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Autumn Inspiration: Be inspired by the change in season and use colourful Autumn branches to create a beautiful seasonal centerpiece Photo courtesy of Martha Stewart. |
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Eggshell Votives: Transform your Easter themed dinner party with these gorgeous, pastel painted eggs shells that each have a votive candle placed inside them and are displayed on simple eggcups. A gorgeous idea for an Easter inspired table centerpiece Photo courtesy of Martha Stewart. |
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Unique Centerpiece Idea: Make your next centerpiece out of fresh seasonal vegetables; you will be amazed at how many different colours, textures and shapes you will find at your local green grocer. Place your vegetables in a serving dish and arrange them in any order you please, group same vegetable together for a geometric arrangement or randomly for a natural one Photo courtesy of Martha Stewart. |
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A straw with a difference: For your next garden party, why not try decorating your guests drinking straws with baking-cups that have been scalloped to look like flowers your guests will find their summer refreshments irresistible Photo courtesy of Martha Stewart. |
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Christmas paper napkin rings: Whether you use left-over Christmas wrapping paper or specially selected scrapbooking paper, making Christmas paper napkin rings for your dinner party is both easy and fun to do. You can keep it simple by making a simple paper band or you can add some additional embellishments like Christmas tree cut-outs, snowflakes or you could use shop bought embellishments from your local art and craft supplier.. Photo courtesy of Martha Stewart. |
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Prevent Ice Cream Drips: Don't let the hot weather keep you from losing your favorite treat. Keep ice cream from dripping out of the bottom of a cone, by placing mini marshmellows into it, the ice cream will remain where it should be and you'll have the extra yummy factor of being able to eat the marshmellows when you are done. Photo courtesy of Martha Stewart. |
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A wine cooler with a difference: Pumpkins make fantastic wine coolers whether you are hosting an intimate dinner in your dining room or a picnic outside under a shady tree. With Halloween coming up, what better excuse do you need to host anadult Halloween inspired cocktail party. |
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Host a Picnic in Your Back Garden - There's no need to pack up the car and the kids to have a lovely picnic. Make some delicious nibbles and hit your back garden for an intimate, easy affair. Now that we are well into summer, a late afternoon picnic with a few well placed candles and oil lamps, serenaded by the sounds of dusk, will make for a beautifully intimate dinner party for your friends and family too....... Photo courtesy of Martha Stewart |
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After dinner coffee idea: Cake pops - Cake pops are bite-size balls made of crumbled cake mixed with icing and covered in chocolate. They are easy to make and are the perfect treat for party favours and gifts....... Get The Recipe |
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Christmas in July: Ok so you like the idea of having a "Christmas in July" party, but not the stress that comes with organising the event. Keep it simple, have a "Christmas in July movie night ". Hire out some classic festive DVD’s like ‘The Christmas Carol’ and......Read More |
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Dads Favourite: Do something special for Dad this father’s day, spoil him with a manly dinner, Cardamon and Coffee Lamb Shank? Comprising of onions, carrots, cinnamon, garlic and of course lamb shanks. This gorgeous recipe will have dad's mouth watering in no time......Get The Recipe |
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Mothers Day Breakfast: Mom’s usually the first one up in the mornings, so why not spoil her with an indulgent breakfast in bed? Scrambled eggs and smoked salmon on a toasted English muffin, served with a cup of Breakfast Tea on an elegant breakfast tray, makes a wonderful Mothers Day treat. |
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Happy Easter! Throw a white runner over your Easter table and decorate with coloured Easter eggs of different shapes and sizes. Fresh fish should be served on Easter Friday, and on Easter Sunday – the end of the fast of lent – red meat is the dish of the day. Prospera Pascha Sit! |
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Luck o’ the Irish: Celebrate St Patrick’s Day with a classic Irish Coffee! Pour filter coffee into heated Irish Coffee glasses, leaving room for cream. Add sugar and Irish Whiskey to taste and stir. Spoon chilled whipped cream on top of the liquid. Sprinkle with grated chocolate and add a sprig of fresh mint. Sláinte! |
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Sizzling Seafood: Make the most of the rest of summer by hosting a seafood braai. Pop calamari and prawns – seasoned and drizzled with olive oil – into a foil roasting pan, and wrap a whole fish – like red roman, dorado or yellowtail – in foil and place over the coals. Wash it down with chilled Chardonnay. |
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Festive Tray Liners: Add that festive twist to your Christmas dinner or party and use colorful or metallic Christmas paper to make a set of party-worthy tray liners for serving drinks. Your guests will appreciate the special touch |
