This post is brought to you by Breville.

Secrets to super easy Holiday Entertaining

I like big parties and I can not lie: sometimes I tend to overdo it, and when I do, I am stressed, overwhelmed and hope that people would just leave!
There I said it. Isn’t it horrible?

The best parties are the ones where I call my husband at lunch time “hey, invite everyone over, let’s have a little party tonight.” Of course it’s not the most polite way to invite guests over, but with the live-in-the-moment invitations also come zero expectations of a party well-planned and the emphasis is always on having fun, like ANY party should be. Whether you are hosting a very well planned party, or an impromptu Holiday soiree, read these tips how to make it a success with a very little effort. For example I created this quick Holiday afternoon coffee pictured in an hour, including the baking time.

1. Know your party tip resources.
Also known as “join Pinterest”. I share everything I love on Pinterest, and find everything needed for hosting great parties. I have one board for party food and cocktails, another one where there are several of my friends too collecting the best cocktails, another one for party decorating, and one just for table settings. When I want to host a party – I typically immediately know which board to go to get the recipes or ideas needed. If you like it old school – have a binder with recipe and idea cutouts from your favorite magazines, or have a well-stocked cookbook library.

2. Learn to use what you have.
Hosting parties can be expensive, especially if you include the decorating as well. Learn to use what you have in hand, and learn to make easy centerpieces, like using edible things as part of the decorating (candy in bowls, fruit on a tray..). Choose a theme or color scheme and stick to it, and making it pretty in 15 minutes or less is easy.

For my afternoon coffee I used two large candle holders as my centerpiece but instead of candles I used Christmas ornaments inside them to give it a quick festive look. I chose blue, white and silver as my decorating colors and mixed old and new dishes that fit the color scheme. It’s OK to mix modern design and vintage finds!

3. Have a well-stocked kitchen.
While yes.. learn to use what you have, but also have a well-stocked kitchen and know how to use what you have. Let’s say you never use a specific kitchen gadget you have, but choose a recipe for your party that requires using the gadget, chances are you will need extra time just to learn to use the gadget. I recommend having simple white dinnerware and serving dishes that you can use in any themed party and easily mix with colors. I don’t believe in disposable plates or cups, but I do stock different colored paper napkins to easily set a colorful table. Entertaining is so much easier when you have the basics.

4. Have a well-stocked pantry
You probably have a few favorite party recipes, or have favorite Holiday time treats you like to offer for guests? Keep ingredients stocked for the entire Holiday season so you don’t have to worry about the basics when you plan your party. My basics during the Holidays are gingerbread cookies, chocolate pralines, assorted nuts and mulled wine, or what we call glögi in Finland, also ready to be warmed up and kept in a thermos for guests. I typically like keeping the spiced wine in the thermos when entertaining and brew the coffee nice and fresh. In addition you can never go wrong with crackers & cheese, and having a few puffy pastry sheets in the freezer for fast treats like the Toblerone Pastries.

5. Add music.
Holiday music has a mysterious way to put anyone into Holiday cheer, make sure you have some Holiday music that makes everyone in your party feel cheery whether it’s smooth Holiday jazz, or jingle bells, add some music to your party. To get you started… check out the Skimbaco Holiday Mix on Spotify.

Breville has released new, time saving products such as the YouBrew, just in time for the holidays! Create your perfect cup or pot of coffee instantly and easily with the Breville YouBrew. Check out their website for more information on this product and other great gift ideas.

And don’t forget to reply below for two chances to win your choice of amazing Breville products either for yourself or as a gift to a loved one: YouBrew, Tea Maker and Smart Oven products ($250 ARV)

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Breville. The opinions and text are all mine. Official Sweepstakes Rules

The mixed cultural background of the Toblerone Danish

It would be so simple if I could tell you a story about skiing in the Alps in co-injunctions of the Toblerone pastry recipe, now wouldn’t it? But I admit, I’ve never skied in Switzerland, and there is no such story to accompany this Global Kitchen recipe post. I am hoping we can make it to the Alps to ski sometime in the next two years, but until that happens.. I just dream of it. For the lack of Switzerland skiing pictures, these mountain pictures are from Telluride, Colorado, one of my favorite places to ski.

