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Christian InTech Articles - Cooking TIps
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Choosing The Best Ice Cream Maker
You can make delicious ice cream at home, as good as any premium store brand, if you choose a good ice cream maker and follow a few tips. Ice cream makers can range in price from under $100 to over $500. The more expensive models contain built in...
Easy summer salads, lighter foods for a brighter summer
Easy summer salads are the way to go, now that the winter blues are fading into the distance and salad days are here. The best salads are light, bright and easy to prepare.
After all who wants to spend hours slaving away in the kitchen when...
Provence Steak Recipes
Want an international flair for your steaks? Try a Provence steak recipe. These are delicious steak recipes that anyone will enjoy if they like meat at all. You will enjoy serving these wonderful dishes to any dinner guests and surprising your...
Red Pepper Lamb Kofta in a Rogan Josh Sauce
(NC)—Kofta is similar to kebab, except for the fact that ground meat is used, shaped into golf ball-sized servings. Like many classic Indian dishes, it comes in various forms, some of them requiring elaborate and lengthy preparation. Here is a...
Strawberries Anyone
How do you feel about strawberries. I personally like them. They are a treat that we eat whole or sliced with drizzled honey. Did you know that the average strawberry has about 200 seeds on the outside. My kids always contemplate growing...
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Why Do Make-Ahead Recipes Work So Well To Reduce Your Dinner Party Stress?
One of the “tricks” I find most useful for hosting stress-free dinner parties is to make some of the recipes ahead. I find that too many last minute jobs can overwhelm me, so I plan ahead to eliminate as many as possible.
The more dishes you can prepare a day or some hours before guests ring your doorbell, the more you reduce your stress. Here are some reasons:
· You avoid a last minute crisis if preparation takes longer than you thought it would.
· If you like to cook, you’ll have the leisure to enjoy what you’re doing instead of feeling frantic about a deadline
· You have time to clean up after you cook.
· If there is a disaster, say you burn something, you have plenty of time to come up with an alternate plan.
· If you have prepared the dessert ahead, you don’t need to leave the table for a long stretch just when the conversation is getting really interesting.
Put your imagination to work for you! Try to imagine your way through the last minute jobs you will have to get dinner on the table, and reduce them to a minimum you feel comfortable with. It helps to think about what all those last minute jobs are: setting out the ice water pitcher, lighting the candles, putting items in serving dishes and getting the guests to the table.
By the way, many of these are jobs that your guests can do.
What is your level of tolerance for last minute jobs?
Now ask yourself what your level of tolerance is for last minute jobs? If it is low, then you should think about finding some recipes that absolutely minimize any last minute work. This is especially true if you are an inexperienced cook.
Some of the recipes I rely on are make-ahead, and some are just items that I can bring home from the store and put out in nice serving dishes.
Some cooks even make everything ahead. If you love stews, lasagna and casseroles, then you could do that
too.
But I often prefer serving a delicious roast of lamb or beef or chicken as the special item on the menu. Luckily these dishes are ones you can put in the oven and leave to themselves while you do other things.
If you can add potatoes and vegetables to the roast while it cooks you have almost all of the advantages of make-ahead. Once you pop them in the oven beside the roast you can pretty well ignore them until they are cooked.
So I tend to focus on finding appetizers, salads, side dishes and desserts that I can make ahead, or set out straight from the store, or vegetables I can cook alongside a roast. Then I can concentrate on the last minute items like slicing a roast, making gravy, and getting things on the table.
Probably the most important category for me is appetizers. I find it too stressful to be fussing at cooking something while the doorbell is ringing. If you are hosting by yourself you may find the same.
So I try to have a repertoire of make-ahead or buy-ahead appetizer recipes that work for me. Often I serve more than one, since some of my guests like to stick to very light appetizers, and others enjoy heartier ones.
You can build your repertoire of make ahead recipes for your home dinner parties. I suggest you start with appetizers. If you want to see some of my favorites, just go to my the Make-Ahead Appetizers page on my website.
Enjoy minimizing your hosting stress and watching your guests’ eyes light up at the sight of your tasty, well presented appetizers.
About the Author
Joanie Williams has been enjoying giving home dinner parties with minimum stress for over 25 years. See how you can use make-ahead appetizers to reduce your stress and enjoy your own dinner parties. http://www.thedinnerpartyplanningsite.com/make-ahead-appetizers.html
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