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Aperitifs and Digestifs: The Latins are fond of serving apéritifs – like dry champagne, campari or vermouth – before a meal to stimulate appetite. Apéritifs are served with olives, cheese, pâté and crackers. Digestifs – such as amari, cognac, ouzo or grappa – are drunken neat after a meal to aid digestion. Santé! |
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Pumpkin vases: Get in touch with your creative side and introduce the Halloween theme into your next dinner party. Pumpkins have many uses this time of year, appearing in pies and soups as well as in centerpieces. Here's another use: Transform one into a colorful homemade vase. |
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No More Tears: The next time you find yourself chopping onions, try chopping them near an open flame. The sulphur vapours released from the onion will burn off before they can irritate your eyes. Lighting a candle is probably the easiest method available. |
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Apple Candles: The next time you have a dinner party, instead of using your normal tapered candles to achieve a cosy atmosphere, try apple candles. Core the apple and place a tea light candle into the hollow opening, the metal around the tea light will prevent the apple from burning and best of all, apples float, which means you can create you`r very own homemade floating candles. |
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Hand Painted Wine Glasses: Add a unique twist to your dinner party, by transforming your ordinary wine glasses into individual pieces of art. Choose a basic design, theme or colour scheme and get painting. You can find glass paints at most hobby/craft stores. Amaze your guests with your endless creative talent. |
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A Merry Green Christmas: For a greener way of wrapping presents, why not make your own unique gift wrapping, use cloth bags or even pieces of fabric as alternatives to to conventional shop bought wrapping paper. Save and re use the paper from previous Christmas’s. |
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Christmas gift ideas: Making your own vanilla extract: What better way to to say merry Christmas than a homemade edible Christmas gift? Find an ornate glass jar or bottle, 3 vanilla pods and a cup of vodka, rum or bourbon. Split the pods lengthwise, place them into the......Read More |
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An Apple Theme Dinner Party: Introduce an apple theme at your next dinner party, incorporated this theme into both your menu as well as your decorating. There are so many recipes that include apples as an ingredient. Go wild with the decorating, from using apple table accessories to floating apples in a glass vase as a center-piece. Use red apples for more of a cosy festive atmosphere or switch to green apples for a fresh summery approach. |
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Sand Candles: At you next dinner party, use coloured sand (the same as your colour scheme) and dress up tea light candles to make flickering lights that are cheerful and fun. Take drinking glasses and fill each glass with different patterns of the coloured sand, then submerge the tea light candle into the top of the glass, being careful not to disrupt your pattern. Your guests will love it. |
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Unique Dessert Platter: When entertaining your friends and family, why not add variety to your dinner party by having individual dessert platters. Choose three of your favourite desserts and portion out three small servings and place them artistically onto a mini platter. Your guests will love the variety. |
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Perfect Dessert Idea: You won't have to spoon ice cream, one serving at a time, in the middle of a party. Dole out balls onto a lined baking sheet. Insert a craft spoon into each, and place in the freezer. Chill until hardened. Roll scoops in sprinkles, toasted coconut, or crushed nuts or sweets, and store them in the freezer on a freshly lined baking sheet. Reference: Martha Stewart |
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Ideas for a Table Setting: You are having everyone over to your house. Well, a lovely idea would be to make a small colourful Easter egg parcel and attach it with ribbon to the knife, fork and serviette at each setting. |
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Create a Cute Recipe Gift Jar: Next time you find yourself unsure of what to buy someone as a gift, why not purchase a jar and fill it with the ingredients of your favorite sweet recipe. Its cute, creative, thoughtful and fun to make! |
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Make some Healthy nibbles for your guests:.Create a simple snack for a party or an eye-catching offer on a table full of deserts. All you need is some fruit and a kebab stick. An inspiration to eat healthy! |
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Display your Flavour: Instead of using your traditional salt and pepper cellars, create a delightful centrepiece with your salt and pepper. All you need is salt, pepper and something to shape your pattern with. Items like children’s stencils and cookie cutters work well, or bring out the inner child in you and create your own stencil with cardboard. |
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Serving Individual Crudites: A fabulous and innovative snack idea at your next gathering would be to serve crunchy vegetables complete with their own dip: buttermilk-peppercorn, roasted pepper and eggplant, or toasted curry. Their bowls - hollowed out baguettes - are meant to be eaten, too. |
