Helpful Hints

Valentine’s Day Dinner at Home!

February 11, 2019 by allybearsden 1 Comment

There are a lot of reasons why you may be having Valentine’s Day dinner at home this year – it’s a Thursday and you (and/or your significant other) may have to work Friday, you may not be able to find a babysitter, money may be short – the list is endless! That said, there’s no reason why you can’t make your Valentine’s Day dinner at home special! A lot of these ideas can work for birthdays, anniversaries, or any time you want to treat your family!

The Table

Bring out the good china! Many of us have at least one set of good china (or part of a set) that gets dragged out once a year and then stuck back in the cabinet until next year. There’s no reason you can’t take it out for your special day. Even chicken fingers seem fancy if you’re eating them off china.

If you don’t have good china, do you have anything special you can use? Toasting glasses from your wedding? Glasses you got on a family vacation? Bringing out rarely seen pieces, especially ones with sentimental value, can make any meal feel special.

Or bring out the paper plates! Holiday paper plates, or even red and pink (for Valentine’s Day) plates will make your table look like a party without spending a lot of money! You don’t have to worry about breaking them, and you don’t have to worry about washing them! They’re a little wasteful, but don’t worry about that now – it’s a special event.

Bring out a nice tablecloth or fancy place mats and napkins – either cloth if you have them, or color-coordinated paper. And if you have table runners or napkin rings you rarely use, this is a great time to use them! Make decorated place cards for each member of the family (this is another fun project for kids to do).

Eat by candlelight. And I don’t mean one or two candles – collect as many candles as you can find around the house, turn the lights down or off, and eat by their light. Be safe – keep them in the middle of the table stack them on a plate (or two) if you’re using paper goods, and be sure they’re all out before you go to bed. I got a candle snuffer as a gift a while back and I love it.

The Room

Decorate! Be careful about paper table decorations if you’re going to eat by candlelight, but if you’re not (or if you can put them around the room), paper decorations are fun and easy. Cut out hearts and decorate them (or better yet, have the kids decorate them). I found heart-shaped paper doilies in a variety of sizes at the dollar store, and if you can’t find those, you can probably find round ones that you can glue your paper hearts on. How about a paper banner spelling out “Happy Valentine’s Day” (or just “love”, if you don’t want to make that big a banner!) Instructions for a simple paper banner can be found at https://allybearsden.blog/how-to-make-a-paper-banner/

While we’re talking decorations, don’t forget flowers. They’re expensive this time of year, but if you’re not going out because of time rather than money, they may be worth it. You may have some fake flowers at home that you can take from their usual spots and rearrange as a centerpiece. Simply glue some paper hearts onto wooden skewers (put one on each side of the skewer so no one has to look at the “back”). Pop them into the arrangement of flowers-on-hand and you’ve got a seasonal arrangement without spending a lot of money!

The Meal

Make one part of the meal special. Making a special meal can take a lot of time, money, and aggravation, but making something you don’t usually have – maybe dessert, maybe a nicer-than-usual side dish – makes the whole meal seem that much more special. And making someone’s favorite dish (especially if it’s something you don’t like) is a great way to show you care!
Going back to the “good china” idea, even instant pudding can seem special if you serve it in a wine glass decorated with a dollop of whipped cream and a cut-up strawberry!

Just a Sweet Idea

Try writing each person in your family a love note – you don’t have to get all squishy if that’s not you, but I’m sure you appreciate something about each of them – write it down and leave it at their place!

I hope I’ve given you some ideas how to make Valentine’s Day special, even if you’re celebrating at home!

Letters i and u with red heart in the middle — Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash

No Longer a Holiday Home!

January 23, 2019 by allybearsden 2 Comments

I finally not only got all the holiday decorations down, but got them all put away! As part of that process, I decided to move things around in the house – I didn’t go as far as to move furniture (which has happened in the past), but I rearranged all my shelves and am very happy about it.

I wanted to share some of that with you, so here goes…more to follow:

I have Lenox in the living room already (note the cross above the fireplace, and I have a wall vase on the other side), but all my small Lenox pieces were in the dining room. I decided to move some of them in and move some of the crystal off the fireplace, especially since I generally decorate the fireplace for every season, and the crystal gets moved anyway.

Shelf unit with decorative items — The new shelves! Wood, glass, and some sentimental items.

Then I re-did the shelves on either side of the TV unit – I took some things from the dining room shelves, and some things from the fireplace and came up with this.

