|
|
|
14 Easy Cooking Tips for Meat and Poultry Slow Cooker Recipes
The first Christmas we spent with my in-laws in their new
country home, my mother-in-law wisely gave me a slow cooker. Her
thoughtful gift helped Dan and I enjoy the most convenient of
all cooking methods, even with our long work days and...
Best Recipes: Cranberry Salad Squares
Cranberries and cranberry sauce are a favorite fall and winter fruit. It’s tart and tangy flavor goes perfect with many holiday meals. Most people enjoy cranberry sauce at the dinner table and don’t realize that cranberries are great in salads...
Biscuits: Sweet Potato Biscuit Recipe and a Cheese Biscuit Recipe link
One of the best tasting breakfast recipes for the fall months is
sweet potato biscuits. We love to serve them at parties; making
a mini version, cut with a cutter about a inch diameter and
putting country ham on them. If you were where we're...
May's Featured Holidays and Recipes
There are three great days in the month of May that I would like to talk about...Cinco de Mayo, Mother's Day, and Memorial Day. I will share a brief history and include a couple of delectable recipes. Happy May! ...
Six Smoothie Recipes for Constipation and Acne Relief
I recommend drinking a morning smoothie if you have constipation or if you have skin problems like acne. Drinking a high fiber smoothie relieves and prevents constipation. It will also provide the nutrients that are necessary for having or...
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
|
|
|
| All recipes – complete resource for recipes and cooking tips |
| Looking for recipes? You’ve come to the right place. Allrecipes has more than 40000 free recipes - all created, tested, reviewed and approved by home cooks ... |
| allrecipes.com |
|
| Epicurious.com: the World's Greatest Recipe Collection |
| Recipes from Gourmet and Bon Appetit plus web only content and an extensive recipe archive. |
| www.epicurious.com |
|
| Latest Recipes at Epicurious.com |
| Gourmet and Bon Appétit recipes with reader reviews and tips. |
| www.epicurious.com |
|
| RecipeSource: Your Source for Recipes on the Internet |
| Browse or search an large archive collected from a variety of Usenet newsgroups and mailing lists. Includes a wide selection of ethnic foods, ... |
| www.recipesource.com |
|
| Food Network : Cooking, Recipe Collections, Party Ideas, Quick ... |
| Food Network is a television network and website devoted to all things food with a recipe for every occasion: Sharing recipes, video demonstrations, ... |
| www.foodnetwork.com |
|
| Recipes - Recipe Collections, Cooking Tools & Free Newsletter ... |
| From the many shows on this cable television show, recipes are categorized by food type, occasion, technique, region, or by celebrity chef. |
| www.foodnetwork.com |
|
| Recipezaar: Where the World's Recipes Are |
| Browse or search thousands of rated recipes, each with nutritional information. Post a recipe and get free nutritional analysis of the dish. |
| www.recipezaar.com |
|
| Recipe Archive Index |
| Extensive index of assorted recipes. |
| www.cs.cmu.edu |
|
| Recipes |
| Simple and easy to prepare recipes and cooking tips. |
| www.kidshealth.org |
|
| Recipes & Cookbooks - Cooking Recipes from Betty Crocker |
| Meal planning, award winning recipes, menu suggestions and special occasion tips. |
| www.bettycrocker.com |
|
| bawarchi your indian cook |
| www.bawarchi.com/ - 1k - Cached - Similar pages |
|
|
| copykat.com |
| Recipes for popular restaurant meals. |
| www.copykat.com |
|
| Recipes! Find Thousands of Free Recipes at CooksRecipes.com: A ... |
| A cooking site offering online culinary help, a searchable index of recipes, daily tips and trivia. |
| www.cooksrecipes.com |
|
| Simply Recipes Food and Cooking Blog |
| Focusing on healthy home cooking and recipes. |
| www.elise.com |
|
| Best Cook Recipes - Cakes, salads, main dishes |
| Cook recipes in many categories, culinary articles, culinary forum. |
| www.bestcookrecipes.com |
|
| Top Secret Recipes on the Web |
| Make brand-name products at home with common ingredients. New recipes every month. Site includes message boards, chats, an online store, and a message board ... |
| www.topsecretrecipes.com |
|
| RecipeLand.com - Find 50000+ recipes. It's fast, easy, free and fun. - |
| Thousands of recipes with quick and easy searching. From shrimp pate to doggie treats you'll find recipe options here. Chicken recipes, beef recipes, ... |
| www.recipeland.com |
|
| Recipes at Cooking.com: Free recipes from trusted sources - Find ... |
| Quick easy chicken recipes beef fish pasta main course soup appetizer cookie cake pie dessert baking low fat vegetarian Mexican. |
| www.cooking.com |
|
| Recipes - Thousands of free recipes at Recipe Goldmine |
| Over 21000 recipes including ethnic cuisine, copycat recipes; kitchen charts, household hints, gardening, crafts, BBQ Guru, and pet recipes. |
| www.recipegoldmine.com |
|
| The Vegetarian Society - Recipe Index |
| A large collection of vegetarian recipes and food articles, organized by season. From UK Metric and US measurements. |
| www.vegsoc.org |
|
|