Holiday Soup Kitchen

Jiminy crickets, Christmas is freakin’ expensive! Even if you vow to shop sales all year, or to make all of your Christmas gifts, it is still SO expensive to give gifts and decorate. The other thing about the holiday season is that people tend to entertain, so you end up having a bunch of hostess gifts to buy and a bunch of busy, busy days trying to shop and cook and pack and party in appropriate measures. Picking out outfits for each event that are festive and stylish but still leave room for your inevitable post-hog-a-thon pooch – well, just thinking about it exhausts The Frugal Hostess.

And yet.

And yet, The Frugal Hostess always wants to have a holiday party. She is a Hostess, after all. It just seems like such a good idea – people are in a partying mood and the house is already decorated. No one minds if you bring a hangover to work a couple of times in December, and everyone needs an excuse to wear something glittery. So, what kind of party won’t annoy your friends or result in your suicide during the holiday season?

Why don’t you host a Holiday Soup Kitchen? (For your friends, rather than the poor. Or both.  Although they may be hard to distinguish.) This is the world’s most relaxed party.

Step One: Invite friends via email or Facebook. Make sure everyone can see the guest list, because you’re going to ask everyone to bring the most hideous gifts they received, and you don’t want hurt feelings. TFH suggests a time frame like 4:00pm to 8:00pm and some obvious wording about how people can stop in before or after other obligations.

Step Two: Get out or borrow a slow-cooker or two and make three kinds of soup (recipes and suggestions to follow). All of these soups can be made ahead and frozen, so FruHo would make big batches for a few weeks leading up to the party – half for you to eat, half for you to freeze.

Step Three: Go grocery shopping. In addition to the soup ingredients, you should buy a wedge of Parmesan cheese, a block of cheddar, oyster crackers, Fritos, sour cream, onion, and hot sauce to garnish the soups.

For side dishes and/or hors d’ oeuvres, choose two or three of these:

Raw Broccoli and Cauliflower with Blue Cheese Dip

(or cooked with butter and cheese. What? It’s the holidays.)

Collard Greens – great way to use leftover Thanksgiving ham bone

Green Salad

Sweet Potatoes – baked whole, fried, or roasted in wedges

Sliced Apples with Caramel Dip

Arrange the soups and sides on a buffet. The Frugal Hostess likes to use her kitchen table for this, since it’s close to the kitchen (duh), but you could use a sideboard, your coffee table, a kitchen counter, or a piece of plywood resting on saw horses. Just be sure to put a cloth over that last one. Have all the food out when the guests arrive.

For dessert, you will probably have an assortment of holiday baked good lying around the house. There is no shame in that game, Dear Readers. Arrange whatever you have on a platter or two and be done with it. If you haven’t been so blessed by the God of Fruit Cake and Sugar Cookies this year, this is an easy option. Get a big bag of oranges (should be cheap this time of year, since they’re in season) and a box of peppermint sticks. Not candy canes – get the softer, chalky sticks. Punch a little hole in the orange and push the peppermint stick inside. Arrange them on a tray and serve. Tell your guests to suck the orange juice through the peppermint stick – sounds gross, tastes great. Add some hot chocolate or cookies or something and call it a day.

Step Four: Organize your entertainment.

Gift Exchange: Set up a white elephant game for the unwanted regifts. If people are dropping in and out, tell each guest to drop one off and pick another one up to take. If your guests are there for the duration, play the game. Seriously, no one ever really remembers the rules for this. Everyone picks a number to determine what order the gifts will get selected. Number One picks a gift. Number Two picks a gift and can either keep it or steal the gift from Number One. House rules you will want to set: a gift can only be stolen a certain number of times, and the person who gets Number One gets to choose one last time after everyone has gone. Fun, fun, fun. (This game is the ONLY THING The Frugal Hostess misses about working in an office.)

Alternatively, you might want to ask guests to bring a toy to be donated in lieu of a hostess gift, or you might want to swear off any type of gift-giving. Whatever you decide, be gracious about it. Say something like, “We all have enough gifts to buy. Please consider your presence present enough and don’t bring a hostess gift,” or, “If you can’t stop yourself from bringing a hostess gift, how about a toy for a tot instead?” The point is to keep it inexpensive, not to boss people into making a charitable donation.