Then I turned to the basket of #stylingthebasket fame. It’s been on our coffee table since I got it, which is nice, but it has to get moved when I take pictures of it, and it actually interferes with changing channels on the TV because it’s in front of the cable box (the joy of small home living!) I moved it to the table next to the couch and moved some things off of that table, and now the basket has a home of its own.

I replaced the basket with a piece of Depression glass my cousin gave me recently – the table looks twice as big!

Coffee table with coasters and Depression glass piece — The wide open spaces of my coffee table!

I also moved things around on all the dining room shelves – I put a basket I’ve had in the living room in there, as well as the relocating the red candles formerly on the mantel to a room where they’ll show up better, and generally putting things in different places.

Hope you’re feeling inspired to make small changes that make a big difference!

Four Ways to Use Leftover Vegetables!

December 27, 2018 by allybearsden 1 Comment

So, yesterday I had advice for things you might not be upset to have left over – shrimp, cookies, and meat! And it’s possible you had those things left over, but it’s more likely that you have vegetables left over, and you’re probably wondering what on earth to do with them. Here are some ways to use a few common kinds of leftover vegetables:

Raw Veggies

You or someone you know probably decided to do the healthy thing and bring a veggie tray to the party. And everyone politely took a carrot and then left the veggie tray alone in favor of chips (or the aforementioned shrimp). Now what? Well, all of yesterday’s soup recipes call for carrots and celery, so they’re easy.

If you’ve got broccoli and peppers, turn them into a stir-fry. Get a few chicken cutlets or pieces of thin-sliced beef (I usually use one per adult, and you can use some leftover roast beef if you have any). Cut the meat into thin strips. Roughly chop 1 onion. Heat 2 tablespoons oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion and whatever vegetables you’d like – besides broccoli and peppers, thinly sliced celery is nice. Season – I usually use salt, pepper, soy sauce, ginger, garlic powder and onion powder. Saute over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes and add meat. Season again with all of the above, plus 1 teaspoon sesame oil if you have it and, if you like things hot, some red chili paste or sriracha. Saute for about 7 minutes, stirring often to prevent sticking. In the meantime, combine 1 tablespoon cornstarch with 1 cup cold water (or stock if you have some open), and season again with the same ingredients you used before. When the meat is cooked, stir the cornstarch mixture into the pan. Keep an eye on it – it needs to boil, but after it boils, it will only take a few minutes to become a nicely thickened sauce, and only a few minutes more to get gloppy. If you do have some gloppiness, simply stir in more seasoned water/stock. Start with a little and go from there. Serve with rice (regular or cauliflower).

Cooked Veggies

If you have leftover steamed broccoli or string beans, you can toss them into a stir-fry as shown. Just put them in close to the end, because they obviously don’t need to soften, just get warm and add their flavor to the dish.

Another good idea for leftover steamed veggies is to give them a quick roast. Put your oven on 400 – don’t worry if you’re cooking something else in there at a different temperature, because this is a very forgiving dish. Put your veggies in a baking dish and drizzle with olive oil. Add minced garlic, salt and pepper and stir well. Check them after 15 minutes. Depending on the oven temperature and the size of the vegetable pieces (broccoli and cauliflower will take longer than green beans), you may be done then or you may need up to 15 more minutes.

Mashed Veggies

Let’s say everyone ate all the raw veggies and all the cooked veggies and left you with nothing but mashed potatoes. Why not make potato cakes? You can make these with leftover white or sweet potatoes. Take your potatoes and add 1 diced onion (less if you don’t have a lot of potatoes or don’t like onion), 1/2 as much flour as you have potato (for instance, if you have 2 cups potatoes, add 1 cup flour), salt and pepper. Mix well. Heat about 1/4″ oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. When oil is hot, form the potato mixture into round “cakes” (they should look like thicker pancakes) and slide into oil (be careful not to drop them in – that’s a good way to burn yourself as I may or may not have found out). Fry for about 5 minutes on each side or until golden brown and eat as soon as possible. You can do this with leftover mashed sweet potatoes too!

Hope you’re feeling inspired to use up those leftover vegetables from your holiday meal! And, another “leftover” – a picture of a few of my Christmas penguins!

Happy Holiday Leftovers!

December 26, 2018 by allybearsden 1 Comment

Hi everyone! Hope everyone who celebrates Christmas had a wonderful one! Mine was nice, but very hectic, so I’m feeling that post-holiday letdown. I raced around like a crazy person probably for a month, but starting with Christmas pageant rehearsal Thursday night (I was one of the coordinators before anyone asks what part I had, ha ha) and straight through yesterday, the craziness was way out of control, and now it’s over. Oh well! The good part is I have some time to write!

