Sunday we talked about making food for a crowd with a deft hand of aid from the local bulk warehouse (or market if it’s easier for you).

But-personalize it. With gourmet mustards, sandwich spreads, mayos, dips and chips-there’s no reason to just zip off the protective covering and plop it down!

Serving the typical tortilla and potato chips? Buy the salsa of your choice and add some chopped up canned peaches or pineapple to it. Your crowd into hummus? Buy the plain and fancy it up by adding pureed roasted red pepper, roasted garlic, chopped up artichoke hearts or green onions. Even chop up some roasted veggies and stir it in. It will taste better than buying it gussied up and then you can say “of course I made it” honestly.

As for those cookies-that’s usually where I draw the line. I’d rather bake these myself. I just make them as bars. Much less work on my hands and I can cut them the sizes my crowd will enjoy. Also, I love to create new tastes. I usually have one very typical kind-oatmeal chocolate chip and then one that isn’t so typical. Such as a spicy peanut butter and dark chocolate one. I also try to make my biscotti as well-especially if I’m serving coffee later in the evening.

Which brings us to the end of the meal-no matter what’s for dessert, I always have a coffee bar ready. I have to serve decaf for everyone’s various health reasons, but I have many things out to dress it up. I usuallly serve a flavored coffee and have the table covered with:

raw and regular sugar, the pink and the yellow sweetener, powdered chocolate, cinnamon sticks/ground and various flavored and plain creamers. To finish off the choices, I have some cool whip ready for a dollop.

Again, these are all steps to easy, carefree entertaining. Nothing that most of you haven’t discovered for yourselves, but hopefully, this will encourage you to have the family or friends over for an end of summer soiree very soon.

And if you have any handy help hints to share, bring them on!

This week is special to our home-it’s official, my son and his wonderful girlfriend are now engaged! Even though the wedding isn’t scheduled to be until the Spring of 2010, I’m sure we’ll be doing periodic celebrating!

Which brings me to this week’s topic: Celebrating without killing yourself.

Due to my own personal health, I’ve learned some easy ways to entertain very nicely without having to spend a week in bed or on darvoset to recover. Let me share some of them with you. I’ll bet many of you have thought of them yourselves.

First, know your crowd. Not just the amount, but if there are any known allergans or complete dislikes. See if there are any crossovers. An example: In our home, we have several people who have dairy allergies, several who constantly remind us that they will “absolutely puke” if they even smell cilantro and a few who need to keep the spices at bay.

What do I serve? Even though I prefer cooking from scratch, I know my physical limitations, I tend to “cater” part of the meal from my friendly neighborhood Costco. I believe I talked about this in one of my first columns-but to sum up:

Go early and by veggie and sandwich/high rollers trays. If you prefer, buy the rotisserie chickens, hot wings and ribs. Or buy several types of burgers (beef, turkey and salmon are always there) and some of the nicer buns or La Brea Bakery ciabatta rolls. Costco has some very nice potato salad and mixes for broccoli slaw and chinese chicken salads. DO NOT buy their fruit trays-I’ve done it a couple of times and the fruit is just not “up to par“. Better to buy the flats of strawberries and whatever else looks really nice and serve those whole with some whipped cream or cool whip on the side. If it’s a cake occasion, plan to order it a couple of days in advance or buy a grab & go. Or, I’ve found that many people just really love the fruit and bakery cookies. Buy and slice some of the banana bread and everyone thinks you‘re a genius.

Wednesday, let’s talk about how to personalize what you purchased!

It’s already humpday!

Now most of the time I bake and do things from scratch, but sometimes-I need something fast and different. With a few substitutions, I can have both covered.

I talked about how I jazzed up some fat-free brownies for our Sunday dinner. There are a lot of ways to make a box of brownie or cake mix more homemade! In fact the “Cake Doctor” has an entire website devoted to how to use mixes in anyway other than what they were originally intended.

The easiest way-change out exact measurements of whatever the liquid is for another liquid. Instead of water try tea, coffee, a type of juice or wine. Add a teaspoon or so of a complimentry herb or spice-don’t be afraid think out of the box.

With vegetables-try roasting them with theme spices or herbs. Serving lamb? Go Mediterranean and use oregano, olive oil and cumin. Or go mint, rosemary and lemon! Asian theme or cooking techniques? Try soy sauce, fish sauce, ginger and green onions. I think you‘re seeing the idea here!

Themes should flow through the entire meal with like spices, herbs or aromas.

An example of what not to do: do not serve BBQ ribs with asparagus and hollandaise with refried beans and petit fours. Too many types of cuisines to be able to grasp and enjoy the flavors of any of them.

The same foods served similar would be terrific: BBQ ribs, grilled asparagus, BBQ chipolte beans with spice cake-yum.

Give it a go! Remember, the cliche that “variety is the spice of life“, has more than a little bit of merit.

Mangia Bene!

Today our kids are over for Sunday Dinner. This isn’t an unusual thing-last Sunday they came over too. One still lives with us, he and his terrific girlfriend eat with us most nights. But today, our daughter and grandkids are joining us. Our son-in-law is working the graveyard shift.

What am I serving? Ribs, steamed broccoli with lemon and garlic dressing and some tater tots. Mexican brownies for dessert.

