What treats should I offer for my first Pampered Chef open house?

[Stacys]

Hi Ladies! I have my first show/open house on March 4th. It is at 1pm. Since it is at my house I wanted to do two recipies. I've picked out the Fantastic Focaccia Bread and the Strawberry Amaretto Pastries. See the Italian theme I'm going for. Anyway, my thoughts are to use the focaccia bread as my main recipie and then do the strawberry pastries from the assembly part forward. What do you guys think? I was thinking that would be easier than trying to time both things in the oven one after another.

Also, can anyone suggest any other "treats". I'm hopping to have about 15 people there. I was thinking just some sort of veggie tray.

Also can you use the egg slicer to do roma tomatoes? The recipe says to do the tomatoes for the focaccia in the slice and grate, but I don't have one of those. I thought I might just use the chopper to do the tomatoes. Has anyone done this?

As always thanks for your help!!!

 

[pamperedalf]

First of all congrats on your 1st show!!!!
I always do 2 recipes at all my shows. I have learned to do a lot of prep, and show slicing a tomatoe with 3 slices.
I wouldn't try slicing a tomatoe, that would most likely bust your wires. I would slice using a knife, and talk about how cool the ultimate slice n grate is(you never know you might sell some). I know of a consultant who didn't have the family skillet, and made the green chile fritatta. She made it in a stone, but then sold 3 family skillets because she talked about how cool they were. You get nice even slices with the slice n grate.
I have always had bad luck with the chopper and tomatoes, for me they get mushy because the skin is too rubbery JMO. Good luck on your show!
I would defenitely put out some vegies and dip!

 

[Stacys]

Okay, so I had another thought. What if I let the ladies assemble their own strawberry pastry. I'd mix up and chop all of the ingredients, but they could be in charge of making it up themselves.

 

[kitchencop]

Okay, so I had another thought. What if I let the ladies assemble their own strawberry pastry. I'd mix up and chop all of the ingredients, but they could be in charge of making it up themselves.

I personally think that is a GREAT idea. My daughters' (ages 8 and 3) made these last week, they helped with everything. The best part was when they assembled their own, they had fun...it is super easy...and, if you have the powdered sugar shaker, don't forget to fill that and let them use it at the end (my girls thought it was cool)

Good luck.

 

[pamperedbecky]

I would just slice the tomato with the knife and talk about all the knives, as well as the cutting board. Try to slice them pretty thin, but don't cut yourself!

Have a great time! That's the best part of this job. Be as relaxed as you can be and obviously they'll know you're new at it. Have fun!

 

[Stacys]

Update!!!Okay, so I had my first show and I think it was great. We only had 7 people but I have $600 + in sales and we are still going.

I used my idea of letting the ladies assemble there own pastry and everyone loved it. I think my guests had fun getting to be involved.

I also demo'd the knives and showed how sharp they are with the paper thin slice of tomato.

Thanks for all of your advise!