Dinner parties are terrifying for most people. After all, most of us have never thrown more than one or two in our entire culinary lifetimes, if ever. While it is true that there are many things that can potentially go wrong, the good news is that the vast majority of them can be nullified with a little simple planning. Whether you are planning a night of healthy cooking for your yoga class or spaghetti and fried catfish for your bowling team, there is no reason to think you can't throw a successful dinner party. To that end, here are a few tips to help make your dinner party a success.
Find Out About Allergies First Whenever you serve a group of five or more people, odds are that you will run into at least one food allergy, if not more. There is nothing worse than putting hours of work into creating a beautiful meal, only to find out at the last minute that one of your guests can't eat garlic or that the shrimp cocktail you prepared might send someone to the hospital.
The best way to avoid this is to contact every guest before you plan your meal to determine whether or not they have any food allergies or special preferences. Taking a few minutes to make the phone call may seem inconvenient, but you'll be grateful that you don't have to prepare a special meal at the last minute or have to stop the dinner party to call 9-1-1.
Cook Ahead Dinner parties are social occasions, so it goes without saying that most of your time should be spent socializing and spending time with your guests. You simply cannot do this if you spend all your time in the kitchen.
Now, since most of us don't have servants to do the work for us, the solution is to cook as much food ahead of time as possible and either reheat the dishes at service time or prepare dishes intended to be served cold. There are countless appetizers that go wonderfully from fridge to dining room, but good choices for main courses are stews and braises, since they generally don't require any last-minute prep or attention.
Cook More Than You Need Next, it is important that you cook more than you need. In the event that your guests are especially hungry or someone brings a last-minute guest, you need to make sure that there is still plenty of food to go around.
A good rule of thumb regarding this is to prepare three to five more portions of each dish than you have guests. Unless you are cooking for a very large group, this is usually enough to satisfy any requests for seconds and any unexpected guests without having to deal with a mountain of leftovers in the event that neither of these happen. Dealing with a few leftover chicken breasts is a small price to pay compared to the prospect of running out of food.
If You Expect Your Guests To Bring Something, Tell Them Now, you may be throwing a pot luck or other occasion where guests are expected to bring something, whether it is a bottle of wine, a side dish, a loaf of bread, or anything else. In order to avoid embarrassment on everybody's parts, if you need someone to bring something to your dinner party, you absolutely have to spell it out up front. This avoids any confusion and ensures that people who have not attended this sort of occasion know what is expected of them.
Throwing a dinner party can be a terrifying prospect, especially if it is your first time or if you are cooking for more people than you are accustomed. Just take a deep breath, plan ahead as much as you can, and address any potential problems well ahead of the date and you will have little to worry about.
ConAgra Foods established the Healthy Choice line of frozen meals in order to provide a healthier, lower-calorie alternative to the fatty salt-bombs that have traditionally stocked the TV dinner section of the supermarket, but are Healthy Choice meals good for you or do they come with their own set of problems? Below, I have outlined several ways that Healthy Choice meals can be improved in order to make them a truly healthy choice.
The sodium content needs to be dramatically reduced. This may sound like a tired complaint of processed food, but it's one that needs to be made over and over again until manufacturers take it into account and reduce sodium levels in processed and packaged foods to a reasonable level. Sure, salt makes food taste good, but too much of it leads to fluid retention and hypertension. 400 to 700 mg of sodium for a 300 calorie meal is simply too high. There are other ways to add flavor to food.
Instead of filling most of the mass of the meal with pasta, instead replace it with additional vegetables. Pasta, particular cheaper pasta, is based on refined flour, which increases inflammation, stimulates blood sugar spikes, and in general is simply not good for you. It is included in frozen meals because it tastes good and because it is a way to add mass to the meal for a very low cost. The logical step would be replacing some or all of the pasta with additional vegetables, and possibly a little more meat.
Cut back on the sugary sauces. While this is not a problem when it comes to every Healthy Choice frozen dinner, but there are definitely several of them that contain sugary sauces. Teriyaki, sweet and sour, and barbecue sauces are a few examples. No one is denying that sweet sauces taste great, are cheap to make, and lend to the mistaken belief of many people that anything without fat is good for you, but when something is touting itself to be a healthy alternative, it shouldn't be glazed in sugar.
Increase the calorie content. Yes, I realize that Healthy Choice frozen dinners are marketed as weight loss alternatives, which means that they are expected to be low in calories. My argument is that 250 to 350 calories is simply not a meal for most people, and eating meals this size can actually inhibit weight loss efforts. Healthy cooking involves keeping to realistic caloric expectations.
Now, I know exactly what you're thinking. "But, if all of these changes were made, they would cost a lot more," you say, and you would be exactly right in doing so. The costs would definitely go up. Making the meals larger, fresher, and replacing cheap pasta with more expensive meat and vegetables would no doubt increase the cost of the meal. Here is my argument to that: your health is worth an extra dollar or two when you buy a frozen dinner.
Much of the obesity problem in the world is due to a dependence on cheap processed food, but if we spend a little more and get something that is much healthier, not only would our health be better, but we would most likely end up spending less money later in life due to chronic illness. Healthy Choice frozen meals are certainly better than the industry norm, but they can also be made a lot better.
