Hi All! I am taking the week off next week to spend with my family. It will be a double whammy holiday since someone we know is celebrating a very special birthday ON Thanksgiving Day. The photo above are the cupcakes I made for her birthday party last weekend (recipe to come!). In the mean time, here are some fun ideas for your Thanksgiving Day this year. Have a fun and safe week with your friends and family. I’ll back on December 1st and we can start in on our holiday gift guides (!)
Try as I might, I am never completely ready for the holidays, no matter how much I plan. There is always something I overlook or, more likely, don’t anticipate. Like that time our friends stopped over to chat and we ended up having an informal dinner party. Or the time our neighbors’ furnace broke and we took them in for the better part of an evening. It is always fun when people come by, but it is important to be prepared so you don’t greet them with an empty kitchen and a glass of tap water. In order to help you be properly prepared this holiday season, I’ve assembled some easy tips to ensure you’re ready to entertain at the ding of the doorbell.
1) Stock your kitchen so you are ready to entertain in an emergency cocktail hour situation with:
– 1 block of Arla Dofino Havarti
– 1 block of flavored Arla Dofino Gouda (cracked pepper, chili-lime, or jalapeno are
current favorites)
– 1 box of water crackers
– 1 box of baked crisp or unusually flavored cracker
– A container of cocktail nuts
– A bag of dried apricots and dates, or similar preferred dried fruits
– Toothpicks for serving cheese cubes
– A couple varieties of wine
With these ingredients at the ready, you can assemble a fruit and cheese platter and pour a glass of wine within minutes. In fact, you can even put together the cheese platter while your impromptu guests chat with you in the kitchen. It is that easy and it never fails.
Last weekend some dear friends came to visit and we had a fun, easy (keyword: easy) lasagna night at home. Casual entertaining is my favorite, especially when it is cold outside. We make cheesy comfort food, light a fire, and serve lots of good red wine. The mood is casual and comfy. All we do is chat for hours on end while keeping one ear on the kids playing upstairs. Here is how we go about hosting lasagna night if you’d like to see:
I have been a longtime fan of The Kitchn and editors Sara-Kate Gillingham and Faith Durand. Their website is insanely informative and now they’ve gone an written an amazingly handy cookbook, too.The Kitchn Cookbook: Recipes, Kitchens & Tips to Inspire Your Cookingis not just useful in the it-has-great-recipes kind of way. It is covers the entire kitchen from renovations and maintenance, to cooking and entertaining. It teaches you how to stretch your kitchen to limit and make it a room you love to live and cook in.
My mother made these recipe when we were visiting Cooperstown in October. It was so warm and hearty I couldn’t wait to share it with you. It isn’t an original of mine, my mom mined it from the depths of Google and gave it her own tweaks. She has such a well-trained eye for good recipes! I am always looking for new ways to make mushroom soup. My old favorite is delish, but we all need change now and then. I promise, you’ll love the smooth silky flavor with the undertones of nuttiness from the barley. It is easy to whip up during naptime and put away in the fridge (or freezer) for later. Stay warm!
Where there are families, there is snack food. No two ways about it. I’ve long advocated for generally healthy eating habits in our home and that includes an assortment of store-bought products we love. Some things are just better purchased than made at home! One of the things I buy are Stacy’s Pita Chips. They are made in small batches by hand and I never worry about giving them to my kids. We eat them plain or with hummus, or sometimes even with a caramel dip for dessert. To spice things up this holiday season my friends at Stacy’s came out with a delicious limited edition flavor. Salted Caramel Pita Chips! Seriously, they are as amazing as they sound.
Let’s face it, it is tough to get healthy dinners on the table every single night of the week. But it is even harder during the holiday season. If your family is like ours, there are tons of after-school activities, late nights for work travel, and all sorts of holiday-themed homework. On top of that there is spending every extra spare minute getting things organized for the holiday season. Every so often I give myself a break when this craziness rolls around and order a box from Blue Apron. This smart service cleverly makes healthy meals easy to make by delivering the pre-measured ingredients straight to your door.
When I think baking, I think Dorie Greenspan. Over the years she has been a guru, mentor, and friend, and for that I am so grateful. Lucky for us, Dorie continue to write amazing baking books. I’ll admit, I didn’t think there would ever be a book quite as awesome as Baking: From My Home To Yours, but now there is. Baking Chez Moi is Dorie’s latest book and it is such a treasure. In it she features family-friendly French baking recipes that are neither finicky nor complicated. In fact, they are downright homey!
Sandwiches are my go-to lunch and, sometimes, my go-to dinner. They are perfect in so many ways because you can layer in all sorts of delicious ingredients and not have to worry about turning on the oven. In honor of National Sandwich Day today I am thrilled to be sharing one of my all-time sandwiches. It is my version of the basic BLT, but with a tasty twist including a fried egg and creamy Arla Dofino Dill Havarti.
