Savvy Entertaining

I am in love! And yes, Hubby is aware of the infatuation.  This love affair is with the next best thing since sliced bread – crock pot liners!

OK, so I can get pretty excited about some very simple things but I just tried the liners for the first time yesterday and absolutely loved them. No mess, no scrubbing out baked on food. Just lift out the liner, toss, and rinse out the crock pot. So quick and simple.

When you are entertaining at home, make your prep work as quick and simple as possible. It will take less time and energy to clean up and give you more of both to devote to enjoying your guests.

Line pans with foil or parchment paper before baking (depending on what you are making) for easy clean up afterward.

Use resealable plastic bags for mixing messy ingredients, marinating meat or veggies. You can mix just about anything in a bag my massaging it. It also works great for squeezing our frosting and fillings. Just fill the bag, seal, trim off a corner and you are ready to roll.

Invest in at least one quality piece of heavy-duty cookware and one top-drawer piece of cutlery. The cookware will not only cook better and faster, it will also be easier to clean up. The cutlery will make your prep work go faster and you might even have more fun doing it.

Have a couple of good cutting boards. Keep the one you use for raw meats separate from the one you use for everything else. When you purchase a cutting board, look for one that has a gutter around the edge – it will keep runaway juices contained and save time on clean up.

Keep a bowl handy in which you place all peelings, trimmings, etc., in when you are doing prep work. It saves cleaning out the sink or scraping piles off the counter later.

Use paper cupcake liners to grease pans, or save the wrappers from cubes of butter to use when you need a pan greased.

Make clean up after the party simple, too, by having adequate containers out for guests to toss their garbage. If you are entertaining outdoors, you can even have a container to collect flatware, plates and glasses.

Think about the things you can do that will save time on clean-up and make entertaining even easier. If you have a favorite mess-free tip, please share it here!