Open House

I've always liked the idea of a housewarming open house - people dropping by throughout the day to check out your new digs while enjoying some food and drink; sounds great, right? It's also a fantastic opportunity to catch up with people you haven't seen in a while and, since people usually drop by for a short time, you don't need to tell that one annoying friend to scram....I'm kidding, I would never do that...okay I would politely do that. But open houses avoid that awkwardness altogether! Hurray! For some reason I've never thrown an open house until now - my 3rd condo move. First off, it's A LOT of prep work and, since people drop in throughout the day, you are constantly entertaining. But, it's also fun and you have leftovers! Here are some of the dishes we put out: first up, guacamole. We threw in some feta and peppers for texture and an extra bite, and it's also a great vegetarian option.

Another one for the veggie lovers are gougeres. These little cheese puffs are great for kids as well and are surprisingly easy to make (see recipe below). Sticking with the vegetarian theme, we also made some pimiento tarts. The hardest part was broiling the red peppers! Since these were mini tarts, we only used 2 red peppers although the recipe called for 4.

Gougeres recipe:

1/2 cup water
1/2 cup milk
4 oz butter
Salt
1 cup flour
4 eggs
1 cup of shredded Gruyere cheese, plus extra for sprinkling
1/2 tsp ground pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. In a saucepan, combine water, milk, butter and salt and bring to a boil. Add flour and stir until a dough forms. Keep stirring till the dough pulls away from the saucepan.

Let the dough cool for 2 minutes and beat eggs in (one at a time). Let 1 egg incorporate fully before adding the next one. Add the cheese and pepper.

Transfer the dough into a pastry bag with a round tip. Pipe tablespoon-size mounds, sprinkle with cheese and bake for 22 min until golden brown.

Now, on to some meat! We found this awesome cut of lamb at the grocery store so we made some open-faced lamb sandwiches with grainy mustard and arugula topped with a sour cream aioli.

For beef lovers, we made a veal/beef kebab with a spicy chilli dipping sauce and a sour cream dip.

To balance the savoury, we also put out an apple pie made with Ontario Paula Red apples and a lemon curd cheesecake. I wouldn't use Paula Red's in my pie again since they got a bit mushy and applesaucy but the flavour was certainly there. The lemon curd cheesecake was fresh and refreshing, especially after all the meat dishes. One note here is that you have to keep pulling the cheesecakes in and out the fridge but it's not a big deal if your fridge and dining room are in the same area, as ours are.

Finally, make sure you have an assortment of drinks. We had some orange juice for the early arrivers, wine (red and white), beer and water. You can also keep pulling out different items at different times of the day - we didn't pull out our lasagna till the afternoon. Finally, here's a morning shot of our table. Hope this gives you some inspiration for your open houses. Happy Housewarming!