Occasion

Season

Reality

The occasion. Right now it is the holiday season. Holiday menus are basically dictated by tradition. Whether it is a national tradition or religious tradition or a family tradition that is what generally sets your menu. If your dinner party is an occasion that is for a guest of honor, like a birthday, anniversary, graduation, something of that sort, make some dishes that the guest of honor likes. That always goes over very well. I know it sounds very basic but keep that in mind. If you are having a party just to have a party, which is the best reason to have a party, then all bets are off. You get to make what you want to make. Just remember who you are inviting and find out if they have dietary restrictions, or if they have allergies, etc., etc. If you are inviting my Dad to dinner, don’t make salmon or he is not going to eat. You want everybody to enjoy your party.

The next topic is seasonality. Go to the supermarket first, before you start writing your menu. Pick up the flier. See what is on sale. You should serve a menu of ingredients that are in season. They will be easily available, most reasonably priced and it is the best quality that you are going to find, all at the same time. Rather than writing your menu and then going to see if you can find all of your ingrdients at the store, go to the store first. See what looks good and then go home and write your menu. That is how I cook anyway.

Have Fun

And the last thing to consider is be realistic. It’s your time, your money, your skill level, your kitchen and who you choose to invite. So, make the party fun for you, first. If you do all these things, even if you are not a good cook, you can still throw a fabulous party. No one says you have to make everything. I don’t. You shouldn’t. You want to be able to have a good time at your own party.

It’s My Party, And I’ll Cry If I Want To

Everybody is going to look at you to gauge how the party is going. If you are all frazzled and sweaty then everybody feels like, “Maybe we shouldn’t have come” or “I feel bad for putting them out”. If you don’t have a good time, other people are not going to have a good time. And that is basically the reality of hosting. Create an experience for your guests and yourself. Don’t forget yourself in this equation.

Pre-Party Planning Prevents Panic

Even if you plan ahead, there may be a crisis and there usually is. It is how you handle that crisis that is going to dictate whether this party is going to be memorable. You can burn the turkey at Thanksgiving, but you can have fun with it. I’m not sure how, but there’s no reason to loose your composure at your own party. If you loose it, then everybody else is not going to have a good time. You can still have a good time. (Almost) everything is salvageable. Everybody makes mistakes.

Stay Cool

Never let them see you sweat. Those are my final thoughts about planning your menu. Tomorrow we are going to go on to setting your table and how to make it look visually attractive. Sometimes everyone fits around your table and sometimes you’ve got a crowd. You got to put people in the corner and in the closets and in the bathroom, whatever. Just so everybody has a place to sit down.

Hi Marty Richardson from chefmartyrich.com with a few final thoughts about planning your dinner menu.

Occasion

Season

Reality

The occasion. Right now it is the holiday season. Holiday menus are basically dictated by tradition. Whether it is a national tradition or religious tradition or a family tradition that is what generally sets your menu. If your dinner party is an occasion that is for a guest of honor, like a birthday, anniversary, graduation, something of that sort, make some dishes that the guest of honor likes. That always goes over very well. I know it sounds very basic but keep that in mind. If you are having a party just to have a party, which is the best reason to have a party, then all bets are off. You get to make what you want to make. Just remember who you are inviting and find out if they have dietary restrictions, or if they have allergies, etc., etc. If you are inviting my Dad to dinner, don’t make salmon or he is not going to eat. You want everybody to enjoy your party.

The next topic is seasonality. Go to the supermarket first, before you start writing your menu. Pick up the flier. See what is on sale. You should serve a menu of ingredients that are in season. They will be easily available, most reasonably priced and it is the best quality that you are going to find, all at the same time. Rather than writing your menu and then going to see if you can find all of your ingrdients at the store, go to the store first. See what looks good and then go home and write your menu. That is how I cook anyway.

Have Fun

And the last thing to consider is be realistic. It’s your time, your money, your skill level, your kitchen and who you choose to invite. So, make the party fun for you, first. If you do all these things, even if you are not a good cook, you can still throw a fabulous party. No one says you have to make everything. I don’t. You shouldn’t. You want to be able to have a good time at your own party.

It’s My Party, And I’ll Cry If I Want To

Everybody is going to look at you to gauge how the party is going. If you are all frazzled and sweaty then everybody feels like, “Maybe we shouldn’t have come” or “I feel bad for putting them out”. If you don’t have a good time, other people are not going to have a good time. And that is basically the reality of hosting. Create an experience for your guests and yourself. Don’t forget yourself in this equation.

Pre-Party Planning Prevents Panic

Even if you plan ahead, there may be a crisis and there usually is. It is how you handle that crisis that is going to dictate whether this party is going to be memorable. You can burn the turkey at Thanksgiving, but you can have fun with it. I’m not sure how, but there’s no reason to loose your composure at your own party. If you loose it, then everybody else is not going to have a good time. You can still have a good time. (Almost) everything is salvageable. Everybody makes mistakes.