When it comes to global cuisine you know, things are often complicated, just like this recipe story. You find the perfect recipe from your travels, but can’t find the ingredients back home and often it’s a case of a simple spice that makes all the difference. Or the story or the origin of the recipe is a mixture of several cultures and locations, making it difficult to pinpoint where the recipe is actually from.

This Toblerone Danish pastry story is a mess too, but believe me when I say: this recipe itself is simple, delicious, no mess at all, and you can make it in any ski lodge anywhere in the world where you just have an oven and Toblerone is sold. It tastes equally good at home.

I was in my local grocery store in Linköping, Sweden, when my eyes peeled into the bakery section and the Toblerone Pastry. After doing some testing and research, I discovered the Toblerone pastry isn’t a Swedish invention, nor comes from Switzerland like Toblerone chocolate itself, but the recipe and the pastry was by Cuisine de France, a French bakery in Dublin, Ireland. And to add to the mix… in America you’d call this type of pastry a “Danish”. This is like a trip around Europe, right?

The Perfect Ski Lodge Après-ski Pastry

These Toblerone pastries are perfect for winter for the warm melted chocolate inside and flaky buttery crust, and they are perfect for pairing with a latte or a hot chocolate after a day in the snow. I personally am always looking for super simple recipes I can make in a ski lodge on our vacations without buying a ton of ingredients that I might have to throw away for not using it all before leaving home. This is probably one of THE easiest one so far, and I am planning on making these in Norway on our next ski trip on our Christmas vacation. Bonus of course that these even look a little bit like mountains with the triangle form, just like the Toblerones.

Toblerone Danish Pastry Recipe

INGREDIENTS:
1 package of ready made Puff Pastry dough
2 medium sized Toblerones (some for eating too)
1 egg

for garnish (optional):
chopped almonds
powdered sugar

INSTRUCTIONS:
Heat the oven to 400F/200C.
Take the dough out of the freezer and let it thaw to room temperature. Cut it to squares.
Chop the Toblerone chocolate to individual chunks. It depends which size of Toblerone yo are using, but you might have to use two slices of small or one slice of large Toblerone, or 1 1/2 of medium. Basically you will have to be able to close the pastry diagonally, and form a triangle – that’s how much chocolate you scan fit inside. Put the pastries on a cookie sheet with or without cupcake paper cups (I used the large cupcake cups from IKEA, it makes it easy to take the pastries and eat on the go if wanted). Brush a little bit of egg onto the pastries, sprinkle with nuts, and put to the oven for about 20 minutes until golden brown. Shift a little powdered sugar on the top of the baked pastries to make the pastries look snow capped. Be ready to make a round to the grocery store to get more ingredients, that’s how good these are, especially after a day of skiing.

Do YOU have a favorite recipe from your travels?

We are looking for guest bloggers for our Global Kitchen feature. Please email us and apply to be a guest poster for Global Kitchen, we’d love to hear from you!

One of the top Holiday gifts for foodies this year is the Macy’s Culinary Council Thanksgiving and Holiday Cookbook ($24.99) and it is a top pick in the Skimbaco Christmas Home Shopping and Gift Guides.

The Macy’s Culinary Council Thanksgiving and Holiday Cookbook is filled with amazing recipes to create everything you will need for your Holiday table. The recipes have been created by the thirteen famous master chefs of Macy’s Culinary Council. On the top of the recipes being created by some of the most respected chefs in the country, my favorite bloggers put the recipes in the taste test to make sure that they are also doable for any home chef to master.

Check out these recipe posts:
Breakfast Casserole with Broccoli, Ham and Cheese at eat.live.travel.write.
Sicilian Waldorf Turkey Salad Sandwich at Savoring The Thyme.
Maple Whipped Sweet Potatoes at Housewife Bliss.
White Chocolate Pecan Pie at Very Culinary.

Meet Macy’s Culinary Council’s Nancy Silverton at Macy’s in New York

Join Macy’s in New York City for a cooking demonstration by Chef Nancy Silverton featuring some of her favorite recipes from The Macy’s Culinary Council Thanksgiving & Holiday Cookbook today!

