I’m half Italian. My dad’s father was born in Calabria, Italy. He arrived as a boy in the United States in 1900 via Ellis Island. He was traveling with his father, his pregnant mother, and three siblings. The family settled in a duplex in a small town in New Jersey. My great-grandfather and great-grandmother lived on one side of the duplex, and when my grandfather married, he and his wife raised three children on the other side. My dad and his two sisters were actually born in the house. My father’s sister lived her entire life in the house (she lived to see 100) and her daughter now lives in the home. So you could say our family is steeped in tradition.

The Feast of the Seven Fishes was/is our Christmas Eve tradition. Although the venue changed over the years, the tradition remained. In recent years (like the last two decades), Christmas morning breakfast was added as a tradition with responsibility for the morning’s feast in my hands. Over the years, I experimented with a variety of breakfast foods; everything from frittatas made with leftovers from the night before to labor-intensive giant ravioli stuffed with ricotta and egg yolk. But one of our favorite Christmas morning breakfasts is also one of the easiest and most delicious. This is a dish you can make the night before and pop in the oven in the morning so you have plenty of time to languish with coffee and family while opening presents.

Christmas Morning Strata

8-10 servings

Takes about a half hour to prep, then an hour to bake.

Ingredients

• 6 large eggs
• 2 ½ cups whole milk
• 2 cups of sliced scallions (green onions)
• ½ cup whipping cream
• ½ cup grated Romano cheese (can substitute Parmesan)
• 2 tbsp. fresh oregano or 2 tsp. dried, crumbled
• ½ tsp. salt
• Ground black pepper, ideally freshly ground
• 1 pound Italian sausages (hot or mild) with casings removed
• 1 large red bell pepper, halved, seeded, sliced into ½” wide strips
• 1 one-pound rustic loaf of French or Italian bread cut into ½” thick slices
• 2 cups (loosely packed) grated Fontina cheese (or other cheese that melts nicely)
• Butter for coating the casserole dish

Preparation

Whisk the first seven ingredients together in a large bowl. Add ground black pepper to taste. Set aside.

In a large non-stick skillet, place sausage on one side and red pepper on the other. Saute over high heat, breaking up the sausage with a fork until it is cooked through and the peppers are brown in spots; about 7 minutes.

Arrange half the bread slices in a buttered 13” x  9” x  2” casserole. Pour half of the egg mixture on top. Sprinkle with half the cheese and half of the sausage/red pepper mixture. Repeat layering. Let it stand for 20 minutes if you're baking it shortly, or you can cover and refrigerate overnight. Press down on the bread at least once to ensure everything is submerged.

When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake uncovered for about an hour until the strada is puffed and brown. Cool slightly. Eat!

It is very nice served with fresh fruit or a simple green salad. Let’s not forget the mimosas, bloody Mary’s, screwdrivers, and/or salty dogs. And coffee.

I hope you try this strata and that it can become a tradition for your family, too—even if you’re not Italian. Happy Holidays, Fath friends!

The post Christmas Morning Breakfast appeared first on Fath Properties Blog.

A few years back, my boyfriend introduced me to his tiny, lodge-y, weekend getaway at a rural community on a lake. During my first visit, we attended a spur-of-the-moment get-together with some of his neighbors. It was a surprising night for me in two ways. First of all, everyone treated me like they’d known me forever. As a gal with definite introvert tendencies, this was most welcome and a great “note-to-self” for my own future hosting. Secondly, everyone brought their own drinks and a snack to share. Brilliant! Essentially, all the host had to provide was ice and toilet paper. Talk about stress-free entertaining! Piggybacking off this experience, here’s our complete guide on how to host a potluck.

Why Host a Potluck?
Whether you’re new to the neighborhood or a veteran resident, a successful potluck party can help create and solidify friendships and make you feel right at home in your apartment community. It’s a fun way to make memories and create long-lasting friendships. It’s a great way to host without breaking the bank, and it’s a no-brainer because people like to eat. And hosting a potluck will create a foundation to build upon to eventually host gatherings where you provide everything…and do all the work.

Getting Started
Invite some people: your besties, relatives, coworkers, apartment neighbors – mix and match! Decide how many people your home/dining table can comfortably accommodate and plan your guest list accordingly. Consider how many place settings you have – plates and silverware. Do you have serving spoons? If not, be sure your guests know to bring one for their dish. How much guest parking is available near your apartment? Don’t forget to let your guest know where they should park. If your apartment community is gated, let your visitors know how to get in so there’s no awkwardness upon arrival.

