Do you love to cook at home, kind of like it, or are you super tired of a whole Covid-year of so much at-home cooking?! No matter which one you are, we all deserve a little cooking-labor break from time to time, so ...
Hello no-cooking-on-Sunday-trays!
To curb so-much-cooking-fatigue, you just "assemble" healthy attractive "nibbling" foods on trays, but no cooking allowed at least one day a week. That's what I came up with as a solution to so much home-cooking and my husband Steve and I love this m.o.!
Here's what I did with our own "Sunday trays" to give you some easy ideas to get started ...
I bought some new pretty tablecloths on Amazon and I really love this red checked one as it didn't wrinkle out of the dryer and is super heavy. I bought these cute red checked napkins too and they washed up like a dream.
And several of these white trays from Amazon worked dandy as they have a lip so foods/bowls don't slide off, and they stack really nicely for easy storage. (These work great too as a lap tray to eat in your car if need be, but that's another topic for another day.)
These little white ramekin cups work great for small nibbles like nuts. These bigger clear dessert cups work great for things like olives, dried fruit, dips, etc. And these little-bit-bigger bowls work great for chips and crackers. Bonus: The turquoise bowls come with a lid which is nice for leftovers. (If you have any!)
My favorite thing I bought for this little "party" though was these cute little appetizer plates. Are these adorable or what?!
These 20 oz. stainless tumblers make for a great cool or hot beverage and they hold a lot. I bought white and they are lovely and pair nicely with any dishes, but they have some really pretty colored tumblers too. The rest of the things for our trays I already had from past entertaining days, like these appetizer forks and spoons and napkin rings. I used my name-and-date-engraved baby spoon to scoop nuts. It's 62 1/2 years old so that was fun! (Home hack: I removed the tarnish on my baby spoon with toothpaste on a soft cloth, and then rinsed it off.) :)
I ordered our nibbles food from Amazon Fresh, handily delivered right to our front door, and then I ...
Put the tablecloth on the table
Put the rings on the napkins
Put the food in the dishes
Arranged the dishes/food for visual appeal/color
Filled the glasses with Club Soda with a splash of orange juice, over ice
Moved my battery-lighted orchids to the table for a little floral flair and color
And lastly added my Christmas votive flameless candles (These votive holders are so nice and come in so many fun colors.)
Nibble all day on Sundays when the spirit moves you!
For future Sunday trays, now I have all I need organized and stored together so it will be super easy just to set it all up. I highly recommend setting up a dedicated space to store everything together if you can. I rearranged the bottom shelves of our coffee bar, (similar to ours), for our Sunday-trays-supplies, sorting items into plastic baskets like this and this that I labeled with my trusty label maker. Photo below.
For our Sunday trays, what did we eat? We personally strive for healthiest foods, so we had guacamole, gluten-free rice crackers, bean dip, organic potato and corn chips, dried fruits, apple slices, baby tomatoes, fresh carrot chips, hummus, green and black olives, chocolate covered nuts, plant-based cheese melted on crackers, etc. I arranged the trays so the food colors were varied and attractive. So yummy!
Have fun with your Sunday trays!
Prayers for your daily bread even if it's on a "Sunday tray!"
In this pix above, I set two trays up on our foyer buffet vs. on our dining table, and put our candelabra in the middle. I like to keep things easy and simple. Foods on this tray included green grapes, baby tomatoes, cut-up muffins, pea pods, stackers crackers, and small biscuits, to name a few.
And this time our Sunday trays were back to the dining table. Foods included dried apricots, prunes, dates, raisins. Tortilla chips with salsa, and sliced apples, just as examples.
Blessings on your beautiful, simple, Sunday trays!
Kathryn :)