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Make Flower-Petal Ice-Cubes: At your next gathering, wow your guests when you serve them drinks with gorgeous floral ice-cubes. We suggest small flowers, petals, or herbs such as mint frozen within a block of ice to create the ultimate impact. Be sure to choose petals or flowers that are edible or non-toxic - rose petals, small pansies or mint are perfect choices for the task. |
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Host A Hot Drink Party:
Why not hold a winter alternative to the summer Garden Tea Party? We suggest holding a Hot Drink Party. Invite your guests to join you in a celebration of winter. A tasty meal option would be a variety of warm soups......Read More |
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Throw a Ice-Cream Sundae Party: Invite your friends to a Sundae Party. Ask your guests to fashion their own dessert by providing bowls of assorted toppings like chocolate covered nuts, chocolate shavings, toffee bars, biscuit pieces, chocolate syrup and fruit. Let everyone get creative! |
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Dessert Party: Throw a Dessert Party for some of your friends. Ask each friend to bring a different dessert or alternatively, get a professional chef / caterer to create some desserts that will keep your friends talking for a very long time to come! |
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Potjie Competition: Set a date for a Potjie competition with some friends. Teams must create a Potjie using a selection of ingredients that you supply ie. they will improvise a recipe then and there. Select one or two people to jusge which is the best. |
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Bowls of Cherries: There is something so sophisticated about eating cherries! Why not serve a delicious bowl of cherries at your next cocktail party or summer lunch. |
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Gourmet Cupcakes: The best part about making cupcakes is making them look pretty! Play around with different colour icings and sugar decorations and amaze all your friends by serving them at your next bookclub or tea party. |
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The Treat Company - Fun Gift: The Treat Company in Cape Town makes some great gifts in beautiful packaging. These brightly coloured gum sweets are a fun present to give someone or even just to share with friends. |
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Choc Crunchies decorated with lace: Buy or bake crunchies with dark choclate icing and tie lace around 2 or 3. This would work well as a small gift for someone to say thank-you or get better soon. Easy and tasty! |
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Strawberry Water:
This is a refreshing change from plain old water. Simply clean and cut a few strawberries lengthways and place in a jug of water. Eventually the water will develop a slight strawberry taste. This can be done with apples, lemons and various other fruits too. |
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Serve Ice-Cream in Mini Glass Vases: Good presentation makes any food exciting to eat. For this simple idea, you need mini glass or ceramic vases and mini roses which you can get at almost any supermarket. Fill the vase with a delicious strawberry ice-cream and place a pink rose in each one. |
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Pot plant name placements: Collect some used food tins, clean them out and paint the outside with a colour of your choice. Buy some small plants from the nursery and pot them in the tins and place name cards on each on. A fresh, simple and elegant name placement. |
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Minimalistic Centrepiece: For this idea, you need the right vase - a small rectangular, shallow vase. Place white pebbles on the botton and fill with enough water to cover the pebbles. Place long slender leaves in each vase (facing the same way) for a beautiful effect. |
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Fruit Platter: Instead of serving chips and dips, try something different & serve a fruit & nut platter. Make the platter look interesting by using different heights - you can put nuts in small bowls or cups & place the fruit around the bowls. You can even add a biltong stack to create even more variation - see picture below. |
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Chocolate teaspoons: This is a great idea for a tea party. You need teaspoons and at least 3 flavours of cooking chocolate. Melt the different flavours seperately and dip the ends of the spoons into the chocolate, creating patterns with the different flavours. |
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Heart Cupcakes: This is a great accompaniment to the chocolate teaspoons above. Serve cupcakes with pink butter icing and decorate with hearts made out of sugar icing. Cute and scrumptious - perfect for a ladies tea party. |
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Mini Badges as Name Placements: Try and find these mini badges at a stationery store or Cardies. Select something different for each person - something that reflects their personality and attach to a name card. These will also act as fun conversation pieces. |
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Biltong Bowls: Wrap biltong snapsticks in an African looking ribbon (I have used a Zebra print here) and serve as snacks. This is ideal for a bush/safari type menu. You can even serve the biltong together with dried fruit and nuts. See picture above. |
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Organise ingredients: If you have limited time & are planning to cook a dinner for friends, prepare the ingredients beforehand & place in ceramic bowls & cover with cling wrap. This will save a lot of time when it comes to actually cooking the dish which means more time for socializing. |