Planning any kind of get-together can be daunting. How much food should there be? What drinks should be served, and how many will be needed? A potluck solves these problems. If everyone brings food to share there will be plenty. When they also bring their own drinks, you have no decisions to make about quantities or types of refreshments to have on hand. Do make sure you have plenty of ice and glassware.

Hosting a potluck that satisfies all appetites is easier if you create a theme. This will help make your meal complete and cohesive. Just make sure your guests advise you what they plan to bring so you can make sure there aren’t duplicates and that all portions of the meal are covered. Here are some creative potluck theme ideas to choose from for your next apartment gathering.

Apartment Potluck Themes

RESTAURANT COPYCAT

Have your guests pick a dish from their favorite restaurant in town to recreate. Who knows what you’ll end up with? Pasta, empanadas, cupcakes, tacos. So many possibilities. It’s a great theme if your guests are foodies as their contributions will assure a variety of interesting dishes that will spark conversation about the best restaurants and best foods in your area.

TEX-MEX

Who doesn’t like Tex-Mex? With simple recipes and affordable ingredients, you can’t go wrong with a Tex-Mex potluck theme. Mexican-American dishes are delicious, filling, and difficult to botch – even for the novice chef. Opt for a Tex-Mex Night and make sure that everyone brings a different dish so you don’t end up with six jars of salsa and bags of chips.

COMFORT FOODS

Everyone has a dish that reminds them of home. My mom used to make a dish she called Surprise Packages. She’d make foil pouches filled with sliced potatoes, a hamburger patty, a slice of onion, sliced carrots and peas. They were awful, but my siblings and I never tire of teasing her about them, and my father loved them. Maybe your friends have better offerings like their mom’s chili, dad’s Sunday gravy, Thanksgiving’s sweet potato casserole, or a family recipe that’s been passed down for generations. Ask your potluck guests to bring a family favorite and prepare to enjoy a wide range of heartwarming foods along with a night of nostalgic memories!

SOMETHING YELLOW

Theme your potluck with this cheery color and be prepared for a night of mac and cheese, coconut curry with mango, buffalo chicken dip, and cornbread. Once you open your mind to seemingly random themes, the possibilities are endless. Colors, letters, and numbers are all great places to start. Be relatively lax about the “rules” and see what creativity your guests bring to the table. What might seem odd in the beginning could end up being your favorite potluck theme in the end.

FARMERS MARKET FAVES

If you’re looking for a way to make your potluck dishes more cohesive but don’t want to limit your guests to a specific cuisine, consider a theme involving where they shop for their ingredients. A farmer’s market theme is also an excellent way to support local businesses like Findlay Market in Cincinnati, Yankee Street Market in South Dayton, or Dallas Farmer’s Market. With dishes centered around in-season ingredients you’ll end up with similarities throughout your dinner spread — and high-quality ingredients, too!

THE VEGGIE

Have your meat-loving friends step outside of their comfort zones. Challenge everyone to add some type of vegetable to their dish — including the desert! A veggie tray would be a no-brainer, but there are many veggie dishes that are so hearty, no one will miss the meat. Like Alison Roman’s Spiced Chickpea Stew which went viral >> #thestew. And who doesn’t like carrot cake or banana bread? The options are endless and delicious for a plant-based potluck theme.

HOME STATE ORIGINALS

A classic potluck theme, friends bring an iconic home state dish. In Kentucky, that could be a Kentucky Derby favorite, burgoo. How about a recreation of Cincinnati’s Skyline Chili? Dayton-style square-cut pizza is a fun option, or how about one of these seven classic dishes famous in Dallas? Not only does this potluck theme have the potential to be delicious, but it can also spark some great conversation between guests about their home states.

SALAD BAR

A wonderful theme for spring and summer months, a salad bar is easy, fresh, and tasty. There’s always plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables available in season, but don’t forget about other warm-weather staples like pasta or potato salad! A salad bar theme is perfect for a light, refreshing dinner that will require no reheating.

CASSEROLE CREATIONS

Casseroles are great for cooler months. Hot, comforting casseroles are what everyone craves during the fall and winter. And they tend to be easy to make. How about a gooey mac and cheese or a tater-tot casserole? For dessert, think apple crisp and/or blueberry cobbler.