Music: Please, please, please, for the love of God, create a playlist of super-unusual and rarely heard Christmas music, or don’t play Christmas music at all. You are so much cooler than the average bear, so there is no doubt that you can whip up something appropriate but not annoying.

Children: If you are going to have children at your party, please make an area with an activity or two for them. You can set up a DVD player in an upstairs bedroom or put out a full array of craft supplies, but don’t expect that children won’t be bored out of their minds (and thus act like assholes) if you don’t think about them. They are your guests, too, and they deserve to have fun at a party as much as the next guy. Same goes for pets. The Frugal Hostess recommends giving your pet a new toy or bone when you have a party, as well as running your hyperactive dog around the block 40-60 times before guests arrive.

Other notes: This is a casual party, so don’t mess with people by listing the dress code as “Sparkly Casual” or “Dressy Low Key.” Just call a duck a duck and say casual. The Frugal Hostess would wear a velvet jacket, white tee-shirt, jeans, and boots to this party, maybe with more jewelry than usual. If people bring you gifts, you do have to write a thank you note, even if you asked them not to bring gifts. If you don’t normally decorate for Christmas (or don’t celebrate Christmas), put out a bunch of candles everywhere to set the tone for good times (and hide your dirty floors).

Soup recipes tomorrow!

The Frugal Hostess loves parties. It's true.  And embarrassing.  Please comment. You can also join the Frugalistas on Facebook for exclusive content, follow on Twitter @frugalhostess, or subscribe so that you always know when a new post appears.

Happy Birthday, Birds and Cherries!

The Frugal Hostess is not one of those girls who say they would rather forget their birthdays. She believes her own birthday (June 6, in case you’re making a calendar) is the second-most important day of the year, beaten out only by Christmas because of the greater volume of merry-making the latter entails. The Frugal Hostess will meet you at a restaurant, and, when you go to the bathroom, enter her birthday on your cell phone calendar with a loud alarm to remind you. She will helpfully give you a countdown of shopping days. And she will most definitely celebrate every year, no matter how old she becomes.

Birthdays rule!

TFH recently held a small birthday dinner for her friend, Birds and Cherries. Due to travel, TFH had missed BAC’s party, so the dinner was the substitution. This is a birthday gesture that anyone can make, because it is very easy (but not so easy, BAC, that you still shouldn’t think it was awesome) and yet very lovely. If you are feeling financial pressure about joining someone’s party at an expensive restaurant, say, just beg off and do this instead.

Happy Birthday, Birds and Cherries!

Hors d’ Oeuvres: TFH stuck with her tried and true favorites, which you’ve heard about before. These are the glorious trifecta of cheese and crackers, olives, and nuts. She also threw in some extras to make it more special – homemade dried cherry tomatoes, homemade pickled okra, and some gigantor caper berries. Everyone had fun making little canapés of baby-sized Breton cracker (bought on accident but darn good), goat cheese schmear, and dried tomato half. Delish. The boys had martinis and the girls had highballs (sounds like maybe that should have been reversed, no?).

Dinner: This was a simple meal that didn’t take a lot of hands-on time while the guests were here. The Frugal Hostess finds herself extremely challenged when it comes to chatting, drinking a gin and tonic, getting her share of her favorite food group whores hors d’ oeuvres, and cooking something. She just can’t do it, and it’s much more important to make sure you and your guests have fun than it is to whip up some complicated nonsense that keeps you in the kitchen all night. That’s what The Frugal Husband restaurants are for.

Roast Chicken – The Frugal Husband makes this, and he uses Alice Waters’ recipe. Then he makes stock with the giblets and carcass. He is really awesome, and you should definitely be jealous.

Miniature Twice-Baked Potatoes – TFH likes this because they look so cute and can be made ahead. Recipe to follow.

Tomato Salad – TFH just happened to have bought four of the most beautiful and delicious heirloom tomatoes – the only good ones she’s had this summer, BTW – and mixed these with a chiffonade of fresh basil from the garden, smoked mozzarella, olive oil, salt and pepper. Because she is occasionally a dumb ass, The Frugal Hostess cut the tomatoes and the cheese into chunks; what she should’ve done is present the salad as stacked sliced tomatoes interspersed with cheese. Oh well.

