Visitors for Dinner

Having visitors over for dinner .. why do you do it?

For the the company and socialisation?
Or because you like cooking for people and hosting a dinner?

For me it's all about the company and catching up with friends and family! 
It's actually the hosting part of it that I hate!! 

Like come on, you invite people over for dinner and then what, you end up spending the majority of the time in the kitchen preparing and cooking dinner, and then cleaning up afterwards ... and then to get the socialisation you have to have your friends or family in the kitchen with you! 

We invited my parents for dinner on Thursday night (which is why I was thinking about it all this) and I wanted to actually catch up with my parents rather than be in the kitchen the whole time. So I decided on Pasta Cabonara for dinner :) because it's reasonably quick and very easy.

I prepared all the ingredients before my parents even came around. I cut up the mushrooms & bacon, put the beans in a steam bag etc, so when my parents arrived I only had to actually cook the dinner and only spent half the time in the kitchen that I would have if I needed to prepare everything too. 

I think I only had to spend about 15 minutes in the kitchen :) putting on the pasta (& checking on it), cooking the bacon & mushrooms in the frypan, microwaving the beans & sauce :) and then just mix it all together and serving EASY!!! 

Which meant I got to spend the rest of the time catching up with my parents, even though we weren't all fully focused on each other and just talking ... it was still great spending time with them :)

Dad - Watched a movie (Bourne Identity)
Mum - Watched movie, talked & did paperwork (great multi-tasker she is)
Grant  - Watched the movie & did work on his laptop (for my dad)
Me - Repaired necklace of Mum's, talked & watched the movie! (Multi-tasker like my mum!)