Given that we are heading into the Entertaining Season very swiftly now, what are your favourite entertaining tips to keep things stress free in the kitchen and create a welcoming home?
Just a few little ones for me - apart from really trying to live by the KISS principle (Keep It Simple Stupid):
Well, OK the KISS one first. Keep things simple and it makes for a lot less stress and your guests will prbably still have a great time. No need for killing yourself making a gourmet menu, having "Martha Stewart"-esque decor and gleaming surfaces everywhere (including the garden shed, cos let's face it, a stray guest may end up in there!! LOL). Nothing wrong with Martha, but we are real women with real lives and no staff. So a generally clean and neat space where we'll have visitors (even if that means that you lock one closet door for safety purposes), with a tasty and filling meal or nibbles, and a warm welcome means an awful lot. Simple decoration if any - just laying the table nicely with your ware (which doesn't have to be the "best set of grandma's china" - everyday is often more than adequate, especially if it can go in the dishwasher afterwards), and serving plain but tasty food can work very well. If you have time, you can add fancy touches, but work on keeping the hosts calm and relaxed first.
I like to have a decent amount of ice in the freezer, as ours doesn't make ice terribly fast. So if I know I am having company, and once October comes anyway, I try to make sure that I turn over the icetrays into a spare plastic tub regularly, and make a spare couple of trays that way. So I can have plenty when I need it.
A related thing I like to do is making my "slices" in advance as well. This started when I got fed up finding half lemons and limes going off in the fridge, as there wasn't enough use made of them (I'd cut one open for a slice for one or 2 drinks, and the rest would not get used). So I began to slice the whole fruit when I opened it first. (Or use half for juice in cooking, but slice the other half rather than wasting it). Any that wasn't used that day, would get put on a baking tray and frozen for an hour. Once frozen, I popped the slices into a large tub and they are then ready for popping straight into drinks as needed (and already frozen means ice is less of an issue also!!). Freezing them on the tray first means that they don't stick together and it's easy to pull out a single slice, and you can also then put lemon, lime and orange all together in one tub once frozen.
Whatever you can do in advance is great. So for dinner parties, try a menu based around a cold or precooked starter (melon balls, smoked salmon on salad with brown bread, a pot of homemade soup) and an easy maincourse (I like a roast of some sort - whether a whole joint to be carved, or individual portions like chicken breasts on the bone, or individual racks of lamb). Roast potatoes with that. And some veg - either gently steamed (which are prepared before guests arrived and cook while having starter) or roasted with main course. Or pre-cooked and kept warm in the side oven - like green beans with bacon and cream, or cauliflower and cheese sauce. And a desert that either cooks while you eat (individual portions of fruit crumbles, or an apple pie say), or is cold (a cake or cheesecake, fruit salad, ice cream, chocolate or lemon tart etc).
Seriously, I think the best thing for good entertaining is a stress free hostess (having NOT been that far too often in the past) and the KISS principle is what I now aspire to. Meaning that DH is far more willing to entertain now than in the past (as I am not a bag of stressed out cats waiting to pounce on him for the slightest thing not done or done "wrong"). LOL!!!
What are your favourite entertaining tips?
Just a few little ones for me - apart from really trying to live by the KISS principle (Keep It Simple Stupid):
Well, OK the KISS one first. Keep things simple and it makes for a lot less stress and your guests will prbably still have a great time. No need for killing yourself making a gourmet menu, having "Martha Stewart"-esque decor and gleaming surfaces everywhere (including the garden shed, cos let's face it, a stray guest may end up in there!! LOL). Nothing wrong with Martha, but we are real women with real lives and no staff. So a generally clean and neat space where we'll have visitors (even if that means that you lock one closet door for safety purposes), with a tasty and filling meal or nibbles, and a warm welcome means an awful lot. Simple decoration if any - just laying the table nicely with your ware (which doesn't have to be the "best set of grandma's china" - everyday is often more than adequate, especially if it can go in the dishwasher afterwards), and serving plain but tasty food can work very well. If you have time, you can add fancy touches, but work on keeping the hosts calm and relaxed first.
I like to have a decent amount of ice in the freezer, as ours doesn't make ice terribly fast. So if I know I am having company, and once October comes anyway, I try to make sure that I turn over the icetrays into a spare plastic tub regularly, and make a spare couple of trays that way. So I can have plenty when I need it.
A related thing I like to do is making my "slices" in advance as well. This started when I got fed up finding half lemons and limes going off in the fridge, as there wasn't enough use made of them (I'd cut one open for a slice for one or 2 drinks, and the rest would not get used). So I began to slice the whole fruit when I opened it first. (Or use half for juice in cooking, but slice the other half rather than wasting it). Any that wasn't used that day, would get put on a baking tray and frozen for an hour. Once frozen, I popped the slices into a large tub and they are then ready for popping straight into drinks as needed (and already frozen means ice is less of an issue also!!). Freezing them on the tray first means that they don't stick together and it's easy to pull out a single slice, and you can also then put lemon, lime and orange all together in one tub once frozen.
Whatever you can do in advance is great. So for dinner parties, try a menu based around a cold or precooked starter (melon balls, smoked salmon on salad with brown bread, a pot of homemade soup) and an easy maincourse (I like a roast of some sort - whether a whole joint to be carved, or individual portions like chicken breasts on the bone, or individual racks of lamb). Roast potatoes with that. And some veg - either gently steamed (which are prepared before guests arrived and cook while having starter) or roasted with main course. Or pre-cooked and kept warm in the side oven - like green beans with bacon and cream, or cauliflower and cheese sauce. And a desert that either cooks while you eat (individual portions of fruit crumbles, or an apple pie say), or is cold (a cake or cheesecake, fruit salad, ice cream, chocolate or lemon tart etc).
Seriously, I think the best thing for good entertaining is a stress free hostess (having NOT been that far too often in the past) and the KISS principle is what I now aspire to. Meaning that DH is far more willing to entertain now than in the past (as I am not a bag of stressed out cats waiting to pounce on him for the slightest thing not done or done "wrong"). LOL!!!
What are your favourite entertaining tips?
