Very exciting news, today: this is our first official guest post! We’ve been wanting to collaborate for a while with some outside bloggers and this is hopefully the first of many! Today’s post comes from Dylan at I’d Rather Be Meryl. We’re super obsessed with her blog, that she co-writes with bestie Karen, because it has routinely given us recipe inspiration and tips and tricks to uncomplicate a previously daunting dish (Laura’s husband has made english muffins per their post and they are so amazing!). Beyond that, their wine pairing suggestions are always spot on (they have a regular instagram feature of breaking down an intimidating wine list that we highly recommend!) and the friendly nature of their writing makes it seem like everyone can get in on these culinary projects.

Without further ado, a very big AWAY welcome to I’d Rather Be Meryl!

Some people hate the word entertaining. I don’t mind it so much—as long as having people over actually is, well, entertaining. The minute it starts to feel like an unpleasant chore, the point has been lost.

The issue most people get caught up in is expecting too much from themselves. You don’t need to make a five-course meal with wine pairings and flambé a baked Alaska. You don’t even need to make everything you serve from scratch. You just need a plan that you can actually manage: a drink to take the edge off, a snack upon arrival, and one great main dish.

First, let’s talk drinks. Over at I’d Rather Be Meryl, the website about food, wine, and life that I run with my friend Karen Quinn, we subscribe to a few ideas that set every host up for success. One, is having a house cocktail. When your friends come over to your house, they’re not expecting you to make sixteen different cocktails. They know this is not a full-service bar. So stop (or never start) asking the open-ended question, “Would you like something to drink?” Instead, give them a very brief menu: “Would you like a [insert house cocktail here]?”

All you need to do is pick a cocktail that you enjoy, and make sure to always have the ingredients on hand. During the colder months, my favorite cocktails tend to be spiced, brooding, smooth, warm, and sophisticated. Karen’s husband Jarrett introduced me to the Rum Old Fashioned and I’ve never looked back. It’s a perfect house cocktail because it’s a classic one that feels entirely new, due to the use of rum rather than the traditional whiskey. It’s incredibly easy to make but looks wildly impressive. And, most importantly, you can batch out a pitcher easily if you’re planning to have lots of friends over and don’t want to sit there stirring drinks all night.

(I also have lots of thoughts on wine, and if that’s more your speed, you can read more here.)

Next up is snacks. I’m a firm believer in the importance of having food ready when people arrive. Now, to be clear, I don’t mean have an entire meal ready. You just need something for people to snack on while they start to loosen up and get comfortable. 

You may feel the need to craft plates of lovely hors d’oeuvres, but hear me out: that’s a waste of your valuable time. When your friends arrive, do you want to be putting tiny shrimp on tiny cucumbers or piping perfect deviled eggs? No, you want to talk to them! The best move here is to build a stunning cheese board. You could make one sprawling board—a bacchanal of dairy and cured meats, olives, fruit, mustard, jams, etc. Or you could opt for a smaller, most delicate, minimalist approach with just one or two perfectly selected cheeses. There isn’t a wrong choice here. 

The best thing about serving up a cheese board is that it can—and should—be put together at least 30 minutes before your guests arrive. You want all that cheese to come to room temperature. Your soft cheeses should be buttery or melty; your hard cheeses easy to cut through; and all the flavors to be fully ripe and bloomed. 

Finally, the main course. Dinner at home with your significant other or best friend or by yourself is the time to try wild new types of cooking, serve piping-hot plates of pasta, and flash-sear scallops to perfection. A dinner party is not the time for any of that. Always choose things that can be made almost entirely in advance or that can sit for a while in the oven or on the stove once they are done. If a guest is late, you want to still give them time to eat cheese and have a cocktail before dinner. 

Karen came up with this dynamite winter dinner—a wild mushroom and lentil shepherd’s pie. You can cook almost every element of the dish in advance, over a period of several hours or even days. The four main elements of the dish are fully separate—lentils, mashed potatoes, sautéed mushrooms, and caramelized onions. When you think of them that way, it’s easier to chart your course: you can make the mashed potatoes on Tuesday and the lentils on Wednesday, and then finish the rest of the dish on Friday after work—or you can do it all in an afternoon, with three burners going at once. Either way, it can be sitting in the fridge or on the countertop fully composed until you’re ready to eat. When that time comes, just toss it under the broiler for ten minutes. Bingo, bango, bongo.

Plus, this dish is one of those great recipes that just happens to be vegetarian AND gluten free. 

Truly, the key to entertaining isn’t a culinary degree or tons of disposable income. It’s not Anthropologie plates and a KitchenAid mixer. It’s setting yourself up for success; it’s ease. 

Want other ideas to plug into this plan? A low-alcohol cocktail perhaps? Or a meatier dish? You can find all our suggestions at I’d Rather Be Meryl. Got questions about any of this? We’ve got answers and you can find us on Instagram @idratherbemeryl. 

Be sure to follow along with Dylan and Karen at I’d Rather Be Meryl. Have a recipe you’ve been dying to try? Need a wine pairing suggestion (their true forte!)?? Let us know in the comments!