Sochi inspired dinner party

February 17, 2014













When my husband and I think about having a dinner party, and after we pick a date and invite the guests, we start thinking about the menu.  Seasonal foods, either what's growing in the garden or available in the market always has a major influence.  But this time, Sochi came immediately to mind; it's nice when a theme is handed to you on a silver platter!  Besides vodka and caviar, we started to think about typical Russian food fare.  There are so many delicious choices and we struggled between Beef Stroganoff and Chicken Kiev as both are favorites around here (although I haven't made either in years!)

Caviar and Smoked Salmon Appetizer

The salmon and caviar is typically served on little blini pancakes but I substituted cucumber slices to ease up on both preparation and calories.  I make the borscht last fall with the last of our garden beets and had two quarts left in the freezer.   Borscht is the queen of beautiful soups! The beef stroganoff was made in the crockpot, a first for me, but there were dozens of recipes on the internet so thought I'd give it a try.  I followed no recipe in particular, but the link above was the closest.  I used round steak we sliced thin on the diagonal, quartered fresh mushrooms and fresh pearl onions.  It was so good in the slow cooker I'll never make it the traditional way again.

While Pavlova may not be a Russian dessert, it was named after the famous Russian dancer, Anna Pavlova so I knew it would fit perfectly within my theme.  This dessert is quite famous in New Zealand and Australia and commemorates the famous dancer's visit in the 1920s.  It's more commonly served as a magnificent cake that is cut into wedges but I like it better made as individual servings.  I made it the day before and assembled just before serving. With that done, the soup made and the stroganoff in the slow cooker, I took the afternoon to catch up with the olympics and knitting!



It might look like a bit of a mess in the picture but it we all licked our plates clean


We had six for dinner, I love six at a table.  It's so cozy and we're all in the same conversation.  It was a very fun evening plus we had enough leftover stoganoff for dinner on Sunday night!

My long time readers have seen the above plates on previous posts, but I always pick up a few new readers (welcome!) so I'll again share the shopping links for the table setting:

Tablecloth, Beauville
Dinner plates, Cambria in Mushroom, Pottery Barn
Soup plates, Splendore, Arte Italica
Donatello pewter platter (possibly discontinued), Arte Italica
Best tealights ever, Pottery Barn
I love the inexpensive Connoissuer Glasses, Cost Plus

The table is completed with my wedding flatware, 
grandmother's linen napkins,
my vintage sterling napkin rings
and garden camellias.

This is mostly a knitting blog, and knitting posts are in the future!





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5 Comments

  1. Beautiful tablescape with lovely dishes and awesome tablecloth! The Borscht, Beef Stroganoff, (a fav of mine) and Pavlova, wow, what a menĂș!!! Thanks for sharing, I love it!
    FABBY

    ReplyDelete
  2. What a great idea. Russian food is so good!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh, my dear Kristen....so cool!!! What a great idea to use the Olympics as your inspiration! I will admit to having thought about it for a fleeting moment, but you went all the way with it!!! I've never eaten Borscht, but it sure looks pretty with that dollop of sour cream. Seems to me like that would be a pretty dish to serve for Valentine's Day! I always thought Borscht was made of cabbage. Had no idea beets were involved!

    It's been a month of Sundays since I made beef stroganoff, too. The slow cooker kind sounds interesting. I think I'll have to give it a try!

    The table is so pretty with the brilliant colors in the table covering. The pattern reminds me of those colorful Russian stacking dolls.

    I had to Google Pavolva to get an idea of how it might look as a cake. I think it's much prettier the way you have it here.

    Bravo!

    ReplyDelete
  4. The Pavlovas look amazing! What fun! I will have to try beef stroganoff in a crock pot, what a great idea. :-)

    ReplyDelete

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