Hey thanks! I'll steal your ideas shamelessly, and now I know what we're eating for the party! :)

Home alone, so eating leftovers while hubby's working night shift.

But hoping for some help... we're having vegetarian friends for dinner party on Tuesday.

We often eat meat free in our house, but I don't feel the need to "impress" my husband or kid. An egg main with side salad is a good dinner for us. With these guests coming, I want to make a cohesive menu that is a little more special.

I"m thinking of a tomato pesto quiche for our main. What would be a nice appetizer to have with cocktails? And a side with dinner? I'm a pretty good cook, but a terrible menu planner in terms of unity.

We would have spaghetti with butter and sugar. mmm. carb fest.
and this is sort of gross, but I loved it: cheerios with sliced up hot dogs and milk. yes, gross. but I was little and didn't know better and it tasted good. (what I realize now was that was the only food in the house, and she gave it to me and didn't herself eat... love my mama)

There's a great book called _Can She Bake a Cherry Pie?_ that's by a food historian whose name I can't remember. She basically tells the history of 20th Century American via the cookbooks that were popular (i.e. Depression-era cookbooks were all about stretching expensive foods, using less-than-awesome meat cuts...). 1950s processed foods were a sort of democratic solution to cooking without servants (i.e. "outsourcing" the prepwork to the factories). Her section about crockpots is interesting. Crock pots and processed foods were a way for women to entertain guests even after having been at work all day.

I still don't like cooking with a crockpot--it clutters my kitchen and hogs my only electric outlet--but historically, I think they're interesting contraptions.