Spend Time With Your Guests, Not Your Kitchen

(NewsUSA) – You barely saw your friends and family the last time you hosted a holiday soiree. As your guests mingled under the mistletoe, you baked trays of mini quiche and assembled shrimp cocktails, leaving little time to enjoy their company.

Sound familiar? If so, you might want to rethink your entertaining strategy — it is possible to throw an elegant gathering without spending all of your time in the kitchen.

Deana Gunn and Wona Miniati, authors of the cookbook ‘Cooking with All Things Trader Joe’s,’ say that it’s a simple matter of buying the right ingredients.

For example, making homemade puff pastry requires hours of folding dough on itself — but frozen puff pastry, which is available in most grocery stores, makes for easy and impressive appetizers. ‘Use the grocery store as your prep kitchen,’ says Miniati. ‘With the right purchases, you can make gourmet appetizers in minutes.’

Pastry Bites

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Try serving these surprisingly simple Pastry Bites at your next gathering. Alternate fillings could include goat cheese with cranberries, pesto with roasted red peppers, or ricotta and pine nuts. Or for a quick alternative to pumpkin tarts, enfold pumpkin butter in puff pastry dough to make easy Pumpkin Spice Turnovers.

Ingredients

Pastry Bites

• 1 sheet puff pastry thawed
• 3-4 tablespoons bruschetta or olive spread

Pumpkin Spice Turnovers

• 2 sheets puff pastry thawed
• 1/2 cup pumpkin butter or apple butter or any fruit jam

Instructions

Pastry Bites

• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Cut the puff pastry sheet into nine equal squares. In the center of each square, drop a rounded teaspoon of bruschetta. Place squares evenly on a baking sheet and bake 15 minutes.
• Serve immediately.

Pumpkin Spice Turnovers

• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Cut each puff pastry sheet into four equal squares. Place one tablespoon pumpkin butter in the center of each square. Fold the pastry into a triangle, then press and seal the edges. Repeat for each square.
• Bake for 15 minutes, or until golden.

Notes

To see more recipes or find more information about the cookbook, 'Cooking with All Things Trader Joe's,' visit www.cookingwithtraderjoes.com.