Buffet Ideas Please

Hi danielley,

Congratulations on your new home. For thirty people I would do a mix of hot and cold food. To keep costs down I'd do a bolognese base sauce (quick, easy and cheap). Don't forget you can pad the mince out with lentils etc to make it go further. Use the some of the sauce to make a lasagne then add some chilli and kidney beans to the remainder of the sauce to make a chilli. That way you'll cater for people who like spicy food as well as those who don't. Serve with rice and/or baked potatoes, a green salad and homemade garlic bread. Perhaps also add some pasta and rice salads, pizza etc to pad it all out.

If most of the guests are close friends could you ask each of them to bring a salad type dish or dessert to help out?

These threads might give you more ideas:

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I hope you have a great party.

Pink

I'm having a party this weekend for about the same amount of people. I also have several friends with specific dietary needs (one lactose intolerant, one who eats no grain and possibly the easiest two are the vegetarians). So I'm making a chicken and bacon pasta salad, a lactose free vegetarian pasta salad and a big pot of Bolognese which can be eaten with bread if desired.

For the Bolognese I'm using around 1kg of mince. The meaty pasta salad will be using a small chicken and 500g pasta. The veggie friendly one has 500g pasta and an olive oil and lemon dressing.

I'm also making two cakes for puddings. A lemon drizzle cake and a whisked (no butter) sponge as my lactose intolerant friend can eat eggs.

I'll also have out a big coleslaw (red cabbage, red onion and carrots with double cream and mayonnaise), crudities and dips (houmous, taramasalata and tzatziki), pitta bread and crisps.

This comes to around £30 and I always have loads leftover. I tend to aim for about £1 per person, everyone brings their own drinks and normally brings some for the "house" as well.

It is a lot of work, but I find the food always goes down well and is appreciated in the wee hours.

One thing I've done before that's worked well:

Made up a big pot of fried rice with veggies- the rice is cheap, used frozen veg so again cheap, I put egg in the rice but if you have any vegans you can just put the egg in a dish on the side- for my fried rice I use a little sesame oil, some oyster sauce, dark soy and mushroom soys and mix.

Then in bowls around the pot I had different additions: little bit of seasoned lamb, some turkey marinated overnight in the soy mix above and dry fried in the work, some small prawns, mushrooms etc.

That way everyone added the bits that they wanted to their fried rice- some were veggie, some didn't like seafood, some didn't eat red meat etc. I also went to the chinese supermarket and picked up a couple of bags of springrolls/dumplings etc.

This went down pretty well, and because it wasn't all mixed together the leftovers were easy to store/freeze for some reason if the mushrooms are mixed in it doesn't freeze that well. I think this could be adapted to other dishes- making a larger amount of the main part of the meal and having other bits to jazz it up?

Oh another thing I was going to say, is try and cook what you are comfortable doing- you'll be far less stressed- My Mum has a best friend who lives if the same village and we used to go round to each other's houses ( the whole family) fairly regularly - she always cooked the same things- exactly the same gajak (like tapas) each time but we LOVED it and always looked forward to her turn to host...in fact I now when I go to visit Mum, I go around there and pester her to teach me how to make those dishes, she acts all embarassed and laughs but I know she's pleased...hmm am going to Mum's next week may have to pay Aunty S a visit!:D

HTH
MrsWoolfe

A good thing I've found which is always popular is salad kebabs. Just thread chunks of pepper, cucumber, pineapple, cherry tomatoes, half radishes etc onto bamboo skewers. These always go when I make them and they're especially nice if people will be standing around rather than sitting down. I also do the same thing with fruit. This is also a good way to get children to eat salad and fruit.