hospitality

Meat and Potatoes Entertaining Menu

comehomeforcomfort

Here’s another go-to entertaining menu that’s great for serving “meat and potato lovers.” This a great menu for picky eaters and one that requires minimal prep time!

My husband’s side of the family aren’t adventurous eaters. They like basic meals that are heavy on the meat. Recently we invited Paul’s dad and brother in law to join us for supper while my mother in law was out of town – here’s what I served them!

Meat and Potatoes Menu:

  • Pigs in a Blanket – appetizer
  • BBQ Pork Ribs in the slow cooker – see below about these…
  • Herbed Potatoes – I used red skin potatoes
  • Garlic Green Beans
  • Watermelon & Cantelope 
  • Peach Iced Tea (we love the Country Time Peach Harvest Tea) & Water
  • Snickerdoodles

I love serving BBQ pork for company. It’s inexpensive and can be served several different ways – on buns, on baked potatoes or just plain with lots of good sides. For this meal I had a package of country style pork ribs that I cooked for about 3 hours on high in my slow cooker. They were way overcooked, tough and dry. It was a major disappointment!

(A better option would have been Slow Cooker Kalua Pork. I’ve made it several times with great success.)

The more I cook the more aware I am of the fact that I’m not a perfect cook. That’s why I made the pigs in a blanket! I wasn’t quite sure what time the guys would arrive, but I wanted to have something ready for them to eat when they walked in the door. Earlier in the afternoon I prepped a big batch of pigs in a blanket (beef cocktail sausages wrapped in pre-made danish pastry dough).

When the guys arrived for supper, there was a huge plate of pigs in a blanket ready to be devoured. Between the three of them, they cleaned the tray in no time. Once we sat down for supper they were already halfway full from the apps and didn’t seem to mind that my ribs weren’t amazing. I’m calling that a win. 🙂

One more note about my menu – because the apps, ribs and potatoes were heavy, I went light on the rest of the menu. I like to have at least one thing that you could pile on your plate and really fill up on without feeling guilty. That’s where the fresh, flavorful green beans and bowls of melon come into play.

Hospitality is not about perfection. It’s about offering people the best that you have…and a tray of pigs in a blanket just in case the main dish is dry. 🙂

Here’s a menu for slightly more adventurous eaters!

10 thoughts on “Meat and Potatoes Entertaining Menu”

  1. Yum!! Sounds like a delicious meal. Smart thinking with the crowd pleasing appetizer. Every time I see the way you scoop melons I am reminded of the fact that I never use my melon baller. I need to make myself a note to give that a try. And now I’m craving BBQ baked potatoes 🙂 I’ve got to add that to my menu sometime soon.

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    1. It’s funny that you said that about the melon balls, because when I served this meal my brother-in-law had never seen melon served that way. He was really impressed that I’d taken the time to CARVE out little balls of cantaloupe and watermelon for them. 🙂 I revealed my secret and showed him my tiny melon baller that did all the work! Ha!

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  3. Sounds delicious! What pigs in a blanket recipe do you use? I use crescent dinner roll dough cut but it seems like they need to be eaten right away or they get soggy.

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    1. I don’t use a recipe – sometimes I use crescent rolls, sometimes I use danish pastry dough – depends on what I have on hand. Here’s my trick for making them ahead: After you bake them, make sure they cool completely on a cooling rack before refrigerating, then bring to room temperature before reheating in the oven. I left mine out for an hour before reheating at 350, loosely wrapped in foil, for about 15 minutes. This method keeps them from becoming soggy when you reheat them!

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  4. Hospitality is not about perfection. It’s about offering people the best that you have – love your thoughts on hospitality.

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