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Here are an assortment of ideas-
Warm, delicious bread with garlic herb butter. Or assorted rustic breads with various spreads (herb butter, carmelized onions, pepper-tomato jam, fresh ricotta, honey, etc.)
Steamed green beans with mushrooms, butter and butter toasted bread crumbs.
A big platter of broccoli rabe, saute'd in butter-olive oil with garlic and a little lemon zest.
Caprese salad or a marinated vegetable salad (artichokes, celery, peppers, onion, olives, fresh herbs), marinated bean-herb salad or cucumber-dill salad.
Cheese and olive board (set out a variety of cheeses, along with honey, fruit, nuts, crackers or snack breads, grissini, etc.)
Herb roasted vegetable platter with rosemary or thyme
Fruit salad or fruit platter (kebobs?)
Antipasto or charcuterie platter
Stuffed, baked mushrooms (filling of your choice or do a quickie-cheaty and fill with thawed creamed spinach with additional parmesan cheese mixed in and toated bread crumbs atop)
If budget allows- shrimp cocktail or marinated grilled shrimp with lemon-garlic, scampi-style marinade, served chilled with lemon-garlic aioli

Assorted cookies, biscotti or bars, nut breads, apple squares or brownies, etc. Sorbet or sherbert served in little cups.

You can always count on CJ McD for a tonne of suggestions! I'd love a recipe for ox-tail lasagna, btw.

@CJ McD, you are absolutely amazing. This is exactly what I was looking for (folks are offering to bring something, which is a relief to my budget and to my peace of mind.) I think stuffed mushrooms are a fantastic idea. The brocolli rabe also sounds delicious and pretty easy to do.

As for oxtail lasagna - it's one of those things where I wanted to clean out my fridge/freezer/pantry, and stuff just kinda came together.

1) Cooked 2 packs (total of about 8 pieces, varying sizes) of oxtail into a slow cooker, cover with water (don't overdo it. Really, just enough water to barely cover the meat), add a bit of salt. Low heat for approx 8 hrs till nearly falling apart. Refridgerate so that you can just pick out and toss the slab of fat that congeals on top.

2) In a very large, heavy duty pot: saute garlic (I used 2 heads, because I had it), onion (I had 1 large onion), chopped up carrots (I had about 8 pieces of baby carrots that I cut small) until soft. Add whatever you've got in your spice cabinet (I tossed in dried oregano, dried parsley, a pinch of marjoram, a pinch of cinnamon, an even tinier pinch of nutmeg). Sautee some more till REALLY fragrant. Also tossed in some dried up thai bird chili. Because, you know, I had it.

3) Throw in contents of slow cooker - yes, bones and jellied stock and all. Trust me! Added 2 cans of tomato paste, 2 large cans of whole tomatoes with juice, had some leftover tomato sauce (from making salsa out of canned tomatoes), 2 tins of anchovies.

4) salt, sugar, pepper, more of the dried herbs, another pinch of cinamon towards the end. Then I let that sucker cook down on med/med low heat till meat falls off the bones (which were pretty easy to pick out), and sauce reduces by quite a bit. I actually ended up adding some water because it got a bit too thick.

Total cooking time on stove: probably about 3-4 hours of slow cooking. Refridgerated because at that point, I didn't wanna eat anything. But it was amazing the following day.

To assemble lasagna - easy peasy. Lasagna, sauce, cheese, repeat. I didn't even add any ricotta: just tossed on bags of cheese that I had in the freezer (shredded mozarella, shredded cheddar, and even a bag of shredded taco cheese. Mixed it all in a bowl and used that.) For Sat, I'm going to add ricotta, parm and spinach.

I need to clean my kitchen out more often, because seriously? This was so amazing I kinda impressed myself.

Mmm CJ McD knocked it out of the park.

If you're not a pro at bread making, I could still see making a few no-knead loaves for ease. I'm still an amateur at making, kneading bread properly, but the classic no knead recipe sounds great. Lots of bread with the fixings (meats, cheeses, butter, olives, etc) always works to fill ya up some.

Your oxtail sauce sounds amazing. I love the idea of a pinch of cinnamon and whisper of nutmeg in the sauce. And all that savory richness and body the oxtails add. Thanks for the recipe!
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As far as the ideas go- thanks everyone. That's why we're here. Glad I were able to help. And as you can tell, I'm obviously a little food obsessed. When the ideas start rolling, they're hard to stop. ;o)

oops- posted in wrong forum (above)

sorry *blushes*

outta here....

The oxtail lasagna sounds like something I'd love but I'm a notorious bone picker. Do you find it might be hazardous to those not used to picking out bones?