Stefanie Rafaniello Stefanie Rafaniello

Summer BBQ

I think I have realized that I absolutely love hosting and throwing together dinners or parties. Growing up, my house was always packed with people and my parents were always hosting so it’s no wonder I love it too. We recently had our families over for a barbeque and it was so much fun. I wanted my table to be very airy and cool so I used linen tablecloths, with some woven placemats, and these adorable plates I found on etsy. On top of the plates I laid out the napkins, which I absolutely adore. I topped it off with all disposable gold silverware and cups with a gold rim. I found these terracotta vases and put four of them going down the center of the table and filled them with hydrangeas and greenery.

 

Now for the best part, the food

 Food is the most important part in everything, always, obviously. Being Italian, we always need an antipasto, my husband loves to do that. We wanted to make sure we didn’t get a lot of cold cuts and cheeses because it has been brutally hot here in New York and we didn’t want it to go bad. I made some fresh bruschetta, mini pesto and mozzarella paninis, raw vegetables with different kinds of hummus, grilled peach salad with fresh burrata, rice balls, and some more. There cannot be any Italian dinner without pasta, it’s just unheard of. I decided to make something light so, I made pasta primavera, with some fresh green veggies. You can find my full recipe here! Then, it came down to the fun part, the barbeque, we had chicken shish kebabs, wagyu burgers, hot dogs, beef sticks, and marinated chicken breasts. For sides, we did grilled corn, roasted carrots, tomato and cucumber salad, string bean and potato salad and roasted potatoes. I made everyone bring dessert because honestly, I just forgot about it. Everything was so good and so much fun!

 

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