Finally, it is time to reunite with your friends from high school and enjoy a nice week off after being bombarded with tests and endless homework assignments. And, you are excited that you will be getting to enjoy a break from dining hall food. What better way than to enjoy the company of your friends and food than to host Friendsgiving. My friends and I held Friendsgiving at my house last year. This is a sample menu that I created. Salad:

Start with a base of mixed greens. Then add sliced honey crisp apples, candied pecans, craisins, and goat cheese to the top of it.

Main Dish:

Homemade mac and cheese. We actually used rotini pasta from the Dreamfields which has 5g of fiber, 7g of protein. This provides some nutrients but it still tastes like normal pasta, unlike most substitutes that may use chickpea or black bean flour. To take this mac and cheese to the next level we used shredded fontina and several scoops of ricotta.

Potatoes:

Friendsgiving is not complete without some dish featuring potatoes. Instead of regular white potatoes, my friends and I opted to use sweet potatoes. We made twice baked sweet potatoes and garnished them with blueberries and cinnamon.

Dessert:

Pies are usually more difficult to make so my friends and I made an apple crisp. We used a blend of cinnamon, vanilla, and brown sugar when we covered then apples. We did not have to use a lot of extra sugars because the apples are already naturally sweet. This is a healthy yet delicious end to the meal. But, if you do want something a little bit sweeter you could add vanilla ice cream to the side.

Now you have you the perfect menu, the only thing missing is the space where you can enjoy this food. Below are some of the techniques I used to transform my space and still stay on a small budget.

Personalized glasses:

You can order fun stemless champagne flutes or stemless wine glasses on Amazon. Plain glasses are relatively inexpensive and then gives you the opportunity to paint them. I used glass paint and wrote the names of my friends on them. These served as name tags so my friends could see where they were sitting at the table but they also got to take them home at the end of the night.

Plates:

I bought clear glass plates from the dollar store. I painted on the bottoms of the plates so that they matched the glasses that I had done previously.

Center Piece:

Also, at the dollar store, I was able to find a fake flower garland. I draped this down the center of my table and added tea light candles around. I used flowers colors that complimented the paint color that I used for the plates and glasses.