Summer Dinner Party

A beautiful summer dinner party poolside with delicious food, cold drinks, and a nautical theme.

One of my favorite things to do during the summertime is to entertain family and friends. 

I love to play hostess and put together dinner parties and get togethers.  

I have so much fun picking out the perfect dishes and dinnerware, decorations, and food for the party!

You might already know I have a slight obsession with anchors (and anything nautical, really).

The anchor and crab plates (pictured above) screamed out my name, so I bought a set of 8,

I couldn’t resist buying three of the matching anchor and crab platters.

One of my favorite little nautical details was this seahorse spreader.

Of course I had to have the matching seahorse servers to serve with the Caesar salad.  

You might also recognize the lagoon dinnerware from my Coconut Macadamia Mango Crusted Mahi Mahi recipe.  

I used the large platter for serving the garlic bread, then the large bowl to hold the Caesar Salad.

I love the light aqua color.

It almost looks like sea glass… just beautiful!

Since no party is complete without World Market’s delicious Italian sodas, I picked up five different flavors for our dinner.  

So refreshing!

For our surf and turf dinner, I decided to go with shrimp, lobster tail, and top sirloin steak. Yummmm!! 

We grilled the shrimp and steak, then boiled the lobster tail.

The meat and seafood tasted absolutely perfect!

To go with main dishes, my mom and I made some delicious salads.

I made a Caesar salad while my mom went out to the garden and picked fresh tomatoes, basil, cucumbers, and dill.

We made a delicious tomato basil salad and a cucumber onion salad.

The salads tasted so fresh since the ingredients came straight from the garden!

One of my favorite side dishes I created for this meal were the rosemary potatoes with a creamy caper and dill dipping sauce.

I love that I can smother my potatoes in a tangy, creamy dipping sauce.

There was no guilt involved, since the sauce is made with as Greek yogurt base (instead of heavy mayo) and various herbs and spices.

The many different flavors in the sauce all magically fuse together.

This yummy sauce tasted amazing with the potatoes, but can also be used as a sauce for the shrimp, lobster, or steak.  

Here is the recipe so you can make your own!

Rosemary Potatoes with a Creamy Caper & Dill Dipping Sauce:

For the potatoes:

• Red potatoes
• Olive oil
• Fresh rosemary, chopped
• Sea salt
• Pepper
• Diced onions (optional)

• 1 cup plain Greek yogurt (I used Fage)
• 1 Tbsp. capers, chopped (I used canned)
• 1/4 tsp. white pepper
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 2 Tbsp. fresh dill, chopped
• 1/8 cup fresh lemon juice
• 2-3 Tbsp. red onion, chopped
• Sea salt, to taste