Whether it was a pre-holiday party with friends Saturday, Christmas Eve, or Christmas Day, many of you hosted Christmas events over the last few days. And where events are, leftovers follow! So, here are a few suggestions for what to do with that old food! Please note these measurements are approximations for the most part, because I don’t know how much of the leftover item you have!

Cooked Shrimp
If you have any leftover raw seafood in your house, remove it now. Don’t read another word – I’ll be here when you get back. Double-bag it and put it outside in a closed can before your house starts smelling like raw fish! If, however, you have some leftover cooked cold shrimp from a platter yesterday, there are a few things you can do with it. First, you can cut it up with some diced celery, mayo, salt, pepper and Old Bay seasoning for a delicious shrimp salad. If you have some leftover rolls, shrimp salad sandwiches are a great way to get rid of two leftovers at once. If you’d like something a little more warm and filling, make some seafood pasta. Put a large pot of water on to boil. When boiling, add 1/2 box penne pasta. While penne is boiling, heat 1 cup tomato sauce (store-bought or out of the freezer) over medium heat. Add cooked shrimp and whatever seasoning your sauce needs – I find most store-bought sauce needs a little salt, pepper, garlic, onion powder, oregano and parsley. Turn heat down to medium-low and add about 2 tablespoons heavy cream (I usually start with one tablespoon and add more till I get the color and consistency I’m looking for). Drain pasta (reserve a ladle-full of pasta water in case you need to thin the sauce). Add pasta to sauce and stir to make sure every piece of pasta is covered in sauce. Serve immediately.

Roast Beef
My family always has roast beef for Christmas dinner. If yours does too and you find yourself with some roast beast leftovers, why not make a hash? Cut 3 raw potatoes into 1/4″ chunks and put a large pot of water on to boil. Boil potatoes for about 15 minutes. While potatoes are boiling, dice 1 medium onion and cut roast beef into 1/4″ chunks (if some has been sliced already, you can use it too, just cut the slices into smaller pieces). Drain potatoes. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add 2 tablespoons oil. Saute onion with salt and pepper for about 5 minutes. Add potatoes and roast beef and season with salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and a few shakes of paprika. Cook. stirring often, until potatoes are browned.

Turkey
If you have leftover turkey, I certainly hope you have the carcass, so you can make turkey soup! The recipe is basically the same as my chicken soup (https://allybearsden.blog/2018/11/10/chicken-zoodle-soup/) except you’re going to need more water. If the carcass is too big for your pot, you can break it into pieces to make it fit. Also, if you got that bag of giblets and such in your turkey and didn’t either use it or toss it, cut up all those nasty bits, saute them in a tablespoon of oil or butter, and add them to your water and turkey bones.

Ham
I was going to save this recipe till I had a nice picture of it, because it’s one of my favorites, but I’ll just have to give it a post of its own some time in the future! My favorite thing to do with a leftover spiral ham is make split pea soup. Get a bag of dried split peas. Rinse them and pick out any small rocks that may have gotten in there. In a large stock pot over medium-high, saute 1 diced onion, 2 diced carrots, and 2 stalks diced celery (plus salt and pepper) in 1 tablespoon oil for about 10 minutes. Cut the meat off the ham bone and add it to the pot. Add 4 cups vegetable or chicken stock, salt, pepper, 1 bay leaf, and 1 teaspoon marjoram (this is about the only time I use marjoram, but it really adds a nice flavor to the soup). If the bone is not covered, add water to cover. Turn heat down to medium-low, cover, and let simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally. At some point during that hour, cut some or all of the remaining ham into small pieces. Add the cut-up ham, cover, and let simmer 20 minutes (you should taste it at this point to see if it needs more salt and pepper or anything else you might want to adjust – if it seems too thick, add more stock or water, but bear in mind that it should be fairly thick. Remove bay leaf and serve (if you have croutons, they are delicious in here). Extra soup can be frozen – simply add extra stock (vegetable or chicken) when heating, because it will get super-thick when frozen!

Cookies
What’s a leftover cookie? Ha! Seriously, though, if you over-baked and you’ve got more cookies than you can eat, give them away! You can probably still find cookie tins at the dollar store, supermarket or other stores (and they may even be on sale), and the Rubbermaid/Ziploc/Glad folks have holiday-themed or colored plastic containers, which also may be on sale. Drop those cookies off to anyone you see regularly – your hairdresser, the nail salon, your doctor’s office, the day care or after school program (as long as they’re open this week). Also, bring them to your office – remember, by next week, everyone’s going to be full of regret and resolutions, but this week, most people feel like they’ve blown their diet and won’t mind a cookie or two!

