{"id":91497,"date":"2020-09-09T07:53:35","date_gmt":"2020-09-09T12:53:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.enchantedhome.com\/blog\/?p=91497"},"modified":"2020-09-09T07:53:36","modified_gmt":"2020-09-09T12:53:36","slug":"entertaining-diaries-chapter-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.enchantedhome.com\/blog\/2020\/09\/09\/entertaining-diaries-chapter-7\/","title":{"rendered":"Entertaining Diaries chapter 7"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi friends. how are you? Having a good week I hope, hard to believe summer is unofficially over!\u00a0 We are just starting to settle into our new offices, plenty of work ahead and still tons of decision to be made but it will get done in time and I am trying to pace myself even though I have no patience and want everything done yesterday. My own office is a boring white canvas, so I am trying to figure out what I do in there, the wheels are turning! That said, it’s so nice to be there.<\/p>\n

I started my Entertaining Diaries series a few months ago because I often get lots of questions about entertaining in general. This has been well received as its a fun topic and I think with more people entertaining at home, its particularly relevant now.<\/p>\n

When I had people over the other night I thought it might be a good idea to do a post on the prepping stage and how things work the day of, the focus being on simple appetizers that I prepared. I did my best to take as many pics as possible but truth is once my guests arrive, the phone gets put to the side and I get busy living in the moment of playing hostess. So here is my take on what the day looks like when I entertain…..<\/p>\n

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In the morning, I lay out all my serving pieces, serving pieces, utensils, etc….<\/p>\n

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I first lay out everything I will be needing to cook that day-<\/p>\n

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Then I got busy making my Greek salad which was later refrigerated until later that day<\/p>\n

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I also picked up whatever white flowers my local market had and made small arrangements for the table using my cane hurricanes<\/p>\n

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All done!<\/p>\n

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I always have a container like this filled with half lemon juice and half olive oil. I was using it for my fish that night, the lemon potatoes and use it as salad dressing<\/p>\n

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Anything that needs to be marinated or can be prepped ahead of time does. In this case, the asparagus were seasoned and I cut up my crusty baguette, put in ziploc bag to stay fresh and not dry out<\/p>\n

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The asparagus I threw on the grill early and grilled until almost all done, took it off\u00a0 as they still cook a little. Kept these covered in aluminum.<\/p>\n

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The prepping continues, cut up small wedges of lime and lemon (for drinks and the fish I was serving)<\/p>\n

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That morning made my delectable brushetta, key is super ripe tomatoes and an abundance of fresh basil<\/p>\n

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Cooked my shrimp earlier that morning, kept them in a sealed bowl and then made my bruhsetta<\/p>\n

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I will keep the shrimp in the fridge for about 3-4 hours chilled so the work is done, ditto for my brushetta<\/p>\n

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One of the very best inventions ever, peeled garlic!<\/p>\n

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Meanwhile, the table is set, happy any chance I get to use my beautiful etched glass hurricanes and of course monogrammed napkins!<\/p>\n

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Loved using my Mottahedeh plates (Imperial Blue pattern) with new chargers (coming soon) and my Juliska bamboo flatware<\/p>\n

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Table all set…..you can never go wrong with blue and white!<\/p>\n

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I like seving things in pretty dishes and thinking outside the box. I used this gorgeous Tiffany dolphin bowl for my shrimp cocktail<\/p>\n

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I could live on this tray of brushetta…my favorite!<\/p>\n

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Shrimp cocktail all done<\/p>\n

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I did not have a helper so was busy with my meal from this point forward. Made it simple, grilled branzino (Mediterranean style) lemon potatoes, a big salad and grilled asparagus. Any questions you have, feel free to ask them in the comments section and I will address them next post.<\/p>\n

How about you? What are your easy go to appetizers? Would love to hear! Any entertaining tips that are tried and true for you? It’s fun to share ideas as we never want to stop learning. Thank you for stopping in, wishing everyone a wonderful day. Stay safe, until next time……<\/p>\n

Want to see more Entertaining Diaries? Click here to see all the previous posts<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

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Hi friends. how are you? Having a good week I hope, hard to believe summer is unofficially over!\u00a0 We are just starting to settle into our new offices, plenty of work ahead and still tons of decision to be made but it will get done in time and I am trying to pace myself even […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":62512,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[1789,2763,1820,3594,1350,2514],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.enchantedhome.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91497"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.enchantedhome.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.enchantedhome.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.enchantedhome.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.enchantedhome.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91497"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wp.enchantedhome.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91716,"href":"https:\/\/wp.enchantedhome.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91497\/revisions\/91716"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.enchantedhome.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.enchantedhome.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.enchantedhome.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.enchantedhome.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}