How You Can Have A Beautiful Table Setting Even If You Are On A Tight Budget

We are all in a tight budget and it’s only a must to save money on every chance that we can as soon as possible. Though we may also think how would I even enjoy my life and have one good social life if all I will do is to save money and work? To have a perfect balanced life, we must know how to work hard and have something to look forward to, to enjoy life. A simple get together isn’t bad in fact it will help a person detoxify and to eliminate all the stress that you are feeling.

Having your college friends, your family and your coworkers doesn’t mean that you will need o hire caterers and designers. People now know how to share, some would bring their own recipes and that would already complete the food. As for the table arrangement, even a kid can do that. Here are some ways on how you can save on your next gathering in terms of table settings:

Look Around
Know how to research. Ideas in the Internet are overflowing and you can definitely find free advises and tutorials on how you can do an elegant napkin folding. There are also theme by theme tutorials that you can use with every occasion that you are planning to attend to. You won’t run out of ideas, there is an Internet help for each theme that you want to do. Just be patient enough when researching and be careful with the information that you are giving.

Recycle
Now that you know what you want and like to achieve in your table setting, don’t be discouraged if you don’t have the exact materials and remember, don’t buy anything expensive, you can check your basement or attic for things that you have already forgotten but would be perfect for this occasion. For example, you were able to find an old brass candle holder and you want to arrange a dinner. It will be perfect for your table as a centerpiece. Found large glass irregular shaped vases? Why not pick 3 of the same size and fill them up with potpourri and that’s it.

Be Creative
The key here is not about money or being pressure. The only that is important is for you to enjoy what you are doing. Be creative and learn to lose yourself. Don’t be afraid to experiment with color blending and centerpiece trials. Decorating your dinner table can be fun and once your loved one sees your talent, surely she will fall in love with you again. Find materials in your home and use it like those old brass bowls which can be use as centerpieces.

Saving money isn’t just because you are cutting on your expenses, sometimes it is also after on how you budget your money and how can do so many things even without any greater amount to splurge.

Different Table Settings for Different Yearly Events

Feeling drained out that everyday you do the same things, no exciting people to meet, no new things to discover and living a fairly black and white life. You really don’t need a new set of routine or even a new job, what you need is something to look forward to, something that will temporarily stop the same old life that you have and give you a break. The perfect solution for this is your yearly events. We may have forgotten these events but they are all scattered in our calendar, making them a perfect break for us.

Don’t be afraid to participate and show them your creative side. Go and organize little get together and parties, cook, decorate or help in organizing the event. One of the most important aspects of celebrations is how we present the foods in the table. Table setting can be fun and exciting, that is why here are some helpful tips on how we can decorate our table on different yearly occasions.

• Seasonal décor ideas don’t need to be extravagant. Don’t over do your designs. Sure you can be little excited and happy with all the available ornaments but overdoing it won’t look beautiful, it will look congested.

• Decorating your dinner table must come from your heart, especially if this is for a Valentine day table setting where you will want the best romantic setting for your special someone.

• For Valentines, you can use a red table cloth that will accentuate passion and love. Roses too are a great addition to your table as a centerpiece or a design in your napkin folding.
• You can scatter rose petals on the floor so that when she walks in inside, with the light dimmed, she will immediately feel like she is under that romantic movie.

• Table centerpiece for Mardi Gras should be colorful and lively. In here, you don’t need to hold back especially with color and ornaments. This is a happy, wild and festive gathering that will surely make everyone excited and alive.

• Halloween table settings should be simple though, even if this is one of the most sought after events in the calendar. Sure we can find so many decorations in the market making it hard to stop the temptation of buying them but always remember that simplicity is still the best.

• You can use orange, black and white cloths to decorate your house for Halloween. For chairs, you can cover it with an orange cloth and tie a black ribbon on the back. For the table, cover it with a white cloth and then add a small vertical orange cloth and back lining on the sides.

• For your Halloween treats, you can make cupcakes with orange and black colors. You can learn different design techniques so you can add spiders and bats frosting.

Table settings don’t need a lot of work and you don’t even need to be stressed out. Decorating your dinner table for an event can be something for you to look forward to, to enjoy doing not the other way around. We are looking for something that will give us a break from our routine.

