125 Best Entertaining Recipes

Recipes for entertaining that deliver maximum flavor with minimum effort.

Hosting the perfect dinner party can mean days of planning, hours of shopping, and then a frenzy of last-minute preparation in the kitchen. After cleanup, the exhausted home chef often wonders how everything went.

In 125 Best Entertaining Recipes, there are 125 easy and delicious recipes that are sure to please guests. Here is just a sampling:

• Thai-roasted shrimp as a starter, followed by a bowl of visually stunning neon beet soup
• Main dishes like braised chicken and apples with grainy mustard sauce, or pot roast beef with wild mushrooms
• The best-ever Caesar salad -- everyone will want seconds
• Chocolate terrine with drunken pineapple or blackberry-peach ruffle pie -- the perfect finish to a great meal.

Dozens of helpful tips and examples of kitchen wisdom are sprinkled throughout the book, along with refreshingly frank advice on how to ensure a successful dinner party. (Rule #1: Invite only people you like.)

These flavorful dishes require only common, everyday ingredients. The result? A relaxed, satisfied home chef after every entertaining event.

Julia Aitken is a food writer, editor and cookbook author with decades of cooking and writing experience.