Hosting A Dinner Party

Helping You Entertain With Confidence

When you think about hosting a dinner party, does the thought fill you with excitement and an eagerness to start planning right away? Or do you find yourself initially buzzing with enthusiasm, only to be quickly overwhelmed by dread, panic and the thought of -

"What on earth was I thinking!?"

Maybe you love the idea of inviting friends over more often but you don’t feel you have the time to make enough of an effort.  Maybe you know you have the time but you don’t have the confidence. Or maybe it’s just ‘not your bag’ but you're under pressure due to other people’s expectations and it's 'your turn' to host.

I’m not going to pretend that entertaining at home is completely effortless.  Of course it takes some effort - but to what extent is entirely up to you.  The key is whether you can allow yourself to lower your own expectations and set aside those of others, and that’s not always as easy as it sounds. Trust me, I’ve been there. Pre lockdown I literally used to exhaust myself painstakingly thinking through every single detail. The way I host now is completely different.

So if you’re thinking about hosting a dinner party but need some encouragement and a few practical strategies, read on for some helpful ways to make it feel far less stressful, much more manageable and a lot more enjoyable.

Keep A Separate Entertaining Cupboard

It may sound a bit extreme but setting aside a dedicated area, whether it’s a cupboard or a couple of shelves, and keeping it stocked with all the essentials for hosting, is probably one of the most useful things you can do.  

Keeping things separate from your day-to-day tableware will save you from last minute scrambles to find essentials like a freshly laundered tablecloth, enough glassware and a complete dinner set. The last thing you want to be doing just before your guests arrive, is rooting around for a full set of cutlery and finding that most of it is still languishing unwashed in the dishwasher following lunch!  I promise, you’ll thank yourself for it.

I’m a big fan of keeping tableware neutral in colour.  You can still set a colourful table but, by keeping the basics neutral, you give yourself the freedom to change your colour scheme with other accessories such as serviettes, flowers and candles. See my Instagram reel here. It makes setting the table much more fun and you’ll never get bored! 

Check out The White Company, John Lewis, ProCook and Viners for neutral coloured essentials.

If you’re not entirely sure what you need to keep in your entertaining cupboard, download your free Hosting Essentials Checklist.

Utilise Your Kitchen Gadgets

Use your kitchen gadgets to their full potential.  My favourite ones are my slow cooker and Thermomix®.

Slow cookers are ideal for dishes that benefit from being cooked at a low temperature over a long period, such as a shoulder of lamb or pulled brisket.  You can prep in the morning and your dish will be ready by the time you sit down for dinner, without you having to do anything with it in between. You can find lots of choices at Lakeland, Argos and Dunelm.

Go for a slow cooker with a generous capacity, around 6 litres is ideal. It means you can cook for a crowd or, if you're keeping it small, you’ll have extra portions to freeze for another day. It's a win-win!

The Thermomix® is the most costly kitchen gadget I’ve ever purchased but I’ve never looked back because it allows me to prepare all sorts of dishes in a matter of minutes. It's opened up a world of recipes that I would never have considered making previously as I would have found them far too time consuming and 'faffy'.

It's especially helpful for making gorgeous salads like this Chopped Asian Salad which uses lots of ingredients. Read Good Housekeeping's review of the TM6 model in which they gave it an impressive 10/10.

Ask For A Helping Hand

Hosting a dinner party doesn’t have to be a solo job.  Sharing the load can make a huge difference.  If you’re hosting with a partner, speak up before your guests arrive and come to an arrangement as to which one of you is responsible for which tasks during the evening, whether it's answering the door, taking coats or offering drinks. If you’re hosting on your own, ask one of your invited friends to lend a hand. 

A good friend will be more than happy to help out and it will take a lot of the pressure off. Take it from one who learnt this the hard way!

In the past I would never accept help from any of our guests, whether that was bringing a contribution to the table or helping with the clearing up afterwards. However, my attitude to inviting friends over for dinner completely changed after lockdown.

When COVID hit and lockdown happened everything changed overnight.  Like many people, I suddenly had endless free hours to cook and bake, to try out new recipes and to challenge myself to create things in the kitchen that I hadn’t made time to do before. 

The irony wasn’t lost on me that, other than those in my family bubble, there was nobody else to share them with!  And I missed my friends. I mean, I really missed my friends.

Don't Burden Yourself With Unnecessary Pressures

I came out of lockdown with a completely different mindset and attitude toward entertaining at home and specifically hosting dinner parties. If you only take one thing away from this blog, please make it this -

lower the expectations you place on yourself and learn to appreciate that there’s no need to burden yourself with unnecessary pressures.

So consider your options if you don't feel you have the time, confidence or simply the desire to make everything yourself. If someone offers to bring something by way of a contribution then say, "Yes please, that would be lovely - thank you." It doesn't matter if you haven't made everything yourself from scratch or whether that salad or dessert your friend is bringing is homemade or shop bought. Keep an eye out for my blog, 'Faking It - Deliciously!', coming soon.

Look to your local deli or favourite restaurant that may offer outside catering and a choice of dishes that you can pre order to supplement your meal with. It's not unusual for me to order a couple of salads from my local vegetarian restaurant to accompany my homemade main meal when I know that I'm going to be short of time.

You could also think about buying in dessert from your local supermarket. Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury's and Waitrose, for example, all offer an excellent choice of dinner party worthy desserts such as Pavlovas, tarts and fruit crumbles.

Since I started acknowledging that it’s OK for me to accept help, I have genuinely started to enjoy having friends over for dinner far more than I used to.  Why?  Well, two reasons really.  Firstly, it gives me less to think about and more headspace to enjoy the process.  Secondly, it feels like a team effort and, when you’re part of a team, whatever you do is more fun than when you're doing it alone.

Change Your Mindset

That mindset shift turned out to be one of the best things to come out of lockdown for me personally.  I realise now that it planted the seed for Entertaining with Evie. I started to think about previous comments that had been made by friends such as “I wish I could do this” or "I just don't have the time".

I used to brush comments like this off with an, "Oh don’t be daft - of course you can do this!” type of reply but once I took time to reflect, I realised that lots of friends lacked the confidence or were time poor and felt a pressure when hosting at home that I just hadn't appreciated.

By relaxing your own attitude towards home entertaining, it takes the pressure off others and stops them feeling awkward about either not inviting you back or feeling that they haven't put in enough effort when they do!

If you are not convinced and are still hesitating with hosting a dinner party, let me leave you with a final thought -

Friends accept your invitation because they want to spend time with you, not because of what you are dishing up. If you're finding that’s not the case, then it may be time to re-evaluate your friendship circle!

You've already had a glimpse of three of my favourite strategies, but there are twelve more waiting for you and you can find them in:

Dinner Parties - 15 Practical Ways To Help You Host With Confidence.

Think of it as a little confidence boost in PDF form!

It's full of practical advise to help you plan, prep and host. Refer to it whenever you feel like you need a bit of encouragement to keep things manageable.