re: Dinner Party Menu Planning...need some advice. (Updated, proposed Menu on pg 2)

The recipe below for Crawfish Beignets is always a hit. We serve them a lot during the cocktail hour before dinner. You can make them up ahead of time and keep them in the fridge. They do have to be fried just before serving, but that takes no time and with them all made up and the sauce made and ready to serve, there's nothing to them. They have the seafood requirement your mom likes and they would be a surprise unless you've made something like them before.

Something people don't have a lot at home as a starter is a soup and they really like that.
You could make ahead a roasted red bell pepper soup served in cups. Garnish with toasted almonds and chopped chives or thinly sliced green onions. You either load the soup on a tray and pass them or put it in a crock with small cups and let them garnish themselves. A shrimp or lump of crabmeat floating on top is another garnish possibility.

I have a white cheddar soup in the recipe book that's really good and well received at parties, if that might interest you.

You could also do a corn and andouille or crawfish or shrimp or crabmeat bisque.

Here's a recipe from Masson's Beach House that I love. You can make it ahead of time and bake just before putting it out or serving. You'll have to make the hollandaise, the day of, but you can hold it in a thermos for about 3 hours.
Crabmeat and artichoke

Makes 6 servings

2 bay leaves

6 fresh cooked artichoke bottoms (can add the meat from the leaves too, if you wish, and use some of the leaves to decorate the plates)

2 ounces white wine

1 pound jumbo lump crabmeat

1 cup grated Swiss cheese

¼ pound butter

1 egg

½ bunch green onions, sliced thin

½ cup bread crumbs

1 pinch cayenne pepper

Salt to taste

1 pinch leaf thyme

Hollandaise sauce

Saute sliced green onions, cayenne, thyme and bay leaves in the margarine about 3 minutes. Add wine and crabmeat. Fold in the egg and bread crumbs. Form crab mixture such that a generous amount fits on top of each artichoke bottom. Sprinkle with just a bit of grated cheese and bake in a 350-degree oven for 10 minutes. Top with hollandaise sauce and serve. Outstanding!

Would your Mom enjoy shrimp and grits? You can probably hold the shrimp in a chafer if you can control the temp okay or you can just put it out as a meal rather than sitting out until they're ready. I made a very good and easy version and it's tomato based, so it hits the creole aspect that your mom likes. I usually make the sauce ahead of time and add the shrimp right before serving. Grits can be made ahead of time and baked again to warm. We do it all the time, that way. It's in the recipe book. I don't think the recipe looks near as good as it is. I wouldn't even make it at first. When my Mom made it for me, I was sold. I had it for some friends and two of them took the recipe and served it 3 times in 2 weeks. It's a good dish for a crowd. I use it for football game watching a lot.

What about a good bbq shrimp for a crowd? I always think that's fun, sort of like a crawfish boil since every is busy peeling and chatting.

Crawfish dishes hold really well in chafers. Crawfish cardinale is delicious and you could put out baked puff pastry cups for them to fill with the mixture. Have some nice asparagus and a tossed salad to go with it. The asparagus will hold pretty well in a chafer, also. You can substitute crawfish for shrimp in the shrimp and grits dish.

Bread pudding would be a good dessert if your Mom likes that.

Still thinking...let us know if anything triggers other ideas you have about this and we can go in other directions.