Nancy Silverton is an award-winning pastry chef and the founder of La Brea Bakery and co-owner of Mozza in Los Angeles and Singapore. Her cookbooks, Nancy Silvertons Pastries from the La Brea Bakery and Nancy Silvertons Breads from the la Brea Bakery, were nominated for awards from the Julia Child and the James Beard Foundation, respectiveley. Silverton’s eigth book, The Mozza Cookbook, was released in August 2011.

After the presentation, meet Chef Nancy and have her sign your copy of The Macy’s Culinary Council Thanksgiving & Holiday Cookbook when you purchase it at the event.

When: November 30, 2011 at 6:00pm
Where: Macy’s Herald Square
Cellar Kitchen
151 West 34th Street
New York, NY

Disclosure: I have a working relationship with Macy’s via Everywhere Society.

One of the key ingredients in Thanksgiving cooking is chicken broth, right? Well, what if you forget to buy chicken broth or you run out of chicken broth in the middle of Holiday cooking? This has happened to me, and I have to say, I’m so glad it did, because I accidentally made the best cornbread stuffing ever.

We like moist stuffing and usually use lots of chicken broth to make it nice and moist. This time I used chicken bouillon cubes but wasn’t sure if that was going to work as well, so I didn’t add as much as I typically would use chicken broth so I decided add an apple cut in very small cubes to add moisture and made a new family favorite stuffing immediately! To add flavor and moisture to the stuffing I also added sauteed onions and mushrooms.

Cornbread Stuffing with Mushrooms and Apples Recipe

Cornbread ingredients:
2 boxes of cornbread muffin mix – I use Jiffy’s, it’s cheap
2 eggs
2/3 cup milk

Stuffing Ingredients:
2 slices of sourdough bread – I love Zurro’s in New York
2 eggs
2 chicken bouillon cubes - I like Knorr
1,5 cups of boiling water (for the cubes)
2 small onions
6-10 white mushrooms
1/3 stick butter
1 small apple
spices, for example sage, thyme, rosemary
- I used Drogheria & Alimentari Tuscan Herbs Mill mix with rosemary, sage, thyme, basil, bay and marjoram

Directions:

1. Prepare the cornbread as instructed in the cornbread box. After baked, break the bread in small pieces and let it cool down.
2. Break the sourdough bread slices to small and mix with the cornbread.
3. Mince onion to small and slice the mushrooms in thin slices and sauté them together in the butter until onions are golden. Mix with the bread and cornbread mix and let them soak in the flavors for at least and hour or overnight.
4. Preheat oven to 350F.
5. Boil the water and dissolve the chicken bouillon.
6. Cut a small apple in small cubes, you don’t have to peel it first, just wash well.
7. Mix the bread mix, chicken bouillon and apples and add two eggs and mix well.
8. Put the mix in an oven dish and bake at 350F for 45minutes to an hour.

Watch the video interview with Ted Allen, the host of the hit TV show “Chopped” on Food Network, among many other popular TV shows on the Food Network and Bravo and also an author of The Food You Want to Eat: 100 Smart, Simple Recipes. Ted Allen teamed up with Nespresso as the Nespresso North American Coffee Ambassador and shares a few of his Holiday entertaining tips as he discussed coffee, Chopped and how he became a Nespresso fan on his vacation in Europe.

Ted Allen’s Holiday Entertaining Tips:

Don’t worry about being so formal. Agreed – spending time with family and friends is more important that focusing on everything being perfect. Less stress and more fun!
Don’t worry about dressing up. While dressing up and making it festive is one of my favorite parts of the Holidays, it also adds to the stress, and sometimes it is nice just to focus on having a good time.
Don’t worry about impressing but focus on good food without being elaborate. Yes, it’s all about good food! And instead of trying to make several different complicated dishes with expensive ingredients, focus on making a few great dishes and make them well.
Try something new like roasting a duck instead of the turkey! Think outside the traditional dishes and explore other options.

Watch the video and get the recipe for the Apple Ginger Latte, perfect for the Holidays.

Our home is finally getting there with our Christmas decorating…

We added Marimekko Hetkiä fabric on the top of the fireplace and while it doesn’t really go with our Christmas theme that includes doves and motives from nature, but I still love it. We thought about hanging it up after the Holidays but now I’m so happy we already hung it up, I’ve been working from the couch and looking at it the entire day today, and I love it.

