Spend Time With Your Guests, Not Your Kitchen

Sound familiar? If so, you might want to rethink your entertaining strategy — it is possible to throw an elegant gathering without spending all of your time in the kitchen.

Deana Gunn and Wona Miniati, authors of the cookbook “Cooking with All Things Trader Joe’s,” say that it’s a simple matter of buying the right ingredients.

For example, making homemade puff pastry requires hours of folding dough on itself — but frozen puff pastry, which is available in most grocery stores, makes for easy and impressive appetizers. “Use the grocery store as your prep kitchen,” says Miniati. “With the right purchases, you can make gourmet appetizers in minutes.”

Try serving these surprisingly simple Pastry Bites at your next gathering. Alternate fillings could include goat cheese with cranberries, pesto with roasted red peppers, or ricotta and pine nuts.

Pastry Bites

1 sheet puff pastry, thawed

3-4 tablespoons bruschetta or olive spread

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Cut the puff pastry sheet into nine equal squares. In the center of each square, drop a rounded teaspoon of bruschetta. Place squares evenly on a baking sheet and bake 15 minutes. Serve immediately.

For a quick alternative to pumpkin tarts, enfold pumpkin butter in puff pastry dough:

Pumpkin Spice Turnovers

2 sheets puff pastry, thawed

1/2 cup pumpkin butter, apple butter or any fruit jam

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Cut each puff pastry sheet into four equal squares. Place one tablespoon pumpkin butter in the center of each square. Fold the pastry into a triangle, then press and seal the edges. Repeat for each square. Bake for 15 minutes, or until golden.

To see more recipes or find more information about the cookbook, “Cooking with All Things Trader Joe’s,” visit www.cookingwithtraderjoes.com.