Stay Cool

Never let them see you sweat. Those are my final thoughts about planning your menu. Tomorrow we are going to go on to setting your table and how to make it look visually attractive. Sometimes everyone fits around your table and sometimes you’ve got a crowd. You got to put people in the corner and in the closets and in the bathroom, whatever. Just so everybody has a place to sit down. Come on back tomorrow and I will have another good video for you. Thanks.

Hi everyone. Marty Richardson here at chefmartyrich.com with today’s tip series. Well the last few days I have been doing labeling and it turns out today we are on a totally different track. You might remember from one of the earlier episodes Ms. Barbara and her anniversary party. Well that is tomorrow and I have been the designatee for making rolls for 75 people. So a couple of hundred rolls easily, I have to make. So I wanted to talk a little bit about that today. Here I have my “mise en place” which is culinary school terminology, French, for everything in its place. Rather than doing 4 batches in one bowl and just multiplying everything times 4 and putting it all together I am doing 4 separate batches of rolls. They make 24 so I am going to do 8 and then see if I have time to do more than that. That will be a bonus.

Here you have my warm water with yeast. Remember 110 degrees, and I knew that because of my handy dandy instant read thermometer. And then I have my melted butter and eggs. And then I have ½ cup sugar goes in. And then into each bowl will go 1 tsp. salt as well. And 4 ¼ cups of flour. So the recipe again is

1 C water (110 degrees)

2 pkg. yeast (not quick rising type)

½ C. butter melted

½ C. sugar

Mix together. Add three eggs and 1 tsp. salt and 4 ¼ C. flour.

Refrigerate for at least 2 hours or up to three days. So I have plenty of time to have them rise. And I will take them out, roll them into rolls and put them on the pans to let them rise a second time before I bake them off.

So there you have it. There is my tip for the day and I will come back and shoot the video later and I will post it tomorrow or the next day on how they came out.

Make sure you visit the website. Leave a comment. Call me, or actually, I can call you so all you have to do is register for a ½ hour free consultation and I’ll call you and we will talk about whatever you want to talk about.

Thanks very much for watching and we will talk to you tomorrow.

Wow. Is it tomorrow already? Well, I am a beginner at this video thing, so a little time lapsed photography. Welcome back. I’m going to show you what that yeast looks like today.

Test Results

Okay, here’s the two cups and you can see the one on the right is just a bubbling and foaming away. Which means your yeast is active. The one on the left, all the yeast has settled on the bottom and nothing is happening. Now this is only a 20 degree change in temperature. It is a very subtle thing and I suppose I could do a series of experiments to find out exactly what temperature is going to kill your yeast.

Blooming Yeast

But again it only takes an Instant Read Thermometer and you know that you have the right temperature. As I said, the recipe calls for 110 degrees and when you have the right temperature you have the best product. Look at that yeast go. It looks like it is growing right before your eyes.

Time To Make The Dinner Rolls…

Okay I hadn’t really thought about what I was going to do with the yeast. One package of yeast was sacrificed for this experiment. So in the spirit of conservation and good cooking, I am going to make dinner rolls. Literally, tomorrow, or maybe I’ll shoot the video later and post it tomorrow, you get to see what they look like.

Again, keep those questions coming. It has been great talking to everyone and I am really enjoying myself showing you a little bit about food here and there. So, come on back. Like I said, opt in at the bottom, on the left. Join our community. Go to the blog which is www.chefmartyrich.com/blog and post a question. I will get a video out to you as soon as I can.

Have a great day. See you tomorrow.

Hi and welcome back to Chefmartyrich.com. I shot a video, one of the first videos that I did and it was about Miss Barbara and easy dinner rolls. I am not sure if I really represented everyone properly.

My Apology

She saw the video and here is my apology. Okay, it wasn’t boiling water, but it was still too hot. So then I probably blamed the recipe, and talked about Recipe Rebel and then I got the recipe.

Easy Dinner Rolls

It was Easy Dinner Rolls. I got it right off the internet. Off of Recipezaar and right here it says that even the beginner cook can make these. They are true homemade rolls. They must chill or you can make them up to three days in advance. Now right here (I don’t know if you can see that) but right here it says “2 packages of yeast. Do not use a quick rising yeast in this recipe. 1 cup of water (110 degrees)”.

This One is Just Right…

Now granted again who knows what’s 110 degrees? But that is why we have our trusty Instant Read Thermometer. And today I am going to show you what bloomed yeast looks like. (Water running). It’s really pretty simple. Perfect, 110 degrees and I need 1 cup. And I just pour in the yeast.

This One’s Too Hot…

Now this water is too hot. Let’s just kick it up to about 130. So use 1 cup and we will put in another package of yeast. And we will see what happens. Now yeast feeds off of sugar. So a little pinch and a little pinch. Stir it up a little bit.

I will come back tomorrow and we will see what they look like.

Okay, take care. Keep coming back. Keep sending in questions. We will get a video just for you. Thanks.