00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 It's officially entertaining season.
00:04 The weather is getting colder.
00:06 I will be entertaining as much as I possibly can
00:09 for the rest of this year.
00:10 And I'm having people over tonight,
00:12 so I thought that I would share with you all
00:14 some of my tips and tricks for easy entertaining.
00:19 I'm Molly Baas.
00:20 These are cut water canned cocktails,
00:22 and here are my three favorite entertaining hacks.
00:28 Everybody knows at my house that the first thing
00:30 I'm gonna offer you when you walk in the door is a drink.
00:33 Something that I do when I entertain at home
00:35 is get creative with the way that I am presenting things.
00:39 So look around your kitchen and find new uses
00:42 for the things you already have.
00:43 I'm gonna take my Dutch oven,
00:44 which normally I'm using for braising meat,
00:47 and I'm gonna pour ice into it
00:50 and then transform this into my beverage bucket
00:52 so I don't have to go and buy a specific beverage tub.
00:56 Tonight I will be serving cut water,
00:58 white Russians, and vodka mules.
01:00 And obviously you can sip it right out of the can like I am,
01:03 or you can make it a little bit nicer and pour it over ice.
01:07 I am brimming my white Russians tonight
01:09 with salty peanuts, dates, and flaky sea salt.
01:12 You guys know I love salt,
01:13 and I like the balance of sweet and salty in a cocktail.
01:25 Hack number two, do not snooze on the garnish.
01:28 A cocktail that is un-garnished to me
01:31 is like a salad that is undressed.
01:33 So I like to put out a big tray of garnishes,
01:37 and that can be anything on the sweet or savory spectrum.
01:41 That way your guests can kind of curate their own cocktail.
01:44 So let's build a couple.
01:45 Then we crack and pour a cut water and vodka mule.
01:49 Okay, first one's gonna be a couple of baby cucumbers.
01:54 I like to pick weird shapes and things
01:55 like these little Jimmy Nardello peppers
01:57 that I got at the market.
01:58 That's skewer number one with a little mandarin.
02:01 And then next up, we're going cherries on cherries.
02:05 So I have brandied cherries here.
02:08 These are the kind that are soaked in syrup.
02:11 And then I have these little fresh ground cherries.
02:13 I'm doing a little sweet skewer.
02:16 You could use any kind of herbs and just shove them in there.
02:22 And then the last one here,
02:23 I'm gonna put a bunch of fresh sun-gold tomatoes
02:26 along with candied ginger.
02:28 Vodka mules obviously have ginger in them already,
02:30 so it's nice to garnish with something similar
02:33 that you can then chew on after.
02:35 And that's all three.
02:39 Hack number three, everybody loves a show.
02:47 Today I'm making a big table-side pavlova
02:50 that I'm gonna cart around the table
02:52 and scoop out for my guests,
02:53 and they can decide what toppings and what sprinkles
02:56 and how they wanna customize things to their own liking.
02:58 So this is my large format table-side pavlova.
03:02 I baked it in a big sheet tray,
03:05 and I'm literally just cracking off large pieces of it
03:09 and then topping each one to my guest's liking.
03:12 So this one here is going to be lemon curd.
03:16 I have some stewed plums.
03:19 Pavlovas love whipped cream.
03:23 And then I always finish it with something sprinkly,
03:26 so this is sesame salt.
03:28 For me, a White Russian is an after-dinner drink,
03:33 and what better to pair it with than dessert?
03:36 Pavlovas are really light and fluffy,
03:38 and so it's a nice pairing to a richer drink,
03:40 like a White Russian.
03:41 (doorbell rings)
03:44 Door's open!
03:45 Happy entertaining!
03:47 (water pouring)
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