Love the retro idea Stacy..... Stuffed mushrooms are perfect as an appetizer before dinner so are bacon wrapped water chestnuts or ...are you ready...Wendy's olive cheddar nipples! Pate is great too and should be very easy to find. We like the herbed pate or the peppered pate. Cheese ball is also perfect. Oh and don;t foregt chips and dip...using sour cream and French onion soup mix with a shot of Worcestershire's as the dip! As a first course escargot is very retro and perfect with your entree. Then again and old fashioned shrimp cocktail would be perfect too. Hang the shrimp off a glass filled with the shrimp sauce! French Onion soup is very retro too but may be too filling....but sooooo good with something like Wellington! Make small bowls! Bonus you get to use your brown sauce! LOL One of the sides with Wellington would have to be twice baked potatoes. I'd do asparagus as the other. PS: for real fun have Harvey Wallbangers or Singapore Slings for drinks before! LOL Here is my recipe for stuffed mushrooms. Can't recall if I served them to you. Stuffed Mushrooms 20 large white mushrooms 1/3 Cup butter (maybe a bit more) 4 or 5 green onions chopped fine 2-2 1/2 cups grated cheddar 1/3 Cup bread crumbs salt Clean mushrooms and carefully remove stems. Chop stems finely (I use the food processor). Melt butter in a saute pan. Saute mushroom stems and onions over medium heat until soft but not browned and the stems have given up their juices. Mixture should be quite moist. Add the bread crumbs, only enough to absorb the liquid. Add the grated cheese and stir just until it has melted. Don't worry if the oil separates from the cheese.Stuff the mixture into the caps and sprinkle with a bit of salt (or you can salt after they come out of the oven...which is what I usually do). Bake at 375 for 12-15 minutes or until the caps are nice and soft.

i can barely keep my eyes open and for some reason msg got cut off. i think it was too long. to sum it up, can't move fridge in that area. stack will still be in way. i have a 30" fridge in garage that prob holds 20 cubic ft and 28 cubic ft fridge in kitchen that is 1.5 yrs old and ice box already irreparable. money is tight as covid has me out of work to a large extent and I care about the environment so I was contemplating using that fridge for a while in the spot and changing it for a counterdepth fridge later. If I did that it could be a few years, so I wonder if I could frame the standard fridge now and adjust that down the road. My guess is that will be tricky but I'll ask my GC. i don't like having to go to the garage now to get things but I'll have to see how much the standard fridge sticking out bothers me. I plan on asking the GC to let me sit with the pantries for a day and see how I feel with it in either spot, forward or fridge sticking out. I wrote more than that but I don't recall what it was. Maybe I was more efficient in my 2d post just like I'm hearing a counterdepth fridge could be. :)

We're going to my DH's ex's and her husband's house for dinner, per usual (20 years). There will be about 20 - 26 of us - all his side (mine live on the other end of the country except DS in GA). They serve a really nice turkey, but also dump -from-a-bag stuffing mix, plopped canned cranberry sauce, and their adult children will bring instant mashed potatoes, canned gravy, bag salad, "brown 'n serve" rolls and some icky baked-in-store cake with inedible frosting. The youngest grand (17) will make green bean casserole for her grandpa (because I refuse to make it, hate it) as she has been doing for 5 years! Bless her. But I do think it is the only thing she actually cooks. Her mom is big on take-out, drive-thru, and pizza delivery. The other four 20 yr-old-ish grandchildren (who I've been coaching) are bringing homemade bread, apple sauce from 4 kinds of apples, baked butternut squash with honey and sweet spices, mixed lettuces and strawberries with celery seed dressing, and from-scratch brownies. So proud of them. I like to shake things up for appetizers so I'll bring oven baked veggie egg rolls with my own Chinese-style hot mustard and apricot duck sauce, deviled egg salad in quartered potato buns, stuffed mini sweet peppers (with herbed cheese), homemade crackers with pepperoncini cream cheese dip, and everything (like on a bagel) dip to eat with mini cukes, radishes, cherry tomatoes and celery sticks, and some deli ham rolled up with Swiss cheese and a bit of spicy brown mustard for those of us who don't like turkey, plus apple slab pie with drizzle and pecan pie bars on shortbread crust. I always bring plastic bags for the family to take home "leftovers" since no one seems to remember from the last time, or they just expect me to? I also bring our own silverware because ex- hasn't figured out that it is impossible to cut turkey with plastic knives and eat with plastic forks. I also bring a couple of extra knives for whomever else has a problem. You'd think after 20 years she'd go to Goodwill and pick up some 25c silverware - maybe $15 worth. I don't say anything but DH always rolls his eyes at me. If I went to Goodwill and got some I would be ostracized for life. Bad enough that I bring a few extra pieces. I'm rolling my eyes now. I may hint to the grands that it might be a really really nice gift for their other grandma. But then again....

Love hearing what everyone is doing. All this brunch talk has me considering hosting the neighbors for brunch after the holidays. May try making the egg benny’s, will see how a practice round goes. Having my family over for brunch tomorrow. Very relaxed meal; biscuits and sausage gravy, eggs, fruit salad and mini cherry pies. Served with mimosas.The sausage gravy recipe was passed down from my southern grandmother, I rarely make it but it is a favorite of everyone in the family. My son makes the best biscuits, so he is making those for us.