Fun Ideas when Decorating Your Dinner Table

Do you ever miss the old days where we, as children would play house, doctor, tea parties and teacher? Maybe all children have gone through the phase that they all played tea parties (mostly girls) and they would have their teddy bears and dolls all seated in a little circle. We would have little tables with little silverware, tea cups and a little kettle. The sad part about this is that they are now all forgotten, new memories are filling up our minds and those days were just shadows of our childhood. However, that simple memory of table setting can be the foundation of something that we are now capable of doing. Table setting is an art, a way to express our uniqueness and our creativity.

As of now, we may still be doing table settings, maybe for a simple get together, a party, date or even for a weekly bonding time with your family. For what ever reason that we have, it’s still good that we are still practicing this. The same table setting can also be boring and blank, so it’s best that we find new ideas to be able to maximize the effort that we are putting in this project. Here are some themes that can inspire you.

African Table Setting
Maybe the African table setting is not one of the most common ideas when it comes to table settings but this one is definitely worth trying. If you’re adventurous and want to experiment, try this one for a dinner get together. Dark colored cloth tablecloth like maroon or brown is recommended. It will look well if your table is made of wood. For this kind of settings mix colors and textures and make this place setting seem like you have just returned from safari. Rattan placemats are also a nice touch to your table plus those Hessian bags filled with spices are used for the centerpiece. Make sure that you position them among the rambutans, some tropical fruits and loose spices. To add the feel, try using animal print napkins tied rattan thin ropes. Plates can be wooden or flat cane baskets lined with banana leaves or as simple as black plates.

Italian Table Setting
Want pasta? Why not compliment your dish by setting up an Italian table? Just buy a suitable tablecloth for this setting. You can use a sheer yellow cloth. Find a clear bowl that we will be using for the centerpiece then place a vase inside it. Place celery in the vase and fill the bowl with basil, dill and garlic. Hang the little red tomatoes on the strings of the celery. This would look like a tree that has tomatoes as its fruits. Choose suitable silverware for the theme. Setting silverware can be a little formal too. Try using bright green bowls on white plates and don’t forget napkin folding. Don’t forget the dimmed light and the wine! Set the glasses for the water and the wine.

Oriental Table Setting
Decorating your dinner table won’t be complete if you haven’t tried the oriental table setting. Ordering or preparing Chinese dishes? Well this may be one of the easiest ideas for table setting. Mostly consists of 2 basic colors, black and white and just add the element of bamboo and that’s it. For the centerpiece, try those little bamboo stems with small leaves. You can also try adding dried flower table arrangement for that scented and elegant feel. You can use bowls and chopsticks if you want to.

Decorating your dinner table doesn’t have to be expensive, you don’t need to follow exactly what you see on the computer, rather just be creative and use your imagination.

Wok Cooking Tips

Woks are very useful cooking tools because you can use them to prepare all kinds of different dishes, from stir-fries to soups. Before you use a wok for the first time, you’ll need to learn a few basic skills. The tips below will help you to ensure that the meals you cook in your wok will be delicious and appetizing, worthy of your table setting.

Woks Need Intense Heat

High temperatures are essential for the food to cook quickly, and rapid cooking is the secret to stir fry meals, allowing veggies to keep their color and firmness and preventing meats from loosing their natural flavor. Make sure to raise the temperature each time you add an ingredient to the wok.

You can tell that your wok is hot enough to start cooking in it when it begins to smoke. Correct stir-frying may fill your kitchen with smoke, but cooking over low heat will result in a mushy, pale and limpid mess.

Wok Varieties

You’ll find that woks are available in several varieties. Electric woks are available in the West and many cooks are satisfied with them, but a classic round bottomed wok is best if you are cooking on a gas stove. Most woks today are made of carbon steel. They are durable, inexpensive (a good one should cost around $20) and excellent heat conductors.

You can buy a wok support ring to place over your burner to keep the wok stable. This is essential to avoid accidents if the circular bottom of your wok won’t stay in place on the top of your cooking range.