Hope this has helped you figure out what to do with some of the holiday leftovers. And now a holiday leftover from me – I was so busy that I didn’t get to post all the pictures of my holiday decorating, so here’s another one!

Giving Tuesday!

November 27, 2018 by allybearsden Leave a Comment

Hey everyone! I’ve been away and came home with a cold, so if you’ve wondered why you haven’t seen much from me, that’s the reason! I’m hoping to share lots of Christmas decorating and baking and party ideas with you all soon, but in the meantime, today is Giving Tuesday, when we’re supposed to take whatever we have left after Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday (and it’s only right before the mortgage/rent is due) and give to the charity of our choice. If you’d like to get into the habit of charitable giving, here are a few ideas and things to think about.

Don’t Keep the Change
Many of us have a “change jar” at home where we dump any excess change we have. Instead of just cashing it in when the jar gets full, why not cash it in and give the money to a charity? Some of the coin redemption machines even offer an option where they’ll send your donation for you.

Automatic Donations
If there is a particular charity you know you’d like to support, consider setting up an automatic payment with your bank, so a donation goes to “your” charity every month. If you give just $10 a month, that’s $120 a year, which is a nice chunk of change.

Give Time
If the answer to what you have left three days before the end of the month is $0.00, what about donating your time to a charity? Very few charitable organizations have as many volunteers as they need, and most of them need all types of volunteers – you never know until you ask. You might be able to bake or cook, take part in a walkathon, sort groceries in a food pantry, make deliveries, or even help organize an event!

Look Before You Give
Recently, a couple was in the news for scamming people who thought they were contributing to help a homeless man. I think most people are basically good, but two notes of caution before you give. First, I would be wary of giving to any Go Fund Me that isn’t set up by someone I personally know. I trust my friends a lot more than I trust random strangers trying to tug at my heartstrings! Second, when you’re thinking of donating to a well-known organization, check Charity Navigator or Charity Watch to see how much of your money actually goes to fundraising and administrative costs. Some well-known charities do a great job of actually getting your donation to the cause it’s supposed to be benefiting, and others spend a lot of money on mailings and office staff.

Hope you all have a great Giving Tuesday!

Make Thanksgiving Easier

November 18, 2018 by allybearsden Leave a Comment

Does keeping calm when Thanksgiving is coming sound like an impossible dream? I can’t promise you won’t have any last-minute scrambling, but you can make Thanksgiving a lot less stressful if you plan in advance. Hopefully, you have your menu set by now – if not, that’s job 1 (check out https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/86833007/posts/2044360688 for some tips). Once you know what you’re eating, it’s time for lists.

First, write out your entire menu – I like to do it in a nice font and even put a picture on top, because the menu is going to be taped to your kitchen cabinets. Save the document, though, because the first printout may be a “working” copy”. Once you have your menu, go through it and make your shopping list and the last-minute shopping list – I usually shop on the weekend, so I don’t buy my turkey and some of the produce (lettuce, for instance) until Tuesday or Wednesday. Be sure to check your spices – there’s a lot of things used at Thanksgiving you may not use during the year, so make sure you have them on hand and they still smell like they should. If you don’t have post-it notes around the house, add them to your shopping list (you’ll see why soon). The other thing I’d recommend is getting a bunch of aluminum half-pans – you don’t need to serve out of them if you have enough serving dishes, but they’re great for things you want to make in advance and warm up in the oven – you can stack them with cookie sheets in-between – and they’re just generally useful.

After the shopping list is done, go through your menu and (a) note every dish someone else is bringing and (b) note what serving dish you are using for each dish. If you feel like re-typing your menu to include those notes, go for it, but just be sure they’re noted on whatever menu you’re hanging up. If you realize you don’t have enough serving dishes or spoons, you can either choose to serve out of half-pans, ask people to bring serving dishes and/or spoons, or make a run to the dollar store, where you can often get some nice-looking serving pieces for $1.00. Or you can use this as an excuse to buy some serving pieces you’ve wanted. 😉

Next, list every single step that needs to be done for every single dish. For instance, if you’re making mashed potatoes, don’t just write “make mashed potatoes”, write “peel potatoes”, “boil potatoes”, “mash potatoes”. If someone is bringing something that has to be heated up when it arrives, write it down – “heat stuffing from Gillian”, for instance.

