Chinese Visitors

This is the only picture I took of the whole dinner.
Doesn't that bread look beautiful and yummy?

Tonight we had the privilege of hosting two of Matt's co-workers who live in Beijing, China for supper.  When Matt told me they were coming to town I immediately jumped on the idea of having them over and started menu planning.  I wanted to give them something special, yummy but also a normal meal for us.

So the menu was...

Romaine salad with red, yellow, and orange peppers, tomatoes, carrots (some of the veggies were from the farmer's market) and a balsamic vinaigrette dressing.  The dressing is what I always make and use and consists of olive oil (1 cup) mixed with balsamic vinegar (1/4 cup) and a little oregano and thyme.

Corn on the cob from the farmer's market.  They'd never had sweet corn before so it was fun to teach them how to fix it up with butter and salt and pepper.

Spaghetti and homemade meat sauce.  I will post that recipe soon if not tonight because it's that good and easy.

French bread.  I started making my own french bread a while ago and as long as I plan ahead because of the rising process it is so good.  I've even made a mostly whole wheat version that is delicious too.  But sometimes like today I dug out the white flour because it is so good all white.

Instant chocolate pudding.  Neither of the guys ever had pudding before and looked a little disturbed by the texture.  I thought it would be fun for them to try it and we had some sitting around.

I had fun talking to the guys Matt has phone meetings with at 9:00pm on many Wednesday nights. Now I know who he's talking to.  And it was interesting hearing about their culture, children, and life as a working professional in China.  The only disappointing part was they couldn't stay long because that had to go back to work and fix some kind of computer code issue.