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Kathryn, the post below from the NYT roundup
"Why Not Relax Before Dinner Too?"

http://kitchen.apartmenttherapy.com/food/dining-section-roundup/ny-times-dining-section-roundup-053106-009481

would fit the bill. I don't eat meat myself anymore, but my mother always used to make braciola for dinner parties (looks like you'd need to double the above recipe to serve 11), serving it with pasta, a spinach salad, wine and bread. It cooks for a long time (3hrs) but is easy to serve when it comes out of the oven.

That recipe for wine-stewed purnes and mascarpone looks good too!

I have my eye on that braciola, too. It looks delicious.

I sympathize about the timing issues, so tricky with dinner parties. I cook pretty much every month for a group of 20+ and it's always fun to figure out how to make it all work together.

My main thought would be to not try anything too tricky or overtly "impressive" - especially if you've never made it before. You don't want to look like you're trying to impress them, and something might go wrong! :-) Go with something, even if it's new, that on your gut level you feel comfortable with, like intuitively you know that you can handle.

With menu ideas... I agree about doing as much as possible ahead of time. Dessert is the easiest: ice cream or individual puddings or panna cotta could be done ahead and left in the fridge in small, pretty bowls. Maybe a dark caramel panna cotta or fruity mousse with curled brandy snaps (easy to do ahead too!) and a selection of dark chocolates.

For a meal, maybe homemade gnocchi, made and boiled ahead of time, then pan-fried right before the meal with sage and garlic? And braciola, or a lamb roast? Another nice thing in hot summer weather would be a cold appetizer/salad of chickpeas and roasted tomatoes.

Just some ideas - I think the trick, for me anyway, is to manage it so that there is just one thing to concentrate on in the last half hour. So meat comes out of the oven a half hour ahead to rest, the salad and dessert are finished, the coffee maker is ready to go as soon as supper winds down, there's crunchy breadsticks already out on the set table, and all I have to concentrate on is the pasta. Etc.

For me the biggest trick I ever learned in the kitchen was how to order everything so that when it was the last minute I wasn't trying to do 20 things or even that amazingly busy on the day of the dinner.

So when I do a big dinner for folks, I almost always prep as far ahead as possible. Vegetables are prepped the night before, ingredients are grouped together. Appetizers, done. Salad dressing is assembled in a shaker ready for that last minute rumba before hitting go. A task sheet gets prepared, just so that I have a centering point.

Everything in the menu is designed to make it easy for the day of so that you can spend your time chatting and have a wine while still doing a few things.

I think a main dish that gets started well ahead and cooks for a while is a classic thing for the nervous big dinner planner. Braises, moles, etc are good for getting you set.

My other favorite thing to do is a big impressive stir-fry. I prep the living hell out of everything and cook it in 5 minutes. A big vigorous wok workout makes you look something like a rock star to a lot of folks. Be creative, I just did one for 50 centering around Shrimp, Mangos and Lemon. I'll put the recipe up on my site a little later today cause it was super quick and super tasty.

My suggestion is very informal... Can you give us a sense of the occasion?

Try this: Cold beer, white wine and gin or vodka drinks served with a lot of ice, pretzels and nuts, maybe snacky cheese, veggies followed by a roast beef done really well (seasoning and searing is easy!) with a well dressed salad and maybe mashed or baked potatoes and lots more white wine, or even better some cold prosecco. Follow this with fresh seasonal fruit, sorbet, or fruit salad.

The philosophy is that nothing is easier or more satisfying than traditional comfort food. The meat is the centerpiece, but the supporting parts like the wine really set things off. Getting a basic thing done right is truly impressive, beautiful and refreshing...

HOWEVER - If you don't want to turn on the oven in this heat, follow the same suggestion and get some rotisserie chickens from a place like gourmet garage.

For a novice, this is a great basic start... there are all kinds of ways to further elaborate if you feel daring... you could have homemade punch, sangria or margaritas for drinks, salsa and guacamole, or hummous and bababganoush for dips, and some fancier pasta or fancier salad and desert could be a summer pie you make with ice cream.

Good luck!

I've done a lot of dinner parties. My thoughts:

Main course: roast something. No last-minute prep there. Roast pork loin w/red wine and cherry sauce is fab and very very easy. Epicurious.com and Foodtv.com have recipes for this. One of my dinner guests liked this so much, he took some leftovers home and ate them on the subway at 1 am.

Side dish: Think of something that most people do not eat or make very often. Heavy cream is often involved. Roasted garlic mashed potatoes are good (wolfgangpuck.com is good), as are potato gratins. Make in advance and reheat gently, so you are not rushed at the last minute (cover w/foil, stick in oven for last 30 min of your main dish roasting).