Once you’ve got that master list, hang it and the menu on your kitchen cabinets (or anywhere in the kitchen you can see it). Now it’s time to do a cleaning and “other” list. Again, be as specific as possible – you don’t have to write “dust dresser”, “dust night table” for each bedroom, but write “dust master bedroom”, “dust guest room”, etc. Don’t forget things like washing tablecloths, cleaning serving dishes you rarely use (including polishing silver if you have some), putting out air fresheners, and lighting candles. A note about cleaning – the bigger the crowd, the less they’ll notice dust! Also, if you don’t hang that list up, no one will know if something didn’t get done. Speaking of big crowds, be sure to count chairs and space at your tables to make sure you have enough – if not, doing this in advance will give you time to ask people to bring tables and chairs. Someone you know definitely has a card table and some folding chairs and people are happy to help.

Besides cleaning in advance, which I hope you’re able to do (except the bathrooms, which I do after we’ve showered Thanksgiving morning), look through your food list and consider what you can do in advance. Some things you can definitely do in advance include baking, peeling carrots and preparing some other vegetables (don’t peel potatoes in advance or they’ll brown), making soup, and making salad dressing (you don’t want to make the salad until right before people get there, but you can make the dressing well in advance – if you keep it in a Tupperware, you can usually just shake it vigorously before you dress your salad).

Don’t forget defrosting time…I usually buy a fresh turkey, but if you buy a frozen one, be sure to leave yourself enough time to defrost it, plus anything else frozen – shrimp, frozen spinach if you’re making spinach dip, and anything else that starts frozen and needs to be defrosted.

Thanksgiving morning, wake up early and go through your list. Set the table and tablescape as early as possible so it’s done. Next, take out all the serving dishes you’ll need for the whole meal, including any nibbles you’re putting out when people arrive and desserts. Here’s where those post-it notes come into play (I know you’ve been wondering). Label each serving dish with what goes in it and put the serving spoon (or other utensil) in the dish. This way, if people are helping you get the food on the table, one person won’t be asking you at the absolute crazy-busiest time, “hey, do you have a bowl for the broccoli?” at the same time someone else is asking, “where’s the serving fork for the turkey?” If you need a hot plate on the table for anything, put it out and put a post-it note on each hot plate to identify what goes on it.

If possible, set up a separate table or area for desserts, so you can park those pies you made in advance out of the way – put the sugar bowl and milk pitcher (empty) on that table so you won’t forget those when it’s dessert time. Don’t forget coffee and tea – if you need coffee pods, make sure however many you need are out (you don’t want to have to go to the basement when it’s dessert time – you can put them in a nice bowl or one of those half-pans), as well as tea bags, hot cocoa, sugar-free sweetener, and anything else you’ll need at dessert time.

The other area I always set up is a drinks area – I actually have a cooler in my dining room, but I realize most people don’t, so make sure if you need a cooler for water, soda, and beer, that you know where you’re putting it and that it’s clean. Also, if your cooler has a plug to drain water, make sure that plug is closed before you fill the cooler – I always check this after one year when someone (who will remain nameless but just might be my sister-in-law) left the plug open in my husband’s 50-gallon fish cooler and I went to the basement at the end of the evening and thought we had a leak! All kidding aside, I like to set up an area with glasses (wine glasses and solo cups for soda), glass markers people can use to identify their glasses, a corkscrew, and a beer bottle opener, as well as red wine and whatever liquor I’m serving. If I’m making a punch or specialty drink, that’s where I’ll set it up too. It makes life so much easier than having to pull water out of the fridge, find the corkscrew for one person and the bottle opener for someone else and get glasses as people need them – you can just direct people to that area and they can help themselves to everything. You do have to budget a little time to run to the local convenience store and get ice, but you’ll save time in the long run.

Then it’s time to cook! Start with things you can do early and warm up in the oven. By the way, the turkey can be done in the morning. Keep it covered with aluminium foil after you take it out of the oven and it will stay warm until it’s time to serve. And don’t feel pressure to have that “perfect” Thanksgiving scene of carving the turkey at the table – show everyone the whole turkey in its roasting pan and carve it in the kitchen where you have a little more room to work. Lots of foods can be started in advance and warmed up in the oven – we do all our mashed veggies (potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots and parsnips, turnips) in advance, plus when we did a green bean casserole, we did that in advance. Put them all in those half-pans and just dish them out into your nice bowls when it’s time to serve.

Wishing you a stress-free Thanksgiving!

Turkey Day Tablescaping Made Easy

November 7, 2018 by allybearsden 2 Comments

Poor Thanksgiving! A lovely celebration that seems to have been completely forgotten by the retail industry, which has moved from Halloween to Christmas without even a breath! If you’re wondering what the heck to do about decorating your Thanksgiving table, don’t worry – with some fall/Halloween things you already have on hand and even some early Christmas decorations, you can still make your Turkey Day table beautiful!

