Today's topic: Guests

With the upcoming holiday season and many people hosting out-of-town guest or hosting parties, what are you planning to serve? Are you going back to "old" ways or making new healthier plans? If you are going to be a guest, are you making special requests or bringing something healthier along? Give us some great ideas that we can use at our parties or just for every day to serve to people who may not have joined us on our journey!

Mel

P.S. This homework is a little selfish - my dad is coming to visit later this week and I'm looking for ideas. I haven't seen him in four years (long story) and it will be the first time I am meeting his new wife. I'm already stressed, so I need to have a really good plan in advance!! I know everyone will have some great ideas!

This is exactly what is stressing me out these days. As some of you know, my mother in law passed away at the young age of 58, unexpectedly this past May. I am having everyone over for Thanksgiving. This was always her favorite holiday. She looked forward to it and would spend the entire week getting ready. So, the pressure is on me. 35 people. My house and me trying to make the things she always made as comfort to her family. This holiday season is going to be hard anyway, without her. I will have a house full and am going to try to replicate what she would make in as healthy a way as possible. Turkey, gravy, stuffing, sweet potatos (plain baked instead of casserole style), asparagus (roasted). Mashed potatoes are an absolute, all the boys love them. Pies will be here also, but I plan on not eating any. Just planning on cooking and showing some serious restraint!!

This isn't completely related but Denise's post about portion control on holidays and when eating other peoples' cooking made me think of it. As you know, I was in Delaware last week visiting my closest friends.

Michael has really made an effort to revamp his eating and has lost weight, lowered his cholesterol and is looking slimmer (though he was the slimmest of the 3 who live in that house). David is making an attempt to be healthier in various ways (including exercise) but I don't think he will ever turn into a person who cooks healthy most of the time. Bill, the roommate, is always TALKING about getting his eating/weight under control but seems to fail in the execution (he was on South Beach when I first met him--and eating a plateful of holiday breads a client had given him--this gave me an immediate clue).

Anyway, one night while I was there, we had spaghetti for dinner. First, there was enough ground meat for an army put into this pot. While Bill does not prefer ww pasta, Michael made it because I was there and I really appreciated that. Meals at their house are usually buffet style--everything is put out on the kitchen island and you fill up your plate and then go sit at the table.

When Bill sat down with his plate, I almost fell out of my chair. It was all I could do to not exclaim out loud "OH MY GAWD!" I never saw so much spaghetti on a plate. Then he goes back for seconds and I'm thinking "He can't possibly come back with another plateful like the first one." but he does...okay, maybe not QUITE as huge, but his seconds were still bigger than anyone else's firsts.

All during dinner, he is telling me how proud he is of me working so hard to be healthier, losing the weight, and keeping it off. And, while that was a wonderful compliment and I really appreciated that he voiced it, it was a surreal moment considering that he's giving me this compliment while shovelling in his mouth more food than any one human being would ever need to eat in one sitting.

quote:

Originally posted by GoingSkiing:
The trick is to remember that it is a holiDAY not a 6-8 week eating fest.

As a guest, that is easier for me than it is for the cook because, even if I'm sent home with leftovers, it's only a portion or two. When I was a kid, we had turkey & stuffin' sammiches every day for days after Thanksgiving. For this reason, if I come home from Thanksgiving with NO leftovers, I can sometimes get as pouty as a petulant child because the eating of Turkey Day leftovers was such a joyful thing for me as a child.

quote:

I don’t eat as much at holiday meals as I used to in the past… I no longer stuff myself to the point of being uncomfortable, but I don’t especially watch it either… and I’m back on track the next day.

Yup...this goes for me as well. Before 2003, holidays (and, truthfully, many restaurant meals) were occasions to stuff myself with food until I could barely breathe or stand. Since 2003, I have vastly changed my outlook on that and I almost never eat to the point of being overstuffed. On the rare occasion I do, it feels SO alien to me, not to mention uncomfortable! I have what I want on Thanksgiving...I just don't have boatloads of it.

If the guests are in town 3-4 days… if it is just a regular meal… I just serve what I would be making/eating anyway.

When family comes to town… we usually go out one or two meals and that can sometimes be a challenge.

If it is Thanksgiving or a holiday… I lighten it a little or if my mom is cooking, she lightens it a little - but not too much. I have tried to lighten it too much in the past and it felt like a deprivation holiday. I can have poultry breast and fat-free mashed potatoes ANY day. I throw a glob of butter on my potatoes 3 days a year.

I didn’t get fat eating that one meal a year… and on Thanksgiving, etc., I don’t eat “slivers” of pie. Actually, I usually have two pieces of pie. The trick is to remember that it is a holiDAY not a 6-8 week eating fest.

