Dinner Party Prep

I finally invited everyone (the Towada and Shichinohe ALTs, that is) over to my place for dinner for next Sunday, July 13th.

I'm looking forward to it, but I'm also a little freaked out, since my cooking skills are pretty pathetic. Back home (in Canada), when I invited people over I usually went out and bought the Loblaws chicken dinner, or ordered pizza, or asked my dad to cook, so this will be my first time actually cooking a full meal--and for seven people, no less!!

Luckily when my parents came in April, my dad showed me how to cook some stuff, like (my favourite!) chicken rice! In preparation for Sunday, I did a test cooking, and it actually turned out really well! *Phew!* (You can see the recipe here.)

Of course, that's only one dish. Tomorrow I'm planning on test cooking another dish. I would've done it tonight, but I couldn't figure out what wine I should buy to cook with (the recipe called for "cooking wine/sherry"). ^^;; Yes, I'm that hopeless!

The other thing I'm having trouble with is finding the right cuts of meat. For example, the beef and broccoli dish I want to make recommends beef tenderloin, but I couldn't find any at the Powers U. Ditto for the pork picnic shoulder that my dad recommended for a soy sauce pork & egg dish. *sigh* And I'm too inexperienced at cooking to be able to just look at meat and be able to pick something that will work--I still feel the need to stick to the recipe as closely as possible.

Oh well. I've still got a week to test out dishes before the big day. Hopefully it'll all work out!