Also, TFH found out at the last minute that a guest hated was allergic to tomatoes! Oh no! Thankfully, there were a couple of options for him in the fridge. There was a ramekin of eggplant casserole that TFH heated up, but she could have just as easily given him two mini-potatoes or told him to enjoy scurvy if he wasn’t going to eat his vegetables. If this happens to you, do your best to offer something else, but don’t worry about it if you can’t. Nothing wrong with not liking a course, and nothing wrong with not having an alternative.

Dessert: The Frugal Hostess may not have ever told you this, but she has serious (SERIOUS!) guilt about wasting food, and fruit in particular. If you buy [expensive] local and organic produce, it feels like such a sin to throw it in the compost. She may not have ever mentioned this one either, but she freaking loves to pick wild berries. Ergo, this dessert was possible from ingredients that were on hand. TFH does not recommend you buy the absurd amount of fruit it takes to make this, because it’s only a frugal dessert if you do it the way she did. So she’s not giving you the recipe. Instead, she would encourage you to make a dessert with ingredients you already have – a cake, or pie, or something. (OK, if you really, really want to know, leave a comment or email frugalhostess AT gmail DOT com).

So, for dessert, TFH made two types of sorbet. The first was vanilla pear, using a vanilla bean left over from the vanilla-making a few weeks ago, sugar, and a big container of frozen pears. Those pears had been on sale when they were fresh, but The Frugal Household was being abandoned for greener pastures (aka, vacation), so TFH peeled and froze them to assuage her crazy Fruit Guilt. The second sorbet was blackberry lime, made with lime juice stolen from the gin and tonic stash of limes, sugar, and a ton of blackberries picked and frozen earlier in the summer and saved for just such an opportunity. These were made the day before and frozen. You know, being a frozen dessert and all. The vanilla pear was very mellow, and the blackberry lime was very tart, so they made a good combination. But TFH kind of freaked out at the last minute and added some store-bought cookies to the plate. They were tasty but superfluous, and TFH does NOT recommend you do that.

Decorations: Being herself, The Frugal Hostess didn’t have money time for decorations but did have a lot of crap craft supplies on hand. She set the table using her best china and silver, and then set about trying to come up with something festive to add. She looked in the basement for an old Happy Birthday banner that she’s sure she hoarded stored, but it was no where to be found. After some searching, though, she discovered these really cool skinny birthday candles. She had three different colors and thought about trying to make a big birthday menorah. However, since that made little sense, she kept searching. As she arranged her nicest crystal bowl in the center of the table and filled it with used wine corks, inspiration struck! Champagne corks and candles! Brilliant!

Each person got a champagne cork stuffed with a candle (use a screwdriver to make the hole), a card stamped with Happy Birthday in silver ink, and a single match. When the guests were seated, each person lit their match off the candles in the middle of the table and used it to light their personal birthday candle. Festive! Fun! Pretty! Free!

In all, the party was super fun, and The Frugal Hostess was delighted to spend time with BAC and her paramour. You should do it too!

Recipe for Miniature Twice-Baked Potatoes

(makes six)

Ingredients

Six fist-sized red potatoes

Cheese (about a cup)

Butter (like, half a stick)

Sour cream or plain yogurt (2-3 tablespoons)

Five pieces of bacon

Salt & pepper

Directions

1. Stab the potatoes with a fork all over, then microwave on high for four minutes. Check them out. If they seem soft enough, move on to step two. If not, turn and continue to microwave in 2-3 minute increments until they are an edible degree of hardness. Also take the butter out to soften while you’re cooking the potatoes.

2. Let them cool. Don’t be a hero.

3. Once cool, take a sharp knife and cut off the top and the bottom. You’re cutting the top so you can dig in there and get out all the potato, so that cut may need to be deeper. You’re cutting the bottom just enough that it will stand up straight, so you’ll just be cutting off a little bit.

4. Use a melon baller to scoop out the cooked potato into a bowl. Be careful; The Frugal Hostess has accidentally scooped through the bottom and the side of one before, and that you do not want. You could probably use a teaspoon or other small spoon, but a melon baller is extremely satisfying to use because the potato comes out in cute little balls.