I don’t eat as much at holiday meals as I used to in the past… I no longer stuff myself to the point of being uncomfortable, but I don’t especially watch it either… and I’m back on track the next day.

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Going to the holiday potlucks, etc. I will eat slivers of pie. The community band potluck is fun… but it isn’t an official holiday. Plus, I have MANY, MANY social and restaurant meals between Nov. 11th and Jan. 3rd. I can’t over eat EVERY event.

I took beanie brownies and the Wednesday Dinner co-op persons meal to last year’s potluck. I might make a pie or one of KD cheese cakes this year… depends on how much time I have.

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I find going out of town to my in-laws very stressful. It isn’t the food exactly, although that is stressful. It is the change in schedule that is even more stressful. MIL serves two GIGANTIC meals a day and that is it, which is VERY different from how I eat. The food fest also continues for the entire 3-4 day visit.

I do the best I can to cope… but I’ve gained 2-3 lbs every visit… and it isn’t water… and I just get back on track and lose it when I get home.

We're going home (Indiana) for Thanksgiving. My mom has high cholesterol and diabetes so she has been lightening things up for years now.

Christmas will be at home, and I don't think we'll have guests, so that pretty much leaves things open for me to make whatever I want.

I don't really find that Thanksgiving food is all that unhealthy. Turkey is pretty low-fat, and then there are veggie side dishes and maybe potatoes and/or sweet potatoes. For me it is more a matter of portion control, as with any other meal than making things lighter.

The meal at Christmas seems to be pretty much the same, however, Christmas seems to contain many more desserts and therein lies the danger for me.

Dawn

quote:

Originally posted by Bee:


I say start with your favorite recipes and just make them healthier.

Best of luck with the visit!

I do this too with most things. There are some recipes, though, that I still make the old way and eat them once or twice a year.

Because I have a one-bedroom apartment and a kitchen the size of a closet, I rarely do much hosting, esp. around the holidays. For Thanksgiving, I am usually visiting with one of three groups of friends. I usually make and bring one dish--in the past, it was always candied sweet potatoes because most folks didn't know how to make them or didn't like them and knew I did. Having me make them was an easy way for me to be able to have one of MY Thanksgiving traditions and still allow those at the table who liked them to try them, without the host/hostess, who didn't like them, having to mess with them.

As for the eating part of the equation, when it comes to Thanksgiving, I am a traditionalist. It's one day of the year and absolutely one of my favorite food holidays with LOTS of memories attached. As a result, I prefer to eat a traditional meal and have a little of everything that I like. I generally don't have a choice since I'm a guest in someone's home and not the cook, but even if that wasn't the case, it would still be my preference. For me, skinnying up Thanksgiving--I'm talking from top to bottom here--would be criminal. Having a few healthy sides is great. Skinnying up a dish or two (but so they still taste pretty much the same), fine. For example, the last time I took a dish as a Thanksgiving guest, I made a lighter sweet potato recipe (from Health magazine, I think) instead of my old "a pound of butter and a box of brown sugar" recipe. The "lighter" version was not fat free by any stretch, but it was lighter in fat and calories than my old method, and still tasted delectable (and didn't taste the slightest bit "healthy" which made it work for the majority of the guests who were not into healthy eating).

I lighten up all our traditional foods. I've been doing it for 3 years now and everyone seems to love it and I haven't gotten any complaints.

I say start with your favorite recipes and just make them healthier.

Best of luck with the visit!

Mel, I wish you well with your father's visit. I can really picture how that could be stressfull, but it could also be just wonderful

My plan for the upcoming holidays is to do a little old way cooking and a lot of new way cooking! In my experience of hosting holidays, people don't always like seeing new dishes when they came ready for the nostalgic feast of their childhood, especially at Thanksgiving. When my husband and I started to love cooking, one year we made every dish from Gourmet, or similar magazines, and we thought it was just amazing. However, not everyone agreed. Where's the marshmallow sweetpotato casserole? (that is so gross) What did you say was in the stuffing??? The idea ofcourse is not to actually cause anxiety, right? And no one wants to be forced down the path to health either. I intend to offer healthy options and old favorites, and make everything healthier than ever. My roasted garlic mashed potatoes will be on the table, but I may not eat much of it.

My tact will be the same one I am using to cook for my family now: Make options everyone can enjoy, and be careful which ones I choose for myself.

Lynne

This year for Thanksgiving we will be with my in laws and everyone on that side. Since I am not in love with all the food they make or do, I have offered to chip and do one or two sides. I have found this is a wonderful way for me in a nice way to get some of the things I want on the table. Plus, I am finding they like what I like, just as long as I am willing to make it.