Do you ever entertain during the week? It can be challenging right?! I had a couple of friends over the other night for our "last supper" before the start of Yom Kippur. I had a boatload of work to do before dinner so I needed to come up with a super simple game plan as my timing for prep was limited. Here's how I pulled together this gorgeous table and a dinner that was absolutely to die for...

First off - raid your cupboards. You don't need to buy new silverware or plates. Mix and match with what you already have!

I like to have name cards at my dinner table so I whipped these up really quick with all the apples I had leftover from apple picking with my kids last weekend. You can find the DIY for my apple place cards in the post here.

Second - come up with a menu that requires minimal prep. Since this particular dinner party was for Yom Kippur I made my Grandmother's gefilte fish which is requires a lot of cooking time BUT I planned in advance and made this the night before.

For dinner I had a menu that was incredibly easy and beyond delicious: Apple & Rosemary buttermilk quick bread Spatchcocked roasted chicken Autumn salad Aunt Debi's Crispy Potatoes

For the chicken, I made it up....and boy did I nail it! Here's my made up recipe.... 1 whole chicken - I asked the butcher to spatchcock it for me. But if you want to try this yourself then I would refer to Martha Stewarts Tutorial. I chopped up a handful of rosemary and thyme and combined with Kosher salt, pepper, garlic powder and sesame seeds. I went a little heavy on the sesame seeds but this worked to my favor because they tasted DEE-LISH! I massaged my chicken with this paste that I made and then put the chicken in a roasting pan that I filled with rosemary and thyme sprigs, carrots and onions. I roasted the chicken for 40 minutes at 450 degrees. It was PERFECT.

For dessert I made an apple crisp using my Aunt Marissa's recipe with all the leftover apples we had in the kitchen.

The day of prep work for my dinner was about 3 hours. We ate this dinner in about 6 minutes. It was a success!