5. Simultaneously, microwave five pieces of bacon. The secret trick to this dish is in this step. If you can, use a glass baking dish (like a casserole dish) to microwave the bacon. Once done, take out the bacon slices and let them drain on a paper towel. Pour off the melted bacon fat into a jar (seriously, if you don’t save that stuff, you are insane). DO NOT clean the dish; set it and its bacon-covered goodness aside. Feel free to eat one piece of bacon at this point (you really only need three or four), and chop up the rest.

6. Now, add the butter, sour cream or plain yogurt, salt and pepper, bacon, and cheese. On the cheese, TFH likes either shredded cheddar or crumbled blue cheese, but any cheese will do. In any case, buy the big blocks and do it yourself rather than paying double for pre-shredded or pre-crumbled cheese. You could also add some chopped green onions or scallions. Mix all that up. If you need to, use a masher or fork to combine everything. Also, if you need to, eat a little more bacon; no one will mind.

7. Stuff the mixture back into your little potato shells. You will have enough left for a few good bites for yourself. Arrange the stuffed potatoes in the dish that is coated with bacon fat. Yes, it is genius. This can be refrigerated overnight or popped into the oven. Since the ingredients are fully cooked, you’ll just need to warm and brown them before serving, so try 350 for 15 minutes or so. TFH usually makes these ahead and puts them in with whatever’s cooking to heat up, so she knows that they are fine cooked at pretty much any temperature.

(Thanks to The Frugal Mother for this rocking recipe!)

Concert Pre-Game Party

The Frugal Husband is freaking obsessed with going to concerts. Like, he thinks that it is his secret job, as though he's a member of an underground musical police force who must see all live performances to defeat an evil force in the world. If it were possible, The Frugal Husband would see a show every night. Well, if he could watch football on his iPhone at the same time. Ergo, The Frugal Hostess always knows that, should she want to attend a concert, even a really expensive one, he will be game. As it were. Thus, the Concert Pre-Game* Party.

Pick a concert. Buy tickets for it. To be frugal, please note this MOST AMAZING FACT: you can use your American Express points to buy tickets from Ticketmaster! (!!!) Yep. That's right, folks; even in times of financial woe, you too can see a show. Convince some friends to do the same. It will be easier if you tell them the Amex/Ticketmaster secret. (And, seriously, not interested in your anti-Ticketmaster rants. Get it, they suck, go on about your business.)

The Frugal Household decided to use Amex points for Paul McCartney's recent visit to Piedmont Park in Atlanta. So did friends the Restaurafarians and the Lotta Francas. Or, you know, who knows what form of currency they used, but they got tickets, and everyone converged on The Frugal Household for a pre-concert extravaganza.


Ingredients
Concert
Tickets (Optional. You can pre-game a show you're not going to; it's just not as good.)
Music of Artist Giving Concert
Somewhat Clean House
Folded Blankets by Door
Assorted Hors d' Oeuvres (As an aside, may The Frugal Hostess just say that she only ever refers to hors d' oeuvres as "whores" in her own mind?)
Make-Your-Own Entree (hotdogs, burgers, sandwiches, bowls of chili with toppings)
Two to Four Composed Salads
Beeeeeeeeeeeeer
Booooooooooooze
Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine
Etc. (Optional....)

Directions and Notes:
1. Play CDs or MP3s of the artist incessantly leading up to the show. It will help build excitement and remind people what songs they hope to hear. In the case of The Frugal Hostess's trip to see Paul McCartney, playing Beatles CDs helped her remember all the words to their songs so she could sing at top volume.

2. The "somewhat" in the Somewhat Clean House just means that you shouldn't stop yourself from having this party if you don't have time to deep clean. You should still pick up, you slob.

3. Place folded blankets by the door only if the concert you are attending will take place outside. Presumably, you will not need them inside a venue. However, if you pre-game appropriately, you will forget to bring blankets unless you literally trip over them on your way out.

4. Assorted Hors D' Oeuvres typically consists of at least two and preferably all of the following: cheese and crackers, nuts, cherry or grape tomatoes, crudite of carrots and celery (and whatever else), chips and salsa, and olives.