Wok Cooking (Stir Fry)

Always prepare your ingredients before you start heating the wok. Woks are versatile and you can cook many foods in them, including all kinds of vegetables (peppers, onions, corn, squash, green beans, peas …) and meats (chicken, pork, beef, shrimp, crab etc). Cut meats and vegetables into tiny pieces so they will cook rapidly and thoroughly over high temperatures. Avoid overcooking meat, as this will toughen its texture.

Before you put ingredients in a wok, add a drop of cooking oil and wait for the wok to heat. When it starts to smoke, put in your meat and cook until it is almost done then remove it from the wok. Now bring the wok back to high (smoking) temperature and add your chopped vegetables. Cook a few minutes (the vegetables should be crisp) then add the meat and continue cooking for another minute or two; season to taste with a sauce of your choice, stir and serve.

Food Presentation

Stir-fry meals are typically served with rice, so don’t forget to cook the rice before you start the stir fry. You could cook rice in a wok, but only use rice that’s been cooked a day before. Adding freshly cooked rice to a hot wok will make it sticky. Using a rice cooker will ensure that the rice is perfect every time. Stir-fries and other food varieties prepared in woks are inspired by Asian cuisines. Using an Asian table setting to serve your meal will add an authentic touch to your presentation.

Japanese Dining And Cuisine

Japan is an Eastern Asian country composed of over 5000 islands located in the Pacific Ocean. Since it is a one of the world’s leading fishing nations, accounting for approximately 8% of the world’s catch, fish and seafood are major components of Japanese cuisine. The two principal staple foods Japan are rice (the climate is perfect for rice cultivation) and noodles.

Many elements of Japanese dining and cuisine are the result of Chinese influence, including the use of chopsticks, soy sauce, and tofu (soybean curd). In fact, the Japanese first learned to grow rice from the Chinese around 2000 years ago.

In Japan, rice is normally served boiled or steamed. The second major Japanese staple food, noodles, is available in several varieties, which may be eaten either hot or cold.

Three popular noodle varieties included in Japanese dining are:

• Soba Noodles - Made of wheat flour, these thin, brown noodles can be eaten with a variety of dipping sauces or in hot soups
• Udon Noodles – These are also wheat noodles, but they are thicker than Soba noodles, also used in hot soups
• Ramen Noodles – Wheat-based, thin yellow noodles that come in different shapes, usually served in meat or fish broth

Soy sauce and soybeans are also an integral part of the Japanese dining experience. Other typical Japanese ingredients include:

• Tofu – resembling firm blocks of cottage cheese, this is a bean curd made of soy milk
• Bamboo shoots- Crisp yet tender, these are very young bamboo plants commonly used in many Far Eastern cuisines
• Daikon- This root vegetable looks somewhat like a large white radish and it is the most commonly cultivated vegetable in Japan. It is eaten raw in salads or cooked (stir-fried, grilled, baked or boiled)
• Ginger- is a widely used seasoning in Japan
• Seaweed varieties- a very important part of the Japanese diet, seaweed varieties are harvested at different times of the year, dried and then reconstituted in water before they are cooked

In Japan, green tea is much more popular than black tea. Considered to be the national drink, it is often served with desserts.

As mentioned earlier, seafood is an integral part of the Japanese dining experience. Two unique Japanese dishes that are renowned worldwide are:

• Sushi- Fresh seafood served raw (blanched, pickled or frozen) with rice and wrapped in roasted seaweed. Sushi is a very healthy food because it has a low content of saturated fat and almost no sodium, sugar or cholesterol.
• Sashimi- In formal Japanese dining protocol, Sashimi is often served as the first course of a meal. It consists of extremely fine slices of raw, fresh seafood often served on top of a salad of shredded daikon and accompanied by wasabi paste.

Japanese culture takes pride in presentation and table settings are as important as cuisine in the Japanese dining experience. A traditional Japanese table setting usually includes a soup bowl and a rice bowl, plus a number of small flat plates and, of course chopsticks.

If you are serving Japanese food, consider using an Asian table setting to recreate an authentic Japanese dining experience. Use bamboo placemats, chopsticks, pretty China bowls and an Asian-style centerpiece.

