Dinner with my Foodie Friends

Last night we had dinner with some of my favorite food bloggers. Well, okay, not exactly with them, but virtually with them anyway. I usually share recipes I've found in cookbooks, magazines, inspired by TV shows and my own creations. That doesn't mean I don't try recipes from fellow food bloggers. In fact, I do often and last night every dish came from them. And all of them are very South Beach Diet friendly too!

Kalyn of the very South Beach friendly and absolutely awesome Kalyn's Kitchen brought this awesome Chicken with Roasted Lemons, Olives & Capers that she adapted from The Bon Appetit Cookbook (which is on my wishlist for this holiday season - hint, hint). Like Kalyn, I did some modifications myself - no green olives handy, so I used pitted Kalamata (I always have them in the fridge) and no poultry seasoning, so I used mixed Italian herbs instead. They just said "Mediterranean" to me.

Okay, I'm not sure who "Worker Bee" is, my cousin R found her at this cooking forum and brought her along. I'm so glad she did. Her Basic Cauli-flied "Rice" was a perfect way to sop up the delicious sauce from the chicken. With your eyes closed, you'd never know that it wasn't rice. I just used 1 tbsp of butter and 1-2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil instead of 4 tbsp of butter. It was still "lick the plate clean" delicious.

The wonderful Haalo of Cook Almost Anything came all the way from Australia with this beautiful and unbelievably tasty dish of Buttered Grated Beets. I'm not sure what 40 grams of butter looks like, but I just added 1/2 tbsp which was ample. It's mind-bogglingly (I guess I made up that word) simple and will have you moaning for its sweet, rich flavor. Initially I thought it wouldn't work with the other dishes, but I wanted to try it anyway - so glad I did, it was the perfect yin (or is that yang) to the salty, lemony chicken and the garlicky cauliflower.

For dessert....what would a party be without dessert?!...Cyndi over at Cyndicooks shared her fabulous, decadent, but who would believe it's all diet friendly, Mocha Cappuccino Pudding. We have it often, we just leave out the cinnamon and sometimes make it with vanilla sugar free pudding instead of chocolate. Either way, it's delicious.

I wonder who's coming for supper tonight!

Related links: Food and Drink menu South Beach Diet dinner