Party Food

Since SpecialK brought it up, there's a few recipes/guidelines that I use when planning food for a party.

The first is to make a food from each of these main categories: Poultry, Meat, Fish, Veggie, Potato. This gives all your picky eaters variety.

The second is to think of ways you could cook ahead, or begin to cook ahead all the food you plan to make. The easiest way to do this is to make "rustic" dishes, which suggests that the ingredients are cut larger and there's one overriding spice to each dish.

There's a few staple dishes that I think are really easy for parties:

Chicken Wings
Beef Stroganoff
Bacon-wrapped shrimp
Roasted veggies
Roasted potatoes
Salad (with a fancy dressing)
A cheese platter

Chicken wings are simple, buy the drumettes already packaged, cover them in your favorite dry rub bbq seasoning (in the spice aisle) roast them the day before for about 20 minutes. Then let them cool and refigerate them. On the day of your party, put a little of your favorite bbq sauce on them and roast them again until they're warmed through. Serve with a little extra sauce on the side and with a sprinkling of fresh parsley for color.

Beef stroganoff can be done in a slow cooker and kept there during your party, with mugs next to it for your guests to take a cup. The ingredients are chuck roast, cubed, 1 can of beef stock, 1 cup of red wine, fresh pepper, paprika, 1 clove of fresh garlic, 1/2 onion, finely chopped, and egg noodles. Throw all the ingredients except the noodles into your slow cooker and set it for like 4 hours. Check it once it starts boiling for spice; add more paprika if you need to. Cook the nooldes separately and add them once the beef is tender.

Bacon wrapped shrimp is simple: wrap a slice of bacon around a shrimp, place it on a cookie rack set on top of a baking sheet, sprinkle it with a little fresh thyme, then roast for like 5 minutes or until the shrimp are cooked through. This can be done right before your guests arrive and tastes good at room temperature.

I always toss my roasted veggies (Carrots, red onion, parsnips, broccoli, asparagus, etc.) with a little olive oil, freshly chopped garlic, salt and pepper. Roast at like 400 until they're tender inside and a little browned outside. Be sure to scrape all the flavor off your roasting pan and put it into a bowl with the veggies.

Roasted potatoes are fun too. If you really want to seem fancy, you could use those tiny fingerling potatoes or the purple ones, but the recipe is the same. On a large baking sheet, toss the potoatoes with olive oil, salt, pepper and herbs de provence. Again, roast at 400 until cooked through. *You can roast these and the veggies the day before about half way and then warm them up the day of.

Salad dressings are all about a single special ingredient, like raspberry vinegar, champagne vinegar, myer lemons, tangerines, or even your favorite liquor. Make sure you have a good olive oil, salt, pepper, a good vinegar, garlic, onion (or shallot), one main spice and something to emulsify, like dijon mustard, if you want to make a creamy dressing. One of my favorites is champagne vinegar, fresh lemon juice, thyme and garlic. Play around with whatever tastes good to you that day.

Cheese platters always look fancier if you put some green leaves on the bottom of the platter. If you can find large flat green leaves, use em, if not, dark green romaine leaves look good. After you've created a bed, put large blocks of cheese on the platter with little knives to cut. I'd like to have friends who enjoy blue cheese, but I've found that a lot of people are turned off by it. So stick with a ball of fresh mozzarella, a spiced cheddar, maybe a roqefort, and whatever else seems good. English water crackers look prettiest around the cheeses, and you can put a large bunch of grapes in the center.

I also love using puff pastry to make appetizers. You can wrap cooked chicken peices, veggies, fish or anything else in a little puff pastry triangle then bake it for about 10 minutes to have wonderful finger foods.

And just remember, if you don't feel like cooking, you can always hire me as a caterer!