I bought a few new things this year, mainly craft items and some ornaments from Michael’s and basically just went through everything we already had. I wanted to mix natural elements and white with silver (and a little bit of gold) to get a nice contrast. We did some simple crafts with the kids, they created flower arrangements on the windows – and I used the left over sticks from the greenery to create my own centerpiece for the mantel. It’s kind of crazy – but I like it that way.

My favorite part of our Christmas crafting are these paper doves though. I think they turned out nice, and we didn’t buy anything for them – we used left over wallpaper, paper, ribbon and feathers and the golden parts are from a past Christmas card we got from a family member – the one card had so much golden leaves that I was able to cut golden leaves out for 10 doves!

We have so many nice Christmas tree ornaments that it was difficult to stick in the theme and to the colors we had decided, especially kids got little upset because they couldn’t add all of their favorite ornaments.. But once the tree was ready, we all love it so much in its simplicity. We also created crystal ornaments ourselves by tearing up an old light fixture and taking the crystals out of it and just looping them with white ribbon. On the top of our home made ornaments we added ribbon, balls in white and silver and ornaments that look like squirrels and owls (made out of pine cones) and then a few additional ornaments that fit the colors/theme. The only ornaments that have the red ribbon and bring a little color are the Iittala Taika ornaments that I love reminding me of back home.

Is your home already ready for the Holidays?

Less is more in design, in decorating, and especially in Holiday decorating. I have been featuring these beautiful Scandinavian homes this winter, and I can’t get enough. These photos are by Walter & co.

I also love these photos, styled by Paul Løwe, photos by Alexandra Grablewski.

Beautiful, serene, white, Scandinavian.
I’m inspired by these photos by Louise Svensson & Jonny Lindh.

photo: Angus Fergusson

More decorating ideas for White Christmas! I just can’t get enough for looking for inspiration for my white Holiday décor. I love the simplicity of the above design, and this is the style we normally have in our home, however I want a little more for Christmas. I have been admiring the branched pained white like in the picture below, and I think I have to use this idea in our home as well. I like the simplicity of it.

photo: Angus Fergusson

My son and I picked some squirrel tree ornaments, and I would love to have this side table with the squirrel, so cute and playful, and very trendy right now.

photo: Janis Nicolay

This more traditional style mantel design with white ornaments and silver accents and lots of greenery looks something that I could have done in our Victorian houses, but I will probably go for little less in our apartment.

I love the fabric on this mantel – and it’s a great idea if you don’t have white mantel – you can hide your dark mantel with fabric and still get this white look. I absolutely love this mantel.

The above and below mantels are done with Pottery Barn products, and the silver candle votives are my favorites.

These mirrors in this mantel top are amazing, and this is a great idea especially for smaller spaces, the mirrors will make the room feel much larger.

photo: Tin Rabbit/ Flickriver

This simplicity is stunning.

photo: kflaim/Flickriver

I like this white mix of items on this mantel – and it reminds me to go to flea markets to find some unique items to my white Christmas mantel.

photo: boxwoodcottage/flickriver

Ok, this is probably my dream Christmas home, but there is no way that I’d really be capable of this minimalism and not getting a big Christmas tree.

photo: Kim Christie

We’ve never had flocked Christmas tree, but I’d love to try it this year. I also love the birch logs in the corner of this room.

photo: Janis Nicolay

photo source: HGTV, Flickriver, Canadian House & Home

I’m starting my Christmas decorating this week. I know many already have their homes decorated for Christmas, but we normally don’t start early. Part of is probably my Scandinavian upbringing – when I was a child we decorated Christmas tree on Christmas Eve! My daughter’s birthday is on the 16th of December and it has become our tradition to decorate the tree on that day. Did you already put your Christmas tree up this weekend?

This year I have decided to decorate with blue, white and silver, and can’t wait to get a very fresh and clean look for our home. I want some sparkle yet incorporate some birch tree, pine cones and other natural elements in it, I also want to find those white doves in the tree.. So many ides and I feel like I’m already late starting now! I want to incorporate blue in the decorating as well, but got very inspired by these photos of this pretty much entire white home, photos taken by Norwegian photographer Sandra Aslaksen.

Thanks for the tip: Emma’s Blog.