Easy Entertaining with Dining Room Furniture

 With our July summer vacations out of the way, Jess and I have more time to spend around the house with our friends.  With our large dining space, we can host great get-togethers on a regular basis.  Hosting dinner parties can be stressful if you think about what you are going to serve too much.  We have a couple of tricks that make dinners easy and worry free.

Our Abbott Place dining table expands easily with an inner leaf to fit more people at the table.  It locks very securely on the underside so we don’t need to worry about the stability of the table.  The leaf also complements the existing grain of the table & doesn’t look out of place.  All we have to do is drop in the leaf, secure it, and then set out our placemats.  We choose colors that would complement the décor we have featured in the downstairs area like green and brown.  Our guests Allison and Keith, along with others, are planning on bringing over a side dish each, so the extra table space is definitely needed for seating and for the additional dishes that will be placed in the center of the table. 

I also have a super easy appetizer that takes very little time to make that tastes amazing and will impress guests.  I like to make our own cheese spread using caramelized onions, goat cheese, and figs.  Slice up the onions and set them in a pan to caramelize in butter on medium heat.  The onions should be soft, lightly brown, and sweet when they are ready.  Cut off the ends of the figs and quarter them.  Add them to the pan to warm them up and release their flavor.  Then add one log of goat cheese to the pan after you have taken it off the heat and stir.  Place the cheese spread in a decorative container surrounded with crackers and serve.  

We have a bar area where we place any appetizers for guests.  This way if we are still cooking when they arrive, they can sit at the bar and munch while we finish up the main course preparation.  Although you don’t need a reason to get together with friends, this particular gathering is to celebrate our friends buying a new house!  Hopefully we can give Allison and Keith some advice on how to make moving into a new home easy since we have successfully moved and had amazing fun decorating our new home.    

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