Pork and vegetable lo mein: slice pork chops in thin strips, marinate in equal parts soy sauce and sherry ----- or not slice peppers, asparagus and a large onion in pieces about the size of the pork strips - slice up a couple of cloves of garlic make sauce: 3 parts soy sauce, 2 parts oyster sauce, 1 part toasted sesame oil, dash of sugar (the parts will depend on how many you are serving) cook Chinese egg noodles or regular linguine pasta, enough for the number you are feeding - drain, do not rinse, keep warm heat up wok/stir fry pan or large skillet or saute pan, add in 2 TB veg. oil or peanut oil, heat, add pork strips, cook for about 3 minutes or more until done, remove to a bowl return pan to heat, add in another 1-2 TB oil, heat, put in vegetables, stir fry until crisp tender, add meat back into pan, heat, add in sauce, add in noodles, stir well and heat all together - serve hot

Here the evening meal is also called supper, dinner is the midday meal, now called lunch. Elery and I both grew up with family meals, everyone sat down together and ate together, no television, radio, etc. If I watched the news during a meal, I'd probably get sick. Elery spent a lot of years working a split shift but his ideal time to wake up is 5 am, sometimes before. He'll get up, make coffee, have breakfast. I get up closer to 7:30 or 8 am, and don't want to eat right away. If I do have breakfast, dinner/lunch tends to get skipped, we generally have two meals a day and a snack at night. Because Elery's work schedule had him off work at 3 pm, he wants to eat by 5 pm. That works OK for me now, although when the girls were in school and I worked full time, I didn't get out of work until 5 pm and dinner was 6:30 or 7 usually. As a general guideline we have breakfast by 9 am, no lunch, supper at about 5 and a snack for Elery and Cooper at 9 pm sharp, Cooper can tell time, I swear. Elery is asleep by 10 pm and I stay up until 1 or 2 am sometimes, so neither of us get as much sleep as we probably would if we had more regular schedules. Annie This post was edited by annie1992 on Tue, Jun 4, 13 at 22:43

IMHO, you are probably just trying too hard. Lots of good advice above, but here are my own house rules: [1] I only prepare tried and true recipes for entertaining. My go-to entertaining meal is lasagne, which can be made a day ahead and is also a great choice when some of the guests are children. When guests arrive, I simply pop the lasagne in the oven and let it cook while I sit and enjoy my guests. [2] I have one menu star; everything else is simple prep, such as salad, steamed green beans, etc. Since I am not a baker, dessert is often just purchased, but if I were to make dessert, it would also need to fall into the make a few days ahead category. [3] Regarding wine; don't go overboard. There are plenty of great, drinkable wines for [4] Deep clean your house a week before the party. A day before the party, spruce up with a quick vacuum and dusting and re-clean the bathrooms. The day of the party, cleaning should consist only of picking up and spit-spotting. [5] Casseroles and other one dish meals might be considered old fashioned, but they are a real timesaver and host's best friend. Don't discount them. [6] Instead of formal service at the table, consider either setting up a buffet style line so guests can serve themselves, or have the food at the table family style. [7] The dishes can wait, just clear the dining room, rinse and stack in the sink until the next day.

I had some left over salmon from the freshly caught stuff from my neignbor, a handful of Swiss chard from the garden just picked and some left over spaghetti pasta.....I sauteed the chard with onions and garlic, added the spaghetti and just heated the salmon to the perfect temperature. Then I squeezed some freshly picked lemon on top and loved every single bite.