First, a pretty, glittery look. I found the pumpkin for half-price at Target this past week, and got the tall candles there too (I think they’re actually a Christmas decoration – don’t tell anyone). You may recognize the pumpkins and short candles from my Halloween basket.

You can see that I left the table pretty bare, because I always think any Thanksgiving table look should allow room for the food! I don’t know about your house, but around here, the food is definitely the star of the Thanksgiving show! However, maybe you have a side table where you can park the food when it’s not being passed and you’d like to go all out with the table. I added a few more pumpkins and a few real candles, and here’s an even fancier look:

But maybe you’re not the glittery type. Here’s a little more of a “country” Thanksgiving look using the flowers and straw bales I had on the mantel, as well as some of the pumpkins:

I came up with simple looks using a chalkboard plate from the crafts store and some things I had from my fall/Halloween decorating. First, the straw bales are back along with the pumpkins and a mason jar I painted a while ago that’s been in quite a few of my fall pictures. The “runner” is just a decorative dishtowel I’ve had around for a while.

Next, if you have some fall candles, why not use them? The chalkboard plate will protect your table from any excessive heat off the candles.

Finally, a really simple look using the chalkboard plate and a fake candle (which is certainly safer if you have little ones joining you for dinner). You could even leave a piece of chalk on the plate and let each person write what they’re thankful for.

Hope this has inspired you to look at your Halloween/fall decorations and think of how you can use them for your Thanksgiving decorating!

Office Parties: To Drink or Not To Drink? (and a dip recipe)

November 3, 2018 by allybearsden 1 Comment

I know Halloween was just a few days ago, but the Christmas ads are out in full force, and if you’re planning an office party, it’s time to get started (if you haven’t already). Which of course, leads to the question…what are we eating and drinking, and the related question…do we serve alcohol? Now, if you work at (a) a brewery or (b) a rehab center, the answer is pretty straightforward, but for the rest of us, it’s something to think about. Having been the office party planner, I have a few ideas:

Think about last year’s party, if you were there, and if not, ask about last year’s party. Did people feel left out because they don’t drink? If you didn’t have drinks, did people leave the official party early to go to the bar? Ask a variety of employees so you don’t get influenced by one person’s or department’s thinking. Obviously, if anything bad happened at last year’s party that might have been a result of drinking, this would probably be a good time to change it up. While I’m on the subject of bad things happening, I’ve seen a fair amount of bad behavior at office parties, but one thing I’ve never seen, even though it’s a common trope on TV shows and movies, is people making copies of their bare rear end on the office copy machine! Has anyone ever actually done that? Or at least seen it done – I’m not sure I need to know if any of my readers have done it, ha ha!
Think about your corporate culture, written and unwritten. Some places that seem very buttoned-up are full of party animals, and some companies advertise beer taps in the kitchen, but no one uses them. What’s more likely to happen in your office – people going out for happy hour or to run together? If your office would appreciate cocktails and you haven’t had any problems, then bottoms up (bottoms of your glass that is – keep your bottoms off the copier, folks)!
Think about your workforce – where do they live and how do they commute? Of course, you’ll want to arrange for a car for anyone who may not get home safely, but getting home from a city office where most people take public transportation is a lot different than a suburban office where everyone drives. If you are in the burbs and you’re worried, perhaps you can arrange a van to make sure people aren’t tempted to get in their cars after one too many. Don’t give your non-drinking employees the responsibility of being designated drivers – they probably don’t want the attention and aggravation of driving home a carload of drunks, and there are way too many things that can go wrong when one employee is driving another home, even if they’re both stone-cold sober.
If, after all this, you’ve decided to go ahead and serve alcohol, make sure you have non-alcoholic alternatives readily available. No one wants to have to search for the sparkling water or hunt down the party planner to find out where they can get a soda! A non-alcoholic punch or other drink that can be made in volume and spiked by those who want to is a good idea – be sure to list the ingredients on a card near the bowl, so both drinkers and non-drinkers will know what’s in it! Punch is a good way to stretch the party budget anyway, as is avoiding hard liquor in favor of beer and wine (unless you know some of the VIPs will have a hissy fit if they can’t get their cocktail of choice, in which case you can always make their favorite the “specialty” cocktail for the evening and avoid having a full bar).
Make sure there’s enough food! You can’t force people to eat, but if you have a variety of yummy foods, it will happen! If you don’t want to break the company budget, there’s always a potluck…have people sign up to bring something and you’d be amazed at the creative cooks (or purchasers) you have in your office! While it’s a good idea to make sure people who are drinking are also eating, even if you’re not serving alcohol, make sure there’s enough food. There’s nothing worse than watching people fight over the last potato chip!
If you’ve decided this is the year to go alcohol-free, consider a different type of party. An escape room, scavenger hunt, or something else involving physical activity may be a good alternative to everyone sitting around a restaurant or the office thinking that this would be more fun if they had a beer! If your budget or corporate culture won’t allow for anything out of the office, what about a breakfast party? It can be a fun break in the workday, as long as the Powers That Be are OK letting everyone relax and enjoy themselves first thing in the morning!

