Carefree Cooking

Simple Dinner Party Ideas - Easy and Enjoyable

Have you ever wanted to invite your friends over but don't really want to spend the time and effort cooking for them? It's bad enough that you already have to spend a lot of time cleaning the house, so there might not be enough time for cooking. To address these concerns, you can hold one of the following: Pot Luck, Hot Pot, and Fondue Party.

Pot Luck

If you have a circle of friends who like to cook, then having pot luck is a great way to share each other's specialty dishes. In order to hold a successful pot luck, the organizer (i.e. You) need to determine what everyone is bringing. This is crucial unless you want multiple bowls of potato salad. Make sure you have some people brining appetizers and desserts to have a hint of having a three course meal. If you are bringing food to someone's house, be cautious when choosing a container. The container should be good at preserving whatever is in side. For example, if you have a salad, make sure that the container can keep the vegetables cool. If you are bringing a pot of stew, perhaps a ceramic container will be a good transportation medium.

Although pot luck will still require cooking effort in your part (unless you buy something from a nearby restaurant), it is a small price to pay for having a feast that rivals that of buffet restaurants in Las Vegas.

Hot Pot

A lot of people enjoy having hot pot especially during the cold months of winter. Going to a restaurant for hot pot is very expensive and doesn't really make sense since you question why you are paying so much for food that you cook yourself! The last time we went to a hot pot restaurant, we had an unwanted "secret ingredient" in our sour plum juice...a dead fly. Anyways, now that I have successfully killed your appetite, we can talk about Hot Pot preparation.

There are a couple things that you need to keep in mind when planning for a hot pot festivity: number of people coming, and what type of food people are allergic to.

The number of people required is important so that you can gauge how much food to buy. When we have hot pot, we aim for around $10 per person. So if there are 10 people coming, a total ingredients cost of $100 would be more than enough to satisfy the belly of those friends who have been starving themselves since breakfast.

It is important to know what food people in your invitee list are allergic to. I've been having hot pot for so long with the same group of people and just realized recently that one of my friends are allergic to shellfish (sorry Jane). So make no assumptions when it comes to this. You can either buy ingredients that no one is allergic to or prepare a separate pot. There are some pots that have built in divider which was made to support two types of soup base. This is perfect for preventing unwanted ingredients from finding themselves in unwanted places.

You can either ask your friends to bring some hot pot ingredients or you can designate a select few to do all the shopping. I've tried both methods and I think having a few people do all the shopping is both efficient and cost effective. It's good to place all the hot pot ingredients into a plate/bowl so that people can have quick access to it. Once the pot starts boiling, the eating doesn't stop until you see people rubbing their tummy. Depending on how fancy you want the hot pot to be, there are multiple options when it comes to the soup you use. If you want to go ultra cheap and are feeling lazy, you can just use plain water. As a step up to that, you can use broth or boullion (dissolved in water). There are also a wide variety of hot pot pastes that you can buy at your local asian supermarket. The best in my opinion is making your own soup using pork/beef bone.

Surprisingly, we have never had a hot pot where we finished all the food. Maybe it's because you tend to eat slower during hot pot so you get full easily. This is perfect for people watching their weight. And since it's mostly protein (if you just buy the meats and veggies), it's perfect for that friend who is on Atkins' Diet.

Cleaning up is not so bad after a hot pot party. Just exercise caution when handling the pots since they might be heavy (from the soup) and hot. Just stuff all the plates and bowls into the dishwasher and you're good to enjoy the rest of the night.

Fondue

Contrary to what people might think, Fondue doesn't revolve around dessert items. You can have a three course meal that are all fondue based (with different dipping sauce of course). For the appetizer, you can cut some raw vegetables (broccoli, carrots, celery, etc) and place them on a platter. Cheese is probably the best accompaniment for these vegetables. For the main course, you can have slices or cubes of raw steak laid on a nice plate. Heat up some oil on the stove and transfer it to the fondue pot. Your friends can then dip the raw steak in the hot oil until it's cooked to their desired consistency. It's good to have a few selections of dips for the meat. This way, your guests will feel like they are eating more than one type of dish. Some suggestions for dips include a gravy type dip, tomado based dip, and a cream type dip. For the dessert course....should I even talk about it? I'm sure everyone has their own ideas when it comes to this. Fruits are a natural favourite. But whatever you choose, make sure each piece is dry. Otherwise it won't receive a good coat when it gets dipped into the fondue pot. Since cheese was already served for appetizer, chocolate might be a good for this course. But if you are a cheese lover, I won't stop you from having another cheese course :) Maybe you can even reuse the pot from the appetizer course. Kill two birds with one stone.


I hope some of these suggestions give you an idea on how to tackle your next party. Feel free to experiment with different ingredients. This is what makes cooking fun and exciting. These ideas are great especially if you want to have a house warming party. After all, you provided the venue, so they need to provide the fun.

posted by carefreecooking @ 7:52 AM