How am I preparing them? We talked about marinades and rubs last week-so I’m using a rub on the ribs. There were some nice meaty beef ribs available earlier in the week, so I’m rubbing them with a cinnamon and chipolte rub courtesy of Montreal Steak Seasoning. Can you tell by now my family is into “heat“?

The broccoli is one of our favorite ways to eat the vegetable. It’s very easy, quick and healthy. Simply steam what you need or want and dress with 2 tbsp of olive oil, 3 tbsp of fresh lemon juice, 1 tsp of minced garlic, 1 tsp. kosher salt and 1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper. Now if your me, you lace this with a shot of hot sauce.

Tater tots are one of our grandson’s favorites-I serve his plain, but dust ours with some of the dry rub I use on the ribs.

My Mexican brownies-I cheat, I use a box of mix, using mashed banana instead of the oil, strong coffee in place of the water and I add 2 tsp of cinnamon and almond extract.
Bake a couple of minutes less than what the box suggests.
Cool completely. One suggestion, line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper or wax paper and grease it well so it won’t stick. Remember there’s very little fat in these and it could give you a problem when you try to take it out.

Cool completely before cutting and use a plastic knife-it will cut cleaner, trust me.

Wednesday-let’s talk about how to jazz up other mixes to give them your own “signature“.

I love my grill-as I mentioned Sunday. Besides the fact that the heat and mess are kept outdoors, everyone loves what they‘re being served. But it really isn’t just the grill and the quality of the protein and produce you‘re placing on that said grill-it’s also the herbs and spices and various liquids you use to flavor some of the items!

Here are some of my quick and easy go to “recipes“:

For veggies:

1. Olive oil, lemon zest with just a tad of the juice, minced garlic, kosher salt and freshly ground pepper. Depending on the veggie-I’ll add some fresh chopped rosemary and mint. I have tons of both in my backyard, so these two are a theme you‘re going to see here today!

2. Olive oil, montreal steak seasoning and cumin.

3. Olive oil with plain old salt and pepper!

Proteins:

Meat:
1. Olive oil, soy sauce and montreal steak seasoning

2. Olive oil, balsamic vinegar, garlic, salt and pepper

3. (this one works great on lamb and pork) Olive oil, garlic, rosemary and mint, add lemon rind and some juice if you’ve got fresh!

Pork:

1. The one above is great.

2. Try #1 from above as well

3. Garlic, salt, pepper, cumin and chili powder

Chicken:

1. #1 from the meat section works very well

2. Olive oil, lots of fresh mint and rosemary, soy sauce and some pepper

3. Don’t use this until almost done-mix your favorite BBQ sauce with your favorite salsa and brush on just a couple of minutes before you remove it from the grill.

Ribs:

1. Rub with montreal steak seasoning and let them rest for a couple of hours, then wrap in foil with about a 1/2–1 C of white wine. Bake in a 300 degree oven for about 2 hours. This is for beef or pork ribs. Then add a good couple of tablespoons of cumin to your favorite BBQ sauce and brush on the ribs when you finish them up on the grill.

2. In a stock pot-boil ribs for about a half hour in a mixture of veggie broth and your favorite beer. Drain and dry the ribs. Season with kosher salt and pepper. Finish up on the grill and serve BBQ sauce on the side.

Fish:

I keep everything very simple with fish-just a quick brush of olive oil, kosher salt, some hungarian paprika and garlic.

Dessert anyone?

With fruit I like to simply brush with a mixture of lemon juice and either white or brown sugar and just let them caramelize! My favorites: pineapple, nectarines and peaches. Plums work well, if they aren’t too soft.

What about your favorites on the grill?

Hello all you foodies,

Hope this column finds you healthy, happy and thinking “Let’s fire up our grill“!

Maybe it’s due to the fact that I am a native Southern Californian, but I love my grill. My motto has always been: If the great one up above had truly meant for me to use the broiler in my oven, he/she would have never had someone invent the grill.

Really-even if it happens to be raining-I have a 5‘wide umbrella-I hold it for my husband while he grills whatever it is that’s on our grill.

I am not one of those people who do the “very gourmet” thing either. Nope, I buy the best quality of ingredients that I can afford for the occasion, add my appropriate marinade or dry rubs and let the product “speak” for itself.

An example: Our son graduated from the University of California, Irvine a year ago. We had a party for about 45 of his friends and our relatives. We went to Costco-just for the start. Cake by Costco, bought Fuddrucker buns, veggie trays and gourmet salsas, chips and lots of various non-alcoholic beverages and paper products. We went to our local market for gourmet toppings for the various burgers we were about to grill up.

The burgers: salmon, angus beef and turkey. We also grilled purple onions, red peppers and some ortega chilis.
We had plenty of “usual” burger toppings.

On the flip side-we recently had the family over, which still meant a crowd of 12. We dry rubbed some rib-eyes, grilled some asparagus with olive oil, garlic and rosemary and then we wrapped up mushrooms with onions and garlic for those who wished to top their steaks with it. We also baked potatoes on the grill. I served a dessert of everyone’s choice of 4 different types of sorbet.

As I said, nothing gourmet-but thanks to our grill, very delicious and easy for yours truly.

Wednesday-let’s talk about some of my marinades!