While you’re considering all this, here is a recipe for my go-to office party dip – unfortunately I don’t have a picture, but this was so popular at my last office job that I had to bring it to parties held in restaurants and give people the recipe when they left the company!

Bacon/Ranch/Cheese Dip – serves anywhere from 2 to 20

1 16-ounce container sour cream
1 envelope ranch dressing mix (not ranch dip mix)
1 package real bacon bits (not Baco’s, the ones that say “real” bacon)
1 cup finely shredded cheddar cheese

Combine all ingredients. If you feel like getting fancy, keep some of the bacon bits on the side and top with bacon bits and a little shredded cheddar. Serve with chips (sturdy ones like “scoops” or Fritos work best) and/or carrots and celery for those watching carbs or trying to avoid feeling guilty about eating dip! This tastes better if you make it at least an hour in advance, but if you don’t have time, it’s fine to eat as soon as it’s mixed!

Hope the article has given you food for thought and the dip recipe has given you food for your next party!

Thanksgiving Planning!

October 25, 2018 by allybearsden 1 Comment

Sorry I’ve been missing in action the past week – lots going on – work stuff, church stuff, fun stuff – but anyway, I’m back! And October is almost over! Which means Thanksgiving is right around the corner!

I’m kind of a Thanksgiving veteran at this point. It’s been “my” holiday for a long time, and I love it! That being said, I realize many people are hosting dinner for the first time or the first time in a long time and are probably starting to freak out a little bit thinking about it. Here are some of my best tips and tricks for making sure you feel thankful and not just stressed!

First, plan and invite whoever you want to have for dinner. Don’t assume people know they’re invited – we made that mistake once with my brother-in-law and his family. We figured they’d know we were having it and they were invited, but when we called at about dinner time to see if they were stuck in traffic, we found out that they didn’t know they were invited and decided to do their own thing. OOPS!

Once you have an idea how many people you’re having, it’s time to start thinking about food. I assume you know what you like and what your family normally has for Thanksgiving dinner, but especially if this is your first time doing Thanksgiving because you’re in a new relationship, check what your partner’s family always did. You may think “of course we’re having sweet potatoes”, but there are lots of ways to make sweet potatoes – mashed (with or without marshmallows), baked with butter and brown sugar, sweet potato pie, baked, and so on! They may always have a ham with (or instead of ) the turkey. You may well end up with two kinds of sweet potatoes or green beans or something for the first year or two, but that’s better than disappointing people.

Also, if you’re people are bringing guests, check what they eat. You don’t want to make a pecan pie as your only dessert if your daughter’s boyfriend has a nut allergy, and if your friend-of-a-friend-with-nowhere-to-go is a vegetarian, it would only be nice to have something besides turkey, turkey gravy, sausage stuffing, and brussels sprouts with bacon!

Once you have those basic things out of the way, planning Thanksgiving dinner is much like planning any other dinner, just more of it! You’ll need something for people to nibble on when they get there, an appetizer or first course of some type (if your family does that or you just feel like it), the main course, which in this case is usually turkey, some kind of starch (stuffing/dressing, potato, and/or sweet potato) potato, vegetable, and dessert. Where you go from there is up to you, the number of people you’re having, and the size of your kitchen and oven! Seriously, think about that, especially when you’re deciding how large a turkey to get – it has to fit in your fridge and in your oven!

When talking about turkeys, I strongly recommend getting a fresh turkey rather than a frozen one. I find they cook better and you don’t have to try to figure out how to defrost it, which is never a fun process. Also, if you’re having a large crowd, I’d suggest making a turkey breast earlier in the week to supplement a normal-size turkey instead of trying to cook a 20+ pounder. The first year I did Thanksgiving, I read something, probably printed by the Large Turkey Farmers of America (ha ha), that said to allow a pound and a half of meat per person. I was having 18 people, and you should have seen me driving to every store on Long Island looking for a 27-pound turkey! I think the biggest one I found was 25 pounds, but it took forever to cook and once it was in the oven, there was no room for anything else!

