Naptime Entertaining: Recipes & Ideas for Family Entertaining

Today’s webisode showcases how easy and fun it can be to make a batch of Caprese no-knead bread, or any kind of no-knead bread for that matter. I swear, once you get this technique down you are golden. Anyone can do it, even the busiest parent on the planet! As you’ll see, I make mine with a lot of love…and neglect. I pull the dough together after my daughter is asleep for the night, let it rise overnight and bake it in the morning. There are nearly infinite variations of no-knead bread and this recipe is a tried and true favorite. It contains sun-dried tomatoes, sweet basil and is topped with melted mozzarella. We can’t get enough of it and I’ve even taking to make it for friends when they come over for soup and sandwiches.

When I entertain there are usually at least two kinds of cheese dishes on our table. I typically make up one basic cheese plate, hot cheese dip, or baked brie for a savory pre-dinner nibble, and feature cheese somewhere in the dinner course. This may seem like overkill, but it actually works out well. There are so many varieties of cheese it is fairly easy to use it several times in one evening without overdoing it. Also, tasty cheese does not have to be expensive, so drawing up a cheese-focused menu can be quite budget friendly. With a few dinner parties on the horizon I recently decided to focus on a few new entertaining recipes featuring cheese, starting with this terrifically strong, fresh Roquefort.

Meyer lemons have dominated my kitchen this month. They are finally in season (I wait all year!) and my friends at Duda Farm Fresh foods kindly sent me a big boxful to work with. For Christmas dinner this year I decided to make a Meyer lemon cheesecake instead of my usual eggnog version. My family, especially my father, adores cheesecake and anything lemony so I knew he would be especially enthusiastic about this addition to the menu.

This week I am talking about some holiday favorites. These are the favorite dishes we like to serve year after year at our holiday table and I think you might like them too. To add to the fun this week my friends at Big Kitchen.com are generously donating a gorgeous purple 6.25 quart Staub Cocotte. I swear, these cast iron dutch ovens are the best for roasts, soups and even no-knead bread. I especially love the little tips on the lid that are designed specifically for braising! Entry rules are below so be sure to leave your comment. In the mean time, let’s talk about one of the holiday favorites recipes I use this gorgeous Staub for: pork roast!

I am filing this under “naptime entertaining” because flavored dipping oils are one of my favorite things to have on hand when we entertain. I love slicing up a baguette and pouring little pools of oil in various shallow bowls for people to sample while we wait for dinner to be ready. I’ve come to love coming up with new oil flavors based on what is fresh in my herb pot which is, by the way, thriving in our bedroom for the winter months. These oils are so simple to make and poured into pretty glass bottles they make beautiful gifts!

When some Moms and I decided to get together for an early holiday gathering we all agreed to bring some tasty cookies. It wasn’t a cookie swap per se, more like a cookie potluck. I asked around for ideas on what people wanted and got a whole variety of requests, but the two that stuck out to be were eggnog cookies and snickerdoodles. At first I thought about doing both cookies separately and then I thought, heck no, I’ll combine them!

The weekend before Halloween we invited some friends up from New York for the weekend. Our mutual friends, who live in our Connecticut neighborhood, were also invited over for lunch with their kids so we could all catch up together. We had expected to celebrate a late fall weekend with a hot lunch and plenty of fresh air and then, wouldn’t you know it, it snowed! Snow is no big deal around here in, say, January, but it was highly unusual in late October. We didn’t lose power during the Snowtober drama, thank goodness, but if we did it wouldn’t have been a problem – we had steaming bowls of chili and the most amazing sweet cornbread to last us all weekend long.

We’ll be in Florida for Thanksgiving this year which means whatever recipes I want to make have to be easy. While I am there I want to spend the maximum amount of her naptime (and awake time!) with my feet in the sand, not tackling complicated Thanksgiving recipes in my in-law’s small kitchen. For our family feast I’ve volunteered to take care of two of the side dishes – which may actually take place on Friday, whole different matter – and this is the first recipe I am considering. Instead of making giant a vat of mashed potatoes for four adults and one toddler, I am going to roast some sweet fingerlings with rosemary, olive oil and salt until fragrant and crispy.

I have done a banner job of overcommitting myself this year. The second I am done with one event it is on to the next. I am not complaining in the least, but I do get tired once in a while. Last week was a particularly strenuous one. I prepared for a Halloween cupcake decorating party, immediately followed by my daughter’s school bake sale. For my contribution I baked a sweet snappy cookie that reminds me of fall, the gingersnap. To give it an extra flavor boost I sandwiched some caramel buttercream in the middle and bagged them up.

As part of my collaboration with Costco and the National Pork Board this week I developed a recipe using a Boneless Sirloin Tip Roast I got at Costco. Since we were planning a get together with friends recently I decided to use the meat for a great casual entertaining recipe. I’ve always loved making pulled pork in the slow-cooker so I decided to sweeten it up with some cherry cola and top it with a delicious cherry-mustard sauce.

When I agreed to bring an apple-y treat to a playdate recently I knew exactly what I wanted to make. I experimented with this Apple Crumb Cheesecake bar recipe a lot last year but never posted about it. Now I’ve think I’ve got it fine-tuned and am finally ready to share it! They were originally inspired by my husband’s love of cheesecake and my love of apples. I make a lot of apple breads and muffins during apple season, which are great of course, but I really wanted to try combining cheesecake and apples to make one stellar bar we all would love.

The other title of this post could be “What Kelsey makes when she is in charge of her own birthday cake” or “what to bake when you are ready to drown in chocolate.” As some of you know, I bake my birthday cake every year and is it always chocolate. My sweet husband always comes through with the great gifts and dinner out, but he doesn’t bake and I certainly don’t expect him to learn just for my benefit. I’d also rather bake my own cake than eat something picked up at the local grocery shop. This year I was inspired by the flavors of nutella. I was in the mood for something rich and chocolaty, with notes of hazelnut and coffee.