Side #2: something green. I like creamed spinach; sugar snap peas in the pod w/ sesame is nice too.

Ok, now we get to the stuff that looks impressive but is very easy:

green salad -- stick some frico (parmesan crisps) or carmelized walnuts/pecans in w/greens, red onion, balsamic vinaigrette. Get some fancy lettuce (but you knew that, right?)

Giada deLaurentiis' breadsticks (foodtv.com) are great -- its canned breadsticks w/ parmesan, but very addictive.

Hors d'oeuvres - skip them. Give people spiced cashews and olives; don’t spoil their appetites before dinner. If you must, try spicy crab in cucumber cups -- peel and slice a long (English) cucumber into 1-inch slices, then use a melon baller to make a little cup.

Dessert -- this is easy. Either make your favorite thing, or buy it. Have chocolates available if your dessert is not chocolate.

Most important! Break out the good china. Set the table and make it pretty. Buy nice flowers. Light candles. Clean the bathroom. Get a partner to help -- in our house, I cook and He cleans. If you try to do it all, you will go nuts. But presentation is important -- make your guests feel special. Lastly, time your day so that everything is done at least one hour before guests arrive. That way, you will be sitting on the couch, calm and unfrazzled, having a nice glass of wine when they arrive.

Random other impressive things:

Fancy plating. This is fussy and last-minute, though. Use pastry rings or tin cans w/both ends cut off (washed, of course... tuna cans are good) and stack/mold a rice pilaf. For a first course, you can do a stacked seafood salad -- layer dressed greens, seafood, maybe some mango, etc., press lightly, then gently remove the tin ring/can. Chop all elements finely to aid in stacking. “Emeril’s stacked salad”, although not plated that way on TV, would work. (recipe on foodtv)

Beef wellington. Completely done in advance, pop in the oven when your guests arrive. Its a beef tenderloin w/ mushrooms in puff pastry; kinda retro but very easy if you buy the puff pastry. Individual mini-wellingtons could be nice -- Sara Moulton’s recipe on foodtv.com is great.

Raspberry sauce and/or multiple sauces. Use a squeeze bottle or old washed ketchup bottle. A restaurant trick for your guests. You can buy the sauce, too.... no need to actually make it.

Hmmm I should throw another party, I’m getting into the groove here. So sad that I had a burrito for lunch. :) Good luck with your party!

I agree completely with the idea of a roast -- people are always impressed, but it's so easy -- once it's in the oven, hours before dinner, you're pretty much done with the main course. Sometimes the roast is done more quickly than I expect, which is usually great, as they need a good rest -- a roast is much more forgiving when you're trying to time a big meal.

My suggestion would be prime rib -- I rub the roast with a sea salt, black pepper, red pepper and rosemary rub, and use an epicurious.com recipe for a madeira jus and horseradish cream. Delectable, really easy, and very impressive. Also, if you don't already have one, I highly recommend getting a probe thermometer -- you just set it to the temperature to which you want to cook the roast, leave it in, and it will beep when the roast is done.

Everyone else has given pretty good advice on sides and such, but I'll add a specific recommendation for dessert -- apricot souffles. I made them for a dinner party of 12, having never before even attempted any souffle. They were amazingly good, and a lot of the work was in advance the night before -- after a heavy dinner of prime rib, the guests wanted plenty of time to relax with coffee or after-dinner drinks, during which I whipped up the eggs in my KitchenAid, folded in the made-in-advance apricot puree, and spooned them into the prepped-in-advance ramekins (if you've got an early arriving guest willing to help, make him or her prep the ramekins). Served with also made-in-advance creme anglaise, they are spectacular and seem so much more difficult than they are to make. The recipe was from an old issue of Gourmet (http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/11814)

My vote is for osso bucco. can be made in advance, if you forget & leave it cooking a little long the meat is even more falling apart tender, it's not too expensive and it's super easy but looks impressive. serve it over plain wide flat noodles or squares of polenta, add a salad, a good wine. for appetizers -- marcona almonds with rosemary (tj's has these) maybe radishes with butter or melon with proscuitto, chunks of parmesan...affogato (espresso over really good ice cream but you can just use reallly strong coffee if you don't have an espresso maker) for dessert is fun for guests -- everyone feels like a little kid pouring coffee over their ice cream!

another possibility is the duck dinner in amanda hesser's mother in law makes in 'cooking for mr latte'. easy if a little time consuming but it can be made & laid out before the guests arrive.

