Sneak peek of Diwali Party event planning!!

Happy Diwali !!

Diwali or Deepawali which is also known as festival of lights. It symbolizes the triumph of good over evil and light over darkness.

It goes without saying how much I love this festival and it soars my energy level and enthusiasm to next level. Staying in USA for more than 15 years now, Diwali for me brings lots of beautiful childhood memories, the day back home was always full of chaos and crazy amount of work all day long and every one will be running and rushing all day to get house, food, decoration ready for the evening. I remember my mom used to start thinking about what all she will make on Diwali weeks ago and I was her right hand in creating list of sweets and that used to be one of my favorite activity.

In India, irrespective of you want to celebrate festival or not the festive vibes will be all around and automatically the mood is set and you immerse deep into it. Here is USA if you don’t do anything you will not even realize there was any festival and it will be gone like any normal day. I am the person who believes Happiness is not “out there”, it’s us who creates the happiness around us. And to bring this beautiful festival to life and spread joy, happiness and love I start day dreaming. And as they say “Daydream, imagine, and reflect. It’s the source of infinite creativity.” and that’s the start of my planning of Diwali 🙂

In this post, I want to share about my 2021 Diwali party planning to share ideas, tips and give an insight on what all goes behind the scene.

Some might find it funny or weird but my planning doesn’t start a day or a week ago, but almost a month in advance. Being a mom of 2 kids and specially little one who is a naughty toddler, nothing will happen if I don’t plan so for me it’s like a project execution at work, first thing I do is start a google doc which has everything I need to plan for Diwali day menu, party menu, pooja preparation, decoration ideas, games to play in party, Diwali sweets list, cleaning and upgrade projects around the house, things to order ahead of time, etc. I started jotting down things one by one as they come to my mind. This gives me enough leeway to order anything I have planned for the festival and help me bring my day dream imaginations to reality.

Before I get digressed and go all over the place let’s get back on track for insights into the party planning and not whole Diwali festival planning. As Diwali was on Wednesday and all my sweets were already prepared for Diwali, that part was already taken care of and now I had 2 weekday nights to prepare for the Saturday party. On regular weekdays after office work is all wrapped up and after kids to go to bed, I start my preparation work around 9 pm.

For party planning I usually get RSVP on time from all my guests so that I am aware of tentative count and can prepare my games and menu accordingly. I believe for any party to be successful, you need welcoming space, good food and some entertainment. I love keeping some fun games in my events as it helps as ice breaker by making people socialize and everyone can get involved and have fun. For party with bells and whistles like Diwali I love to have little extended menu and plan for 1-2 drinks, 3-4 appetizers, 3-4 main dishes and 1-2 side dishes. In deciding menu I try to have a balance by taking care of few basic things:

• Not too many fried dishes
• One Paneer dish in appetizer and/or main menu
• One fruit dish
• Not to repeat main ingredient in 2 dishes in same course (like no 2 potato dish or paneer dish in same course)
• Not all appetizers should need individual serving preparation (management becomes really tough)
• No dishes in main menu should have same gravy preparation
• At least 2 wet and 1 dry vegetable main dish
• Either separate kids food or have some non spicy food for kids

Keeping that in mind, this is the menu I decided:

• Drinks
  • Paan Shots
  • Gulkand Shots (Kid friendly)
• Appetizers
  • Baked Alu Puff (Can be prepared little ahead of time and baked just before the event)
  • Palak Pakoda (Needs individual preparation just before serving)
  • Tandoori Paneer Tikka (Single Dish Preparation)
  • Chana Chor Garam (One easy to prepare item)
• Main Menu
  • Kashmiri Dum Aloo
  • Akbari Paneer
  • Kadi Pakoda
  • Sukhi Bhindi (My friend graciously agreed to make this for the party)
  • Tandoori Roti (Only item ordered from outside)
  • Jeera Rice
  • Papad
  • Salad (Ready to Mix and Serve)
• Dessert
  • Mango fruit custard
  • Sweets (Made for Diwali)

One main thing I do when I daydream is visualize what I want it to look like, which gives me ideas for presentation and garnishing. This also gives me time to buy any disposables or platters/dishes I need for the party food.

