A $25 Grilled Cheese Dinner Party
Listen to Chrystina talk you through her grilled cheese dinner party (and why she’s over ordering pizza) in Episode 02 of the Party Ideas & Logistics podcast, above.
Recently I’ve been hosting dinner parties 2-3 times a month. Between the Badass Babes dinner parties, the monthly dinners (like the thai food-inspired dinner), and bringing the PHLbloggers crew together to brainstorm our brand and The Blog Connect 2018, our living room has been constantly in use.
Originally, I thought the best way to keep a dinner party simple was to just order pizza, which has definitely been a game changer, but it’s also not the easiest option on your wallet. There’s very fine line between needing to order one pizza and two pizzas or two pizzas and three pizzas, so your bill can very quickly go from $25 to $50 and beyond. I realized I should probably come up with some solutions that were easy and cheap. To which there was a very obvious solution: a grilled cheese dinner party. (Thanks to my good friend Ana from Rosemary & Rye.)
I wanted to keep it simple and fun – with a little bit of healthy in there, so I put together a quick menu:
Grilled Cheese
Tomato Soup
Fruit
Ice Cream
I wrote out the ingredients list, went to the store, and bought: strawberries, cheese, bread, ice cream, tomato soup, and milk for less than $25. Then of course I used a few ingredients from around the house. The total prep time came to 1 hour. Not too shabby if I do say so myself. Here’s how I did it -
Timeline
6:05: Put beverages in the fridge and/or make sure water pitcher is full.
6:06: Start cooking the rice.
6:06-6:10: Cut strawberries and put into cute little bowls.
6:10-6:25: Clear living room and set table.
6:25-6:30: Add the tomato soup ingredients to the rice.
6:30-6:40: Butter bread for grilled cheese, stir soup occasionally.
6:40: Open cheese slices.
6:40-6:55: Make grilled cheeses.
6:50-6:55: Plate the food.
6:55-7:00: Put the food on the table.
Later: Take ice cream out for dessert.
Grilled Cheeses
Now admittedly, grilled cheeses can be pretty fancy. You could put brie and cranberry preserves in them, you can add buffalo chicken and blue cheese, you can put in a slice of freshly cut tomato, you can add guacamole and bacon – but I decided to keep it simple. First of all, it cuts down on time and cost, but second of all, it goes best with tomato soup.
One of the biggest discussions when it comes to grilled cheese I’ve found is the type of bread that you use. From sour dough to country rye I heard all of the options, but I settled on potato bread, because I love its sweetness.
Does anybody else lay the cheese out like this when they’re building the grilled cheese so you get a little extra pocket of cheese in the middle?
I was only able to go one-at-a-time when I was making them because of the pan selection I made, so in order to keep the finished ones hot I turned on the toaster oven, put a plate on top of it, and kept the grilled cheeses on that plate. They stayed nice and warm for serving.
One of the other biggest discussions when it comes to grilled cheese is how to cut them. I decided not even to debate this and just put a knife out on the table for people to use to cut their grilled cheese however they wanted.
Tomato Soup
I know there are a million recipes for tomato soup, but this is the one my mom used to make when I was little. The recipe below serves 4 and takes about 25 minutes to make in total.
Ingredients
2 cups cooked rice (made with 1 cup dry rice + 2 cups of water)
2 cans of Campbell's tomato soup
2 cups whole milk
Oregano to taste
Basil to taste
Black pepper to taste
Instructions
Make the rice according to the package directions
In the same pot add tomato soup, milk, oregano, basil, and black pepper.
Stir and bring to boil.
Add extra milk or water if it's too thick.
Just in case you’re somebody like me and the phrase “add X to taste” scares the crap out of you, I took pictures of how much basil and oregano I added. Then I doubled that. I added that same amount (the non-doubled amount) of black pepper. It really was hard to mess up, but every time somebody tells me that I don’t believe them, so you don’t need to believe me either, try it out for yourself.
I left it on the stove a little bit long, and it sat a little bit long so it became more of a stew than a soup, but it was still really good.
Strawberries
While this seems like a silly section, I’m putting it in here to show you exactly how easy it is – and because I took the photographs.
Wash the strawberries. Cut the strawberries. Done.
Ice Cream
Ditto. Simple. Easy. Open the lid. Serve. Done.
I splurged on Ben and Jerry’s because it was on sale. Such a delicious treat. To the point that I would consider splurging on it again even if it wasn’t on sale.
And that’s it. A simple grilled cheese dinner party for four for under $25, not including the wine. Do you have any go-to simple dinners that you like to use? I’ve got a theory there’s a lot of crock pot ones that I’m excited to find and try this upcoming winter.
