Easy, Elegant Entertaining

One of my ultimate favorite things to do is to celebrate life by entertaining. To most entertaining is a daunting, stressful idea...I am here to clear the air and help you realize that entertaining can be easy and elegant. The first thing you want to do is come up with your theme, this is what you'll usually center your food and decor around. Being creative with serverware is another tidbit I love to focus on, the details will truly pull in all your guests and having them saying, "Wow!" all event long.

The first thing I love to do is have a beautiful arrangement of flowers, candles, glasses as a tablescape for my guests to see. With the help of my fabulous friend, Amanda Kordes, we found some wild sunflowers that I picked, which looked lovely for our Southern Ladies Cooking Club. We then surrounded the sunflowers with beautiful glasses, antique pieces and some chocolate-berry compote cupcakes.

Chocolate Berry-Compote Cupcakes

2 cups organic unbleached flour
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 Tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
pinch salt
1 cup organic skim milk
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
3 oz semi-sweet chocolate

Combine soft butter and sugar until creamed. Add dry ingredients, mix until blended. Add milk and vanilla, blend well. Melt chocolate and add with eggs, slowly. Pour into greased cupcake pan and bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes.

While the cupcakes are baking put blueberries, blackberries and raspberries into a sauce pan with sugar on medium heat.

Berry Chocolate Icing

1/2 cup butter
2 Tbsp light corn syrup
4 cups powdered sugar
2 oz semi-sweet chocolate

Add soft butter into mixer, mix until creamy. Add corn syrup, mix on high til creamy. Slowly add in powdered sugar. Melt chocolate in a double boiler (if you don't have one put a metal  bowl on top of a sauce pan with a bit of water, make sure the bottom of the bowl cannot touch the water, bring the water to boil, once boiling turn heat down, chocolate will melt, stir constantly to avoid burning). Add in chocolate, put in a piping bag or ziploc bag to ice cupcakes.

Meanwhile, stir berries until the sugar has reduced the fruit into a jelly-like compote. Remove from heat to cool. Once cooled put into a piping bag or ziploc for cupcake filling.

When cupcakes are down, let them cool, then poke little holes in each cupcake, fill with berry compote and ice with piping bag. Ta da!

The next thing I like to have out when my guests arrive is a few things to snack on, when I was registering for my wedding I found this tri-bowl serving set that I just loved, it was perfect to put a few snacks in when entertaining. You could put in almonds, cubes of cheese, cherry tomatoes, dark chocolate, granola, berries, etc.

After my wedding I received some really fun serverware plates from Martha Stewart's Living collection. They are all different pattens of various leaves, this one in particular I used for some cajun jalapeno poppers that delighted any palate!

Cajun Jalapeno Poppers

My husband and I decided to make two different kinds, one had a batter on it and one was left simple. We took 1/2 package of cream cheese, cajun seasoning, fresh jalapenos (completely de-seeded and cleaned), bacon, 2 Tbs flour, 1/4 cup milk. For the battered poppers we first mixed the cajun seasoning into the soft cream cheese (and in the flour), filled each half jalapeno, wrapped in bacon then dipped into the cajun spice flour, dip into milk then back into cajun spice flour mix.

For the un-battered jalapeno poppers we mixed the cajun spices into the soft cream cheese, wrapped in bacon. We baked all of the jalapeno poppers into 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Cream cheese should be bubbly and bacon should be crisp.

Enjoy all these lovely recipes and ideas for your next girl's night in, birthday party, dinner for the in-laws or for your special someone.

xo Lo