COOKOFF

Another fun idea is to have everyone bring the same dish and see who makes it best. Think: a chili cookoff, taco night, or a chocolate chip cookie bakeoff.

So, make a guest list, send out invitations, dust and vacuum, stock up on toilet paper, set the table, and let the potluck party begin! If you and your guests have as much fun as I think you will have, consider a monthly rotation from one person’s home to another. Eat and drink your way to closer friends and better neighbors.

The post How To Host A Potluck appeared first on Fath Properties Blog.

How To Host Thanksgiving In Your Apartment

The season of turkey, pumpkin pie, football, friends, family, and food baby is just around the corner. If you have more than a couple of folks to celebrate with, but not a lot of space to celebrate in, we’re here to help. Hosting Thanksgiving in your apartment will take a bit of ingenuity and careful planning, but it’s certainly doable. Whether it’s Thanksgiving or Friendsgiving, you can keep your event from becoming a stress fest or a hot mess with good advance planning. Preparing a strategy ahead of time will allow you to relax when the big day arrives. This How-To host Thanksgiving in your apartment guide will help you optimize seating, refrigerator storage, and more.

Be creative about counter space and storage

In an apartment typically without an abundance of counter space, you’ll have to make every square foot of empty surface space count. One trick is to “recruit” some of your furniture for meal prep. Seriously! You can use your dining table and chairs, coffee table and the like as surfaces for cooling pots, pies,  and other desserts.

When it’s time to eat, you can set up the food buffet-style in the kitchen or on a piece of furniture away from where you’ll be dining to save space on the table. If that’s not possible, try using cake stands to elevate some dishes on a crowded table, which will make room for other serve ware underneath.

Equip your fridge

Thoroughly clean your refrigerator before you begin cooking and storing. Throw out any expired food and anything you know you’ll never eat, drink, or use again. Ideally, your fridge will be almost empty as you begin to prep your food. This allows for plenty of room to store everything ahead of time. Plus, one of the perks of hosting means you’ll have leftovers to keep. When it comes to packing your fridge and freezer, don’t forget that you can probably adjust the shelves to make them more efficient. Shift them around to free up space to stack storage containers. Another creative storage solution is to store items in plastic zipper bags. They’re malleable and easy to stack up in a fridge while taking up little space, making them a great way to store things like cranberry sauce, make-ahead gravy, dinner rolls, and pre-prepped veggies.

Prepare food in advance

Allowing yourself plenty of time to prepare is essential when storage and counter space are tight, not to mention when you’re working with only a few kitchen appliances. Start prepping your Thanksgiving menus a full week in advance. A practical solution for making a Thanksgiving meal is to make as much as you can ahead. Figure out what can be put together the day before, and what needs to be made the day of. You can make the pies, gravy, stuffing, and mashed potatoes ahead. Sauces and baked goods can be made the furthest in advance, with most pies and cakes having a shelf life of three to four days. Some sides can be made up to two days out, such as mashed potatoes and make-ahead stuffing.

Then, on Thanksgiving Day, all you need to do is roast the turkey and make the veggies. More prep work in advance means less work and less stress on Thanksgiving Day. This will also minimize bodies in the kitchen, which helps keep your kitchen from feeling cramped and hectic.

Expand your dining table

Fitting all your guests at a table in your apartment can be tricky as most apartment dining rooms are sized for four people. Try putting several small tables together to create one long one. If possible, make sure they are all the same height and width. Then toss a tablecloth over all of them, and nobody will know the difference! If you don’t have smaller tables on hand, take this opportunity to invest in a few folding tables and chairs that can be easily stored once the holiday is over. If your space is so limited that it doesn’t allow for even a makeshift dining table, no worries. My sister-in-law rents a couple of bar-height tables and puts them in the middle of her living room. No one ever minds standing up to eat, and this dining format really encourages guests to mingle.  Or maybe some people can eat at the table, some on the sofa, maybe even some on the floor. Believe me, where your guests eat is much less important than what they eat and with whom they share the holiday.

Have guests their own (folding) chairs

When I got my first apartment, I moved in with just bedroom furniture. But that didn’t stop me from throwing a Cinco Di Mayo party. The invitation noted that guests should BYOC (bring your own chair.) My friends thought that was a hoot! They each brought a folding chair, lawn chair, or stadium chair, and everyone ate with their plates on their laps. Everyone has a great time despite (or because of?) the untraditional seating.

