Bash Basics: Planning Your Menu

Entertaining at home can be an exhausting task and not to mention, very stressful. Our very own BashBLOK Co-Founder and CEO, Brittany Garman, is preparing for her first bash of the year to be hosted at her home. From napkin folding, menu selection, sewing projects, and decorations, follow her as she preps and shares tips for making your next Bash-At-Home a smash!

“I have to admit, I absolutely love hosting events at my home. The planning, the cooking, sharing experiences with friends and family and best of all, the excuse to pull out fancy china. Planning any event can be overwhelming and after a few years of feeling frantic and frazzled I decided I’d had enough of the emotional planning roller coaster and thus, the BashBLOK app was born. For this Bash-at-Home series I will walk you through how BashBLOK can keep all your fabulous ideas, critical tasks and communicating with co-planners in one place. And, I’ll show you a few creative projects and prep ideas to get your home ‘Bash Ready.’

To get started I’ve already set up the basic details of my bash on the BashBLOK app, added my co-planner/husband, and now, the fun part, adding idea bloks. Idea Bloks are organized by categories and I’ve kept mine pretty simple: Food and Beverage, Decorations, Wardrobe. (Yes, I even go so far as to plan my outfit ahead…better than wasting time trying on everything in your closet the day of your event). Having things categorized makes divvying up tasks much easier and keeps this planner from getting too overwhelmed.

Any time I plan an event I first start with food. This always gets me excited and also provides a direction for decorations. I have already created the Category “Food and Beverage” and have a pretty good start my menu. Bash tip: I LOVE keeping a Category just for the menu. Main reason? If your photos in your Bash are sourced from a particular website, say a recipe on FoodNetwork.com, clicking the picture will take you to the recipe. This is SO much easier than bookmarking a webpage or cluttering your countertop with cookbooks. And, your entire menu is in one place!

Now, for my menu. I prefer prepping and cooking as much the day before as possible. In this case, I am starting my home entertaining calendar with Julia Child’s Boeuf Bourguignon from “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” which is always a crowd favorite. This recipe is quite a time commitment and certainly favorable to make in advance. Since this dish is very rich and quite filling I’ve kept the rest of the menu relatively light with a spring salad and roasted potatoes to accompany the stew. For dessert, one of our guests is a mega berry fan so I have gone with Ina Garten’s Tri-Berry Crumble. Yum! Again, another great make ahead option and it’s not super heavy so guests will have plenty of room in their tummies to experience the sheer of delight of this dessert. In keeping with a French theme, we selected wines from Burgundy to best compliment our stew. As far as appetizers, I am making nothing. My husband is in charge of the cocktail menu which consists of the Manhattan, Old Fashion, and a Shirley Temple for my sweet, expectant mommy-to-be guest. We will keep the rest simple with cheese, fancy crackers and grapes and all arranged on a couple platters. (Favorite cheeses: Drunken Goat, Traditional Brie, Valdeon)

Regardless of your planning and hosting style, make sure that you are comfortable with the food you are serving. Also, I never recommend trying a new recipe for a Bash-At-Home unless you are a professional chef and really, really know food. Making smart menu choices can help lower the stress of entertaining. At BashBLOK, our mission is to streamline the event planning process so you can actually enjoy the bash and the prep that comes along with it. This event planner has some shopping to do so stay tuned for our next post which is all about beauty. Bobbi Brown make-up artist and educator, Chelsea Chittom, is set to give us a tutorial on tricks of the trade and what’s trending this Spring in the world of cosmetics.”

May your next bash, be a smash!

xoxo, Brittany