Paella's good -- i use one from the 60 minute gourmet by pierre franey -- he suggests an olive & orange salad to go with it. i add arugula for a little extra bite. it always impresses people but hello, how easy -- the whole dinner pretty much in one pan!

and there's always chicken marbella from the silver palate if you want to go the nostalgic root -- that's always a winner.

these are all things that don't have to be hovered over, are forgiving if you forget about them & don't need to be piping hot which means you can be a host not just a cook at your own dinner party and impress people (i know this from experience) plus you can make it almost all of it in advance and leave it until the guests are ready and you'll spend next to no time in the kitchen (who wants to be worried about cooking when guests arrive?). guests take their cue from the host -- if you're relaxed, they will be too and confident that you've taken care of the evening.

and don't forget cocktails before dinner -- prosecco's fun with maybe a dash of something -- peach nectar's traditional but other juices might be fun.

for a good summery dish, you could saute some fillets of white fish in butter, maybe just seasoned with a little lemon, salt, and pepper, and serve them with ratatouille. the stew could be made an hour or two earlier and then kept warm in a 200-degree oven, and the fish cooked at the last minute. a selection of breads with some herby compound butters, and you're set.

I just wanted to thank everyone for their ideas. They all sound wonderful! I'm intruiged by the braciola, but a bit intimidated by the twine concept. The recipe makes it sound so simple; is there a secret to using it? The comfort food idea is a nice thought too.

The occasion is my parents entertaining their friends. They all take turns, so its not necessary a "special occasion", but they definitely all go out of their way with the cooking and entertaining. I'd like to make something that would be filling yet not so heavy on a summer's night.

Luckily, I get to use my mother's kitchen for this event, so I will have great plates and every possible kitchen utensil or appliance I can think of. And she's given me creative license to cook whatever I want (except salmon, which she doesn't like).

I made an osso buco a couple of weeks ago to rave reviews, but I was stumped to come up with something else as equally easy and delicious to put together.

This is a big help, especially with the web resouces I didn't even realize existed. Thanks to one and all. The wheels are spinning!

I guess I'm inspired by Sara-Kate's recent travels. I recommend a big platter of paella as the showstopper. It's so gorgeous, with fresh seafood and veggies, the saffron is rich, and a paella pan is impressive. I would precede it by a bunch of meze/tapas appetizers (including hunks of manchego and idiazabal cheese with membrillo, bowls of olives, fresh bread, jamon, asparagus, etc) and followed by flan for dessert. Add some red and white sangria and you've got yourself a party.

Here's a classy and easy meal for party: get a whole wild salmon, have it deboned, but ask them to keep the skin on the back (the top) together, so you can fold it back together. Season the fish, lay some fresh dill and lemon slices inside, put it on a cookie sheet, and roast. The fish will roast and steam to perfection in 30 minutes. Serve it with roast or steamed red potaoes, dill/yogurt saurce, and a nice salad. Serve a nice cold chardonay with the fish.
Perfect for summer. Enjoy.

gotta tell you - we had an incredulous fish -- escolar == or butter fish. we cut the ibig guy down into fillets. rubbed 'em down with olive oil, sea salt and pepper ONLY. thrown on grill (important factor)... unspeakable.
served with only a salad.
forget impressing with presenationn -- i've learned. the fish, the grill speaks. the salad complements. and everyone feels light, bright and easy the next day. you can sock it to'em with dessert. and they will still remember this incredible fish. i hope to god it isn't over-fished. we couldn't find it on the "watch lists" -- oh do enjoy!

simple and knock out. good.

I like to plate individual portions of the appetizer only, or a salade composee, then having all other dishes on a side table for people to serve themselves, buffet style. I find it more relaxing for me, and guests enjoy picking what and how much to put on their plates.
I'd pick a dish I'm familiar&comfortable making and dishes to be made in advance and then heat, like a spinach&cheese pie. Prep any vegs. ahead to steam or stir fry (suggestion, a mix: green & yellow string beans, carrots, julienned red & yellow pepper, -optional,a bit of red onion-. Beans & carrots parboiled, then all stir-fried at the last moment. You can toast some slivered almonds and sprinkle on top of your cooked vegs.)
I display dessert as well, so guests can look forward to that from the start! Unless it's a frozen treat, of course.
To challenge myself, I like to make one new recipe, at least. Also, I err on the side of having too much food.
Having a pitcher of a mixed drink is good too.
Have fun!

Cheesecake makes a great dessert for a party. Its easy to make and you can bake it ahead of time.
I just made one from Ruth Reichl's "Garlic and Sapphires"-- very simple and completely delicious. You can dress it up with fresh fruit and/or one of those sauces from above...

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