus designed around a particular occasion such as July 4th, Thanksgiving or Christmas. Dinner parties can also revolve around a particular category of food. For example, a dinner party might focus on such regional fare as New England seafood as with a traditional New England clambake. Another regional emphasis might focus on Cajun spicy cuisine. Dinner parties can also occur in many kinds of places. You can find menu ideas to suit any type dinner party you want to host or to attend.
Church Dinners
Some church dinner parties, such as the pot luck dinner, have no formal menu. At the other extreme, a church-organized dinner party such as a formal fundraiser dance has a well-organized menu prepared by a professional culinary staff at the facility where the church holds the function. In the middle ground, church dinner parties can have moderately organized menus such as the spaghetti supper dinner party, the ham-and-bean supper dinner party, a lobster festival dinner party or even the youth group pizza party. You can find an example of a barbecue style dinner menu for a church dinner party at the News-Record website. Twice yearly, the Mount Hope United Church of Christ congregation gathers for a barbecue dinner party with a menu that includes chicken pie, barbecued ham with a special sauce, coleslaw, potato salad, green beans, pickles and a selection of desserts. One tip for those participating in a potluck supper: unusual dishes, even if simple, often have considerable popularity at potlucks. Consider making your contribution something like an ethnic cucumber-and-boiled-egg salad, tomato-frankfurter salad or taco salad.
Ethnic Dinners
Going ethnic provides another example of an unusual and interesting dinner party. For example, for a Polish-style dinner party, serve a menu of herring in horseradish sauce, eggs in spring sauce, cold roast pork loin, Polish-style beef bouillon, meat and mushroom soup pastries, roast chicken with babka-raisin stuffing, apples baked with ligonberries, red cabbage braised with wine and cauliflower Polonnaisse as described at the Polish American Journal website. Or, for a dinner party using Indian ethnic food you can choose a menu such as shrimp tikka with fresh mango chutney, crispy okra salad and chilled banana and pistachio rice pudding as described at the Epicurious website.
Vegetarian
For a vegetarian dinner party, offer a menu such as the paprika and red pepper soup with pistachio puree, Mediterranean couscous cabbage rolls, roasted root vegetables with chermoula, and deep-dish apple pie as described at the Eating Well website. Another example menu for a vegetarian dinner party includes herbed yogurt dip, orzo-stuffed red peppers with feta, olives and fresh herbs and lemony spinach with garlic and hot peppers as described at the Chef-Menus website.
Traditional
Some traditional dinner party menus include such menus as the seven-course butter-poached lobster tails with caviar mousse described at the What's Cooking website. This menu includes goat cheese medallions, roasted olives with fennel and lemon, tomato-basil crab bisque, seared autumn spice scallops with cranberry jam, Pinot gris prickly pear sorbet, butter-poached lobster tails with caviar mousse and Dijon mustard sauce, individual cheese plates with three cheeses, sweet cherries and hazelnuts and molten chocolate tart. The menu titled "Warm and Cozy" at the Chef-Menu website provides another example of a traditional dinner party menu. This menu includes curried nuts, pumpkin and apple soup, grilled salmon with cilantro pesto, yellow rice, roasted beet salad with toasted walnuts and citrus vinaigrette, an assortment of crackers and breads and warm apple cider.
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