Making holiday cooking easier this year

Holiday entertaining can be fun by keeping it simple. Here are a few tips to help you enjoy the holidays more and be less stressed.

•Prepare as much as possible in advance. Choose freezable dishes for half the menu and prepare as much as possible the day before. Many desserts can be frozen.

•Recruit the family to help cook, clean and decorate. Be sure to heap on the lavish praise for a job well done so they are inclined to help again.

•Ask for help from fellow cooks. Share the planning of menus, shopping for groceries and cooking duties with family and friends. Or ask a few guests to bring a dish or dessert.

•Don't drown in dirty dishes. For a holiday open house or treetrimming party, use plastic plates and utensils to make cleanup easy.

•Don't try to outdo yourself. It does not have to be a gourmet meal to be special. Some of the best memories are created over the simplest meals. Serving one appetizer, an entree, a salad and a side dish, and buying the dessert and the bread, can make it easy to serve a holiday meal.

•Stock up on basic ingredients such as chicken broth in resealable cartons, plus supplies for saving leftovers and storing dishes made in advance.

• Use resealable containers to store broths, nutritional products, soy milk, soups, wines, pasta sauces, juices and milk.