Rearrange furniture

The dining room isn’t the only space to consider. Even if everyone fits around the table, think about after-dinner relaxation, game-watching, and mingling. Try to balance space for your guests to move with seating to accommodate everyone. This can be accomplished by temporarily removing furniture that won’t be used and shifting couches and chairs to the perimeter of the room. If the day is mild, you can also utilize your patio, deck, or balcony.

Create a place for coats and bags

Once you have finalized the guest list, decide where your guests’ coats, bags, and boots (if the weather is inclement) will go. Depending on where you live, most people will arrive in coats, and many will have bags. You don’t want these items to take up valuable space in the eating area, and if you’re lucky enough to have an entry closet, it’s probably already pretty full. Your bed can make the perfect place for everyone to lay their coats and bags. Or consider purchasing a coat tree to place by your front door. Spread out an old towel or some brown paper bags to collect any we footwear.

Buffet it

Set food up on one table, buffet style, and let everyone serve themselves. Your buffet can be on the kitchen counter, side table, dining table (if people will be sitting elsewhere), or on a rented folding table. This works especially well if you have a non-traditional seating situation.

Cold beverage storage

Since your fridge will probably be very full, fill your [very clean] bathtub with ice for cold wine, soft drinks, mixers, and beer. Consider adding a big bowl for clean ice service.

Use disposables

I’m seldom one for recommending single-use anything, but Thanksgiving dinner is an exception – especially if the number of guests exceeds your plate and flatware counts. Using attractive seasonal paper dinnerware, nice paper napkins, and plastic silverware is a very smart option. There will be plenty, even if some guests toss the first plate before going back for seconds, and the cleanup will be significantly easier.  And we do want to make hosting Thanksgiving in your apartment as easy as possible.

Right after COVID, and SO READY to entertain again, I had an usually large crowd (for me) of eight for Thanksgiving. I decided to get some pretty paper and plastic products instead of using my “real” plates and cloth napkins. Everyone loved how coordinated and festive the table looked. I chose dinner, salad, and dessert plates, plus cocktail and dinner napkins. Other than the pots and pans, cleanup was a breeze.

If you prefer to use your own dishes, you can add fall- or Thanksgiving-themed appetizer, salad, and dessert plates with coordinating napkins. If that sounds like overkill, choose pretty Thanksgiving-themed dinner napkins.

Pre-clean

When you host Thanksgiving in your apartment, you will need to clean your place and clean it well. A clean apartment always feels more spacious and inviting than a dirty one. Clea out the fridge, wipe counters and floors, wipe down bathrooms, vacuum, and dust to prepare your home for your Thanksgiving Day guests. You should also guest-proof your home. This may sound paranoid, but even if you know everyone that’s coming well, advance preparations will make you more comfortable in the long run.

• Help prevent breakage. There’s always the chance some of your things can get broken, especially if children are joining you for dinner. Remove anything valuable or personally important, or that’s low to the ground. Store these things somewhere out of the way to keep them safe.
• Protect yourself from The Snoop. Some guests like to snoop. Anything you’d like to keep private like medications, mail, or personal items, consider hiding away.

Stock your bathrooms

Keep your bathrooms well-stocked with tissues, toilet paper, personal products, and soap, making sure that extra items are easy to find. Disposable hand towels will prevent one cloth towel from getting overly wet and gross. Be sure your bathroom trash can is in sight. On Thanksgiving Day, set a timer on your phone to remind you to do periodic bathroom checks. Then a quick wipe and swipe will keep your bathroom fresh (because people, as a general rule, are pigs). My guests always appreciate the small bowl of mints on the bathroom counter so they can freshen up.

Declutter

Not only is clutter unappealing to the eye, but it takes up precious real estate that could be used for a serving platter, or a few bottles of wine, or an extra chair. One of the simplest Thanksgiving solutions for small spaces is to clear your surfaces of unnecessary items. Leave out just enough décor to keep your apartment feeling cozy and festive and store the rest. You can bring it all back out the next day as you begin to decorate before Christmas. LOL.

The most important thing about hosting Thanksgiving is making your guests feel welcome, cared for, and satisfied with the food and the camaraderie.  Any successful party is as much about lively conversation and laughter as it is good food. People gather during the holidays to celebrate family and friends and to enjoy the company of people they love and enjoy.  No matter what size apartment you have, you can make this Thanksgiving one to remember. Just focus on what you do have to work with, and you’ll do an amazing job hosting Thanksgiving in your apartment.

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