Speaking of ovens, don’t get too worried if you have a small oven – I’ve done Thanksgiving in apartment-size ovens (and apartment-size kitchens) and it is possible! Get up early, prepare your vegetables on the stove top, and put them in oven-safe dishes (even if that’s not what you’re planning to serve them in). Cover them with foil and once the turkey comes out, you can pop them in to heat up (you can stack them dishes with cookie sheets in-between if necessary). Keep your bird covered in foil after it comes out of the oven and serve with hot gravy and everyone will be happy.

Two other things that will help save your time and sanity: doing as much as possible in advance and asking people to bring things! People always want to bring something when they visit someone’s house, and if your new partner says it’s not Thanksgiving without apple pie, which you’ve never made in your life, this is a good chance to get in good with your mother-in-law by asking her to make her “famous” apple pie. If people ask “what can I bring” and you have the food under control, there’s always flowers (one less thing to think about) or wine/liquor (one less thing to buy, especially when someone drinks something you don’t and you’re going to be stuck with Uncle Bob’s gin until next Thanksgiving). As far as doing as much as possible in advance, while obviously there are things you have to wait to do, if your desserts are done by Wednesday night, that’s a whole course you don’t have to worry about on Thursday morning.

Also, except for the bathrooms, which you’ll want to do day-of after everyone’s showered, try to make sure your house is clean before Thursday morning. Is it possible to wait? Sure it is, but do you really want to be either vacuuming or yelling at someone to vacuum a half-hour before your guests are scheduled to arrive? And even if you don’t want help in the kitchen before dinner, always accept offers to clean up! By the time dinner is over, you’ll be tired and the last thing you want to do is deal with a pile of dirty dishes! I try to clean as I go Thanksgiving morning, which is helpful, but there are always dishes to be done, even if you have a dishwasher, so let people help. You should keep an eye on where they’re putting things away though – I’ve thought I lost things and then realized the “kitchen crew” put them where they thought they should go, which was not where I would ever look for them. You don’t have to correct them at the time, but awareness helps. 🙂

Hopefully these tips have you a little less stressed thinking about the Big Day! Coming soon…recipes for some of my family’s Thanksgiving favorites!

Cupcake hacks…better late than never!

October 19, 2018 by allybearsden 3 Comments

Well, apparently yesterday was National Cupcake Day (or per my National Day Calendar, National Chocolate Cupcake Day)! A day late and a dollar short…story of my life! Anyway, for those days when you can’t bake cupcakes from scratch, here are my tips on making the most of box cupcakes.

A good friend told me this and it works – when making any boxed cake mix, replace the water with an equal amount of milk and add one extra egg. I guess the manufacturers figure people are more likely to have water in their house than milk? Or maybe they figure it’s less expensive (although after hearing about some of my friends’ water bills out west, I think buying a cow would be less expensive). Anyway, I don’t know, but I’ve done it and it really does make a box taste much more homemade!

My other tip is decorate those cupcakes! Homemade icing is a great way to upgrade a cupcake, and if you’re not up for that, there are some simple decorating tricks that work wonders. The chocolate cupcakes (for National Chocolate Cupcake Day) above were made with a box mix and a tub of frosting – simply chill the frosting for around an hour, put it in a decorating bag with the largest star tip, and swirl the icing around the top of the cupcake (I’m going to do a video of this in the (hopefully) near future, so stay tuned). If you’re feeling really fancy, add some sprinkles because who doesn’t love sprinkles, and no one will ask any questions! What I really like to add to fancy things up is that colored sugar – I love regular sprinkles, but colored sugar is just so decorative!

The strawberry ones were super-easy too. They started with “my” strawberry cake (see https://allybearsden.blog/2018/08/19/humble-pie-and-peach-salsa/ for that story). Cut twelve strawberries in half and set them, cut side down, on a paper towel for about a half-hour to let them dry a little while you do other things. When you’re ready to rejoin your cupcakes, set each strawberry half in the middle of a cupcake. I like to squeeze a little dot of icing on top of the cupcake before putting the strawberry on as extra insurance that it won’t move. Melt 1 cup of dark chocolate candy melts in the microwave, put in a squeeze bottle, and “draw” a grid over the top of the cupcake. Voila…chocolate-covered strawberry cupcakes!

The last ones in this picture are carrot cake cupcakes. They’re getting a post of their own tomorrow, because there’s a lot going on there. That being said, they’re another proof of the wonders of homemade frosting – making the cream cheese frosting is easy as anything and a great way to improve any cupcake!

Hope you enjoyed these belated cupcake hacks? What’s your favorite thing to do with a boxed cake mix?