11 Ways to Make Your Life Harder

I'm ending this week of featuring brilliant party ideas from Real Simple with their article called 11 Ways to Straighten Up After a Party. I thought they'd have clever ideas on how to make party clean-up, simpler. And they do have a couple but they lead off with a killer one:

Freeze cubes of leftover wine and save them for recipes that call for vino, like Slow-Cooker Red Wine Short Ribs. Or consolidate half-consumed bottles to make a boozy syrup that you can drizzle over waffles, ice cream, pound cake, ricotta, or fruit.

My Classic Freedom (SFJ) get 'er done suggestion? Put a cork in it and drink the rest tomorrow night.

Click to read more ...

Rock the Party that Rocks the Party

I often use today's title to connote "awesome!" but when I researched the phrase, I discovered it is actually, "Rock the Party that Rocks the Body," which does make a bit more sense than my bastardization. I once read that Classic Freedoms (SFJ) like me constantly use idioms and always get them slightly wrong. Slightly sad, really. But, yet I digress. Today we feature some great drink recipes from Real Simple — White Sangria anyone?? — to get your Memorial Day party (and body) rocking.

Click to read more ...

How to Have a Well Stocked Bar

Real Simple had a great piece around the winter holidays about whether to save or splurge on certain liquors — great for all of the practical types out there — Classics (SJ) and Funs (SP). I disagreed with some of their save suggestions — cheap gin?? Yuck, whoever wrote it must not love a good G&T or martini. Anyway, what's also useful about the article is the WHY behind splurging — great for the big picture types Organics (NF) and Smarts (NT). Take tequila, there's a reason cheap margaritas give some people an instant hangover but high-end ones don't.

Click to read more ...

Easy, Make Ahead Appetizers

Real Simple has 6 Make Ahead Appetizers including Goat cheese with Pistachios & Cranberries, Caramelized Onion Dip, mmmm. I include all of the recipes in our post and then list them from super easy to hardest/longest to make. So hopefully you can use one of them to help make a Memorial Day or Summer party that much easier because even if I'm making appetizers ahead of time, I still want them to be easy!

Click to read more ...

Sabo Size It!

There are people in this world who do everything big and especially with food at parties — too big and then have tons of leftover food that's wasted — in my family, they're the Sabos. Then there are people who cut it too close and don't have enough good food at a party leaving everyone starving. But now, there's a way to find a happy medium behind too much and too little and it's courtesy of a really brilliant idea on Real Simple: The party food & beverage calculator.

Click to read more ...