5. Make-Your-Own-Entrees are best when you plan to, uh, consume with your guests. Surely you'll be able to grill hotdogs or hamburgers - that's easy - or at least throw out some cold cuts. You may want to get the condiments ready the night before. The Frugal Hostess served exceedingly delicious Zweigel's hotdogs imported by the Lotta Francas from Rochester, NY. The available condiments were: ketchup; ketchup mixed with Sriracha (asian hot sauce); mustard; sauerkraut (SO much better than you think - try it! Plus it's easy to make and lasts forever.); pickle spears; celery seeds; tomato slices; relish; diced onion; and pickled peppers. [De-frickin-lish. Chicago dogs rule.]
For burgers, try blue cheese crumbles, bacon, cheddar, tomato slices, pickle chips, onion, or fried eggs if you have time.
For sandwiches, use any of the above. Duh. You obviously know how to make a sandwich. Right?
For chili, get out Fritos, sour cream, shredded cheddar, sliced avocado, chopped onions and tomatoes, and hot sauce.

6. Composed Salads. That may be a Southern thing. Is it? Composed salads are salads composed of assorted ingredients - arranged rather than tossed. These are like pasta salad, broccoli salad, jello salad (so gross! never eat that!), potato salad, or fruit salad. You know, like picnic salads. A tossed green salad would also not be out of place.

7. Beeeeeer, Booooooooze, Wiiiiiiiiiiiine, Etc. Dude, really? No comment.

Rock on!

*Pre-game is a term (both noun and verb) purportedly coined by sorority girls/frat boys to describe pre-partying before the real party. Don't let its lineage discourage you from using it. It's a great word!

photo by Rich007

Cheap Parties

Not a very encouraging title, huh? And yet, many, many people don't entertain, even when they want to, because of the expense. If you've been here before, you know that The Frugal Hostess specializes in giving you ideas for parties that aren't too expensive. But you also know that these often involve making a bunch of stuff from scratch and working one's ass off. Worth it? Absolutely. Always necessary? Of course not. So, today we'll discuss ways to throw a cheap party without working like a pioneer wo/man on the Kansas prairie circa 1820.

Myth: Asking guests to bring something is tacky.

Fact: Of course it's not. They don't have to come if they are offended by the notion of being asked to bring something. The key is to be clever in your approach. Call your event the "We Can't Afford to Go Out" party, and start your email or written invitation like this:

We miss you. We love you. We're dying to see you. Unfortunately, we're also broke. Could you join us for our "We Can't Afford to Leave the Commune" party next Saturday? To help build the bar, please bring two limes and a bottle of vodka. We'll have food, ice, glasses, and the good times to share (and share alike).

[That sounds fun. The Frugal Hostess is thinking she ought to throw a party like that very soon. Hmmm....]

Myth: Go big or go home. Or, in entertaining terms, if you can't afford the best, don't bother.

Fact: Couldn't be further from the truth. Cliche as this may sound, entertaining should be, well, entertaining. It's about the fun you have with your guests and the love you show them by opening your home to them. Now, don't get her wrong, TFH is all for trying to cook something delicious, but even gross food can be entertaining on the ride home ("can you believe they served us muskrat pizzas?"). The point is, grilled cheese, tomato soup, and board games can be as fun as foie gras and opera. Actually, probably more fun, honestly. Do what you can.

Myth: You have to plan entertaining way in advance.

Fact: The Frugal Hostess has had more impromptu, planned-an-hour-before-they-started dinner parties than she's had formal ones. Gather your guests, drive to the store, and pick out your menu together (splitting the grocery tab). Cook something hearty and freeze-able like beans or chili, but invite the neighbors to eat rather than pack it all away for the winter. If the house is a mess, eat on the porch, or turn off all the lights and put out candles.

If you truly want to have a good time with your friends, this will shine through any dust, or burnt rice, or "please bring butter" you throw at your guests.

Cheap Party Ideas:
Potluck
Planned Potluck, where you tell everyone what to bring (but don't act like this)
Restaurant dinner, separate checks (but try to just split the bill rather than getting out a calculator; this makes TFH feel faint)
Wine tasting, where everyone brings a bottle
Co-hosting, or having several people host a party together
Bowling, movies, mini-golf, etc. where people pay their own way
Meet out at an event
Have one of those parties where you go to different houses for each course; what is that called???
Be straightforward with guests - hold a party and say you'll have some things but not everything, so they should bring something to contribute.

Leave your ideas for cheap parties in the comments.

Photo by oddsock.