Why Proper Food Presentation Is Important

We all have our 5 senses, sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch. With food, isn’t it that we all use these five senses? We see how beautiful and presentable foods can be, we smell the aroma and the flavor even before we eat it, we hear how crunchy a fried dish can be, taste how all the ingredients blend well and how it taste; we touch our food to see if it’s still hot before we take a bite. Indeed without these senses, how could be appreciate how delicious our foods can be? Isn’t that before we choose what food to eat, we base it first on these senses? What does proper food presentation have to do with the five senses? Here’s why:

The Importance of Food Presentation
When you go to a party and of course there is food prepared, which of those dishes will you try first? Don’t smell, taste or go near them yet. Just use your sight. The one that will surely catch your attention is the one that is in the most noticeable table. Let’s face it, if it looks good we would want to try it!
Proper food and table settings will surely attract the guest’s attention and not to mention their appetite. Decorating your dinner table for a simple get together or a party isn’t easy. It takes sometime to get used to it but once you do, you can do it in short period time.

Food Presentation Ideas
There are dozens of ways on how you can start decorating your dinner or your buffet table. The Internet hosts dozens of help tips and even video examples for you to get started. A few of the tips that you’ll find are these:

- Color scheme
Make sure that you blend the tablecloths, silverware, china, and the napkins as well. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you will need to use one particular cloth color, but instead make sure that the colors that you will be using will blend well, like red and gold, blue and silver and so on.

- The Centerpiece
Try to find a cheap but elegant centerpiece. Consider what time of the day will the get together be? If it’s for a dinner party, find something that is sophisticated but won’t overwhelm the food or your guests. It just has to blend well.

- Enjoy what you’re doing
Just relax and avoid being stressed out. Remember that this is supposed to be a fun event and being stressed out won’t do you any good. Tell yourself, would this solve my problems? Then just breathe and go back to work.

To summarize, if you want your family or guests to really be tempted with your food, don’t just focus on the dish itself rather try decorating your dinner table or whatever table you’ll be using. In this way, it’ll add up to your over all food presentation. Table settings can be easy and fun to do; don’t be afraid to try it.

Know How To Prepare A Dinner Party In A Flash

If you have children, you will know how hard it is to feed them once they have their own favorites. This is where one’s creativity comes in; one can start making cute shaped chicken nuggets, stories about vegetables and about how flying carrots will land on your kid’s mouth. Its fun and time consuming but sometimes, we forget how this creativity can be used through other things and not just for our stubborn little kid. Think about hosting a dinner party and instead of hiring someone to do the theme, invitation, table setting and napkin folding for you, you can jut do it yourself. Are you curious but also afraid of starting this all by yourself? Here are some steps:


Ideas
Ideas are working mom’s best friends, why? Because when you become one, raising your child is indeed tough, from making faces to make him laugh to designing food on his lunchboxes so he’ll eat it. Creativity just begins to come out naturally, something most moms don’t even realize. Now for your dinner party, if you’re not that confident yet, you can start with your own family gathering, something that only has a few numbers of people. Start of with an idea and then work from there. Plan everything first.

Help from the Internet
No ideas yet? Search through the Internet. There are dozens of ideas in the Internet that can help you come up with your own concept. Once you find something interesting, it’s important to take note of them. There are hundreds of table setting styles and not to mention napkin folding tutorials too. Gather all the ideas that will catch your attention and after that, it’s time to incorporate your own idea or mix and match them according to your theme.

What's Important
What’s important is that you stick to the budget and be a wise shopper. If you have old table cloths, you can use them instead of buying them brand new; you won’t really use them everyday. You can also use your reserved silverware too just make sure that you clean and polish them days before so on the day of the dinner party, you will just to wash them lightly. Make a list of the things to buy and the things you need to get from your attic or basement. Do the latter first, because that takes time and is a lot messier. Once done, finalize what you need to do and your theme too. There is no room for changes because like any other working moms, this has been scheduled and it’ll greatly affect you if there are unwanted changes. Shop for the things that you need that won’t easily spoil, like seasonings and ingredients for the dishes (if you’ll make them yourself) but if you won’t, you can just buy everything on the scheduled time.

This is a lot to take and a bigger adjustment for you too. Remember to be ready for some problems if you want to start with this sideline. It’s important for you to stay calm and happy. Enjoy what you’re doing and don’t let it get into your nerves.