Let’s fast forward to 2 days before the day of party, this is the day for grocery shopping and this is when I make sure every single ingredient, cutleries, dishes, serving platter is cleaned up or bought and is now available at home. If I run into any issues like ingredient not available this is the time to adjust the menu. This is also the day when I finalize my games preparation.

Just a day before party is when half the of work happens. On my doc I usually have things which can be done ahead of time so I start doing that in order. I don’t like to cook my dishes a day before as I like them freshly cooked but I do as much prep work as possible the day before. Here is all I did the day before the party day:

• Prepared potato & peas stuffing for Alu puff
• Cleaned and sorted spinach leaves for Palak Pakoda and kept them in airtight box
• Chopped all ingredients for Panner Tikka
• Chopped onion and cilantro for Chana Chor Garam
• Grated panner for Akbari Paneer
• Peeled baby potatoes for Alu Dum and kept it immersed in water in the fridge
• Chopped fruits like Mango, Grapes, pomegranate for custard
• Prepared garnishing stuff
• Prepared green chutney
• Prepared Mango custard but didn’t mix the fruits
• Took out all dishes and serving platters

Now along with the food few other things needs to be taken of just the day before the party day, house needs to be in order which I outsource to my dear hubby 🙂 any outside work which comes up last min is taken care by him along with making the house tidy. I also try to have favorite food for kids available on that day so they don’t fuss otherwise everything starts falling apart. I keep some basic surprise toys like new play dough or water bubbles for my toddler for the day so that I can concentrate on cooking. That help him keep distracted and let mommy execute her project.

Here comes the day when everything needs to come together.

8:30 am – Right with the morning coffee I started moving things in order of priority, first kept water to boil for baby potatoes for Alu Dum, meanwhile hubby prepared breakfast for kids something they love so they are happy and well fed. Next I started preparing gravy for Kashmiri Alu Dum as it’s yoghurt based gravy I want to concentrate on it’s preparation otherwise it can curdle and get ruined. Once that starts boiling I started making Akbari paneer. Once these 2 main dishes are done I took a break for breakfast and to play with kids while engaging them in house decoration with me.

11 am – Then started round 2 of cooking, starting with marinating paneer and veggies for tandoori paneer tikka, preparing pakoda batter for kadi, preparing besan batter for palak pakoda, getting pastry sheet out of freezer to thaw, mixing fruits which were chopped the night before to mango custard and adding other fruits like apple. With that it’s time for lunch break and taking care of kids.

1:30 pm – While toddler has gone for nap now, things should move faster. Now I started setting up the table with all platters in place based on what I have imagined it to look like, give my special touch ups to house and decor, served all sweets in platters and wrapped them with cling wrap while also preparing home made sweet boxes for all guests. It’s time for my toddler’s nanny to arrive for help. She is our sweet aunty who is available for help for few hours when needed. She took the ownership of making Punjabi Kadi, which is her specialty. Time for me to take shower and be ready for round 3.

4 pm – While hubby made tea, I got started on getting Alu puff ready, fry papad, make jeera rice, transfer paneer tikka in baking tray, take out drink ingredients, take care of anything which needs fixing around the house. After having my tea it’s time for me to get ready and then do final execution of all dishes.

5:30 pm – Now just 30 min for the party to start everything is in motion. While aunty started on frying palak pakoda as that’s a time taking dish as it needs to be fried a few at a time, I got alu puff and tikka in the oven to bake. Prepared both the drinks and got them ready in platters. Don’t forget to leave some raw ingredients for garnish and decorating the platter. Time to mix chana chor garam, serve all chutneys and Alu Puff, transfer tandoori paneer tikka in serving dish. Almost everything is coming together and looking good in serving platters now with the final touches. Time to click some pictures of your food and presentation. Enjoy your party and company of guests !!

I am overwhelmed by the love and beautiful comments all my friends and family shared on social media. Many have been asking me when will I start sharing my secrets and recipes, so I finally thought let’s give it a try. And now you know it’s not a secret but just hell lot of planning, time management and day dreaming 🙂

Thanks for reading my first blog post, hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed executing this project !!