A Very Easy Dinner Party

I had friends over last weekend for gin & tonics, we also had mousse (I prefer over pate because of flavor and texture), crackers and sour dough bread, cornichons and pickled onions, marinated mushrooms, and marinated cauliflower. Simple, easy, elegant, and fun. Next time will be martini’s with chips, onion dip and fresh veggies. I played classical music in the background really lightly and used glass dishes, and cloth napkins.

Simply good food, easy and enjoyable where people can enjoy each other’s company. Another good appetizer to consider — cheese ball — wait, there’s more. Softened cream cheese mixed with Major Grey’s Mango Chutney. Had this at a dinner party that followed up with broiled loin lamp chops with melted chevre. Delish.

We had a great party last week where each couple brought a different type of kebab. The hostess made rice and a salad, we threw the kebabs on the grill and dinner was ready in under 10 minutes. Everyone got to try the different kebab and it was so easy!

Thank you so much for this lovely article . I may be late to the party but here’s my contribution . Being a foodie , i enjoy cooking ..a lot ! Whenever i invite friends over dinner i prepare everything ( almost) the night before .when work is done , i just get into my kitchen , pour myself a glass of spritz or whatever happens to be around and start working .i always listen to some kind of music or podcasts while cooking .i make sure that i have homemade crackers , savory cakes , foccacia to entertain my guests while i reheat the rest of the dishes .i LOVE to bake so desserts are always homemade too .cheesecake , tiramisu , carrot cake , pies … You name it . There’s nothing wrong with ordering dinner , buying prepackaged food but i believe that when you make that extra effort people notice it. Cooking for people i love is an absolute pleasure for me and i love it when people cook for me too !

Thank you for your great ideas! I love spending quality time with my friends and less time in the kitchen. A few years ago I started serving gelato in ice cream cones for dessert – we buy a few flavours of locally made gelato and it always goes down so well! Seconds seem to be very popular too. I always have a lovely bunch of flowers on the table as they help create a great vide and are appreciated by the guests – even a single flower from the garden is so special.

Question: Second last photo, guy second from the left: Jon Hamm??? Is that you??? (And bonus question: Red-haired guy in the last photo: is that DOMHNALL GLEESON???)

Thank you so much for sharing your great ideas I think you are so inspirational and a big motivator, we just moved into our home and I had been wanting to have a simple dinner party and had no ideas where to start but coming across your site and seeing all of your great tips really helped me Thank you so much.

Choco Tacos!!!! I love all of this and am planning an easy dinner party a-la-cup-of-jo right now! Love you and your blog <3

i learned this from food52’s a new way to dinner: oven-roast marshmallows to put atop coffee ice cream. a few minutes under the broiler and you’ve got an impressive dessert! bonus: it requires no prep work AND feels fancy and whimsical. when was the last time you were served a marshmallow at a grown-up dinner party!?

Another easy dessert is a gelato bar: Several small containers of different flavors of gelato with brownies or cookies. Guests like choosing their own flavor and for those of us in the Midwest, it’s always an unexpected treat.
I buy Talenti as they are the right size and the empty containers are so handy to use later.

I like roasting kebabs
in the oven. They accommodate different diets, I make some veggie and some meat and they are great for the gluten free crowd:)

I loooooove the idea of whoever shows up, shows up – doing that from now on! Stat!!!

I love this easy dinner party. It can be make the party more effective and can be do without preparation first.

I love the 2-day notice rule. That’s something we’ve started doing for meet-ups at the park or rainy day playdates at the house for kids + moms. At first, I felt bad giving such short notice, but then I realized that’s the only way it was going to work. Otherwise, there is too much (re)scheduling. Going to try it with dinner parties now.

I must say, I’ve been a reader for more years that I want to think about and I consistently love the the dinner party advice you give! I’ve started throwing more ‘crappy’ dinner parties this year than ever, and this weekend I’m trying the simple dinner party tricks.

2-day advance notice is just about the best. advice. ever.

My hosting has been forever changed for the good, so thank you!!

I’d love to hear people’s thoughts about socializing with friends who have kids. We love kids and try to see our friends and their babies and toddlers often. But the constraints of the kids routines–which are so important!–mean that we can’t hang out late into the evening unless we’re at the house with the kids. This is fine with some of our friends, who have just decided we’ll socialize at theirs for the foreseeable future. But it is limiting–and we can’t invite other mutual friends with kids over. Obvious solutions include babysitters ($$) and daytime hanging (only on weekends). Is there something else I’m missing? Would love to see a post on this. In general, I’m very interested in posts like this one about how to make time to see friends in our busy lives.

I absolutely love this idea! I always stress out, buy way too much food, worry about every little detail! This is marvellous, I’ll be adopting it today as we have friends coming over this afternoon!!

We have a 3 month old but still want to get together with friends so dinner parties at home are great! We like to make homemade pizzas that we can make and clean up all before guests arrive. Then when we are ready we put them in the oven and keep visiting with our friends. When they are done we all get to eat and enjoy together without anyone stuck in the kitchen. It’s great!

Excited for apartment tour as well! Where is your print of the wheat field from? Love your blog!

I love this! I love hosting but don’t see the need in having an elaborate do each time. This is perfect!

Just wondering–who puts the boys to bed and does it take a ridiculous amount of time because they’re jealous of the party?

Do you love your counter stools? I’ve been looking forever and would love a link to the cute ones you chose. Wish I read this post earlier this week and my Friday night would’ve been way more fun! :-)

at my old place i had a lot of friends who lived near by. Most were fresh out of college and not a lot of money. My house was the central hub. They would just pop in whenever, sometimes without even a text warning. I kept extra boxes of my favorite brownie mix (https://www.amazon.com/Ghirardelli-Chocolate-Ultimate-Brownie-18-Ounce/dp/B0016BWBHM ) and would just make some up real quick. I’d brew coffee or have cheap beers in the fridge and we’d talk, play games, watch something on TV. It completely cut out the stress. As long as there was a roll of toilet paper in the bathroom and my bras weren’t lying around nothing else mattered

I teach English to international college students (freshmen and sophomores). When I found out a number of them were “stuck” on campus during spring break this week, my husband and I invited them to our house for dinner last night. We marinated chicken overnight and grilled it, threw together a large salad, and made our favorite crowd-pleaser rolls from frozen dough. For dessert, we had ice cream and homemade-from-a-mix brownies. After everyone was stuffed, we sat around and played cards and the conversation flowed in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

I threw an impromptu dinner party over the weekend too! I texted everyone about 24 in advance and expected not many people to be able to make it and lo and behold everyone showed up! We asked everyone to bring a bottle of wine and a frozen snack to share. We had frozen pizza, frozen puff pastry, bagel bites, pizza rolls, pain au chocolat, a cheese board – a real snack smorgasbord.

We played television, have you heard of it? It’s the most amazing game to play with adults who’ve had a few. We played until 3:30am and laughed so much our faces hurt.