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budget buffet help!!
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moomoomoose
Posts: 4 Newbie
Hi
I must be mad - organising a surprise party at the weekend, :eek: can't get the surprisee out of the house to do all the preparing of the food, so having to do it the day before hand!
I've got about 30 people coming, some veggies (some eat fish, some don't). I was thinking about doing canapes as they can be stored safely, and prepped the day before, and are ok at room temperature.
But getting stumped for ideas. Don't really want to buy everything in boxes from a supermarket - as most of the stuff seems to best served hot - spring rolls, samosas etc. Plus I want to make it as healthy as possible (on a diet!), with just a few goodies (mainly the dessert).
So far on my list are crudites and dips, nuts (thought about buying cheapy ones and putting chilli and spices in them??), sausages on sticks, olives, mini quiches, chicken wings (make my own?).
Any help, recipes or advice is greatly appreciated!!!!
xx
I must be mad - organising a surprise party at the weekend, :eek: can't get the surprisee out of the house to do all the preparing of the food, so having to do it the day before hand!
I've got about 30 people coming, some veggies (some eat fish, some don't). I was thinking about doing canapes as they can be stored safely, and prepped the day before, and are ok at room temperature.
But getting stumped for ideas. Don't really want to buy everything in boxes from a supermarket - as most of the stuff seems to best served hot - spring rolls, samosas etc. Plus I want to make it as healthy as possible (on a diet!), with just a few goodies (mainly the dessert).
So far on my list are crudites and dips, nuts (thought about buying cheapy ones and putting chilli and spices in them??), sausages on sticks, olives, mini quiches, chicken wings (make my own?).

Any help, recipes or advice is greatly appreciated!!!!
xx
0
Comments
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Hi moomoomouse,
There are lots of ideas that might give you some inspiration on these older threads:
Ideas for really cheap easy Buffet food please!!
FINGER BUFFET for my birthday party
Buffet Ideas
Christening Buffet ideas?
Help ! Planning small buffet birthday party for 17, NEVER done anything like this ? !
Pink0 -
Fish Crackers:
Pick up a couple of tubes of squeezy primula cheese (plain or with chives - usually about £1.20) and a box of ritz crackers (80p). Then get a small tin of caviar (John West is about £1.50 in Tesco) or a pack of smoked salmon trimmings (Tesco value - 1.20).
Lay crackers on serving dish, and squeeze primula cheese on top, top with either a small half teaspoon of caviar, or a little smoked salmon.
Very lazy and very quick and easy and less than £3.50 for a good trayful of canap!s.
If you can bake your own mini-scones in advance and cut in half to use instead of ritz this would work out even cheaper. Also, these can be made in advance, whereas ritz crackers do go soft if made well in advance.
Spicy mini meat-balls: 200g (beef, lamb or turkey) mince, spring onion, pinch of cumin, pinch of coriander, salt and pepper, plus egg yolk. Whizz in food processor and then shape into little balls. Dust in a little flour and put in fridge. When ready to cook, pop in oven on greased tray for 20 mins, turning once, allow to cool then spear with cocktail stick. Serve with sweet chilli sauce dip (blue dragon 1.79).
Use sweet chilli sauce to coat chicken wings before baking in the oven. I am sure someone else will have a HM recipe.
I am not good at vegetarian options - sorry!Thanks to MSE, I am mortgage free!
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Not suitable for vegetarians, and will mean some home-cooking, but these sausage rolls are really cheap to make, and are the best you will have ever tasted!! Please note that you can cut them down to cocktail size (I get about 24 out of the recipe that way). Also, I use dried sage (1 teaspoon) with a little water as I couldn't get fresh:
http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/sausage-rolls,908,RC.html
there is also a recipe for vegetarian sausage rolls at the bottom of the recipe page, but I havn't tried making those.0 -
Thanks for the ideas - going to take a look at those threads now! Any more ideas welcomed!0
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For the veggies, frozen vol-au-vent cases cooked and filled with creamed mushrooms.
A bowl of salad (shredded iceberg lettuce, chopped or sliced cucumber and halved cherry tomatoes) with plenty of crusty bread and perhaps some cubed cheese & pineapple on sticks. Check the wrapper to make sure the cheese is veggie, so you can reassure anyone who asks! (I am married to one :rolleyes:). Put out a jar or bowl of pickled onions too.I haven't bogged off yet, and I ain't no babe
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I often cheat on these occasions and buy a couple of the ready cooked pastry flan cases (made by Hoppers? or others) from supermarkets, and then fill them them savoury fillings, such as bacon, cheese, mushrooms in an egg mixture. . Butter Bean & grated cheese is quite a savoury veggie version.0
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For veggies:
Vol au Vent cases filled with egg/mayo, egg/chives/mayo. curried egg/mayo (mash up hard boiled eggs with mayo and some curry powder)
Felafel on sticks & dips
Cheese straws (although note there is vegetairan cheese and non vegetarian cheese because some cheese contains rennet which is an animal-based product)
Pizza squares/slices: just tomato base, cheese, onion, peppers, etc
Devilled eggs: hard boil eggs, cut in half, scoop out the yolks, mix yolk with a bit of mayo and curry powder, shove the curried yolks mix back in the holes in the eggs.
Couscous - you can just buy packets of this pre-flavoured at supermarkets, or look at those boxes for ideas.
3-bean salad: any three beans will do really, look online for recipes and see what they use0 -
Cous cous keeps a couple of days and tastes nicer if you make it with hot stock and some olive oil rather than just hot water, add veg (and chopped chicken or prawns).
BBQ chicken wings are easy just coat in sauce then bake in the oven for 20-30 mins (best if you can do it on a rack but if you don't have a rack just turn them half way through).
cheese straws (a cheats way is to get ready rolled pastry, grate cheese over the top, use rolling pin to squish cheese into pastry, cut into strips, put on a baking tray twisting them at the same time and bake, very nice)
home made fish gougons or chicken nuggets, I don't like fish so haven't done those but for the chicken coat in egg, then breadcrumbs and deep fry. You can cut up and coat the chicken in advance, freeze it and cook straight from frozen.
I second the home made sausage rolls, very nice. Haven't looked at delia's recipe but the way I do it is to buy ready made puff pastry (I think life's to short to make puff pastry) and a pack of pork sausages, split the sausages and chuck the skins, mix them in a bowl with any other herbs you fancy (as balmk says sage is very nice) then make the sausage rolls, you can make them as large or as small as you like but small ones go a long way.
Home made salsa is a nice side dish, I made up a recipe and everyone loved it and it'll keep for a day or two. I stupidly forgot to write it down but I think it's 4 toms, skinned and chopped, 1/3 of a pepper chopped, 1 garlic clove finely chopped, 1/2 red onion chopped, salt, pepper, 1 chilli chopped and a good glug of olive oil all mixed toghether. To make it more colourfull pick different coloured pepper and chilli
There was a post about this the other day and they suggested a big pan of chilli and jacket potatos, you could make a veg one and a meat one, supply bowls and rice and you'll be well away0 -
Just thought kebabs are quite easy, if doing meat ones it's nice to marinade them but if you don't have time you can get away with it. You can do the veggie ones and the meat one and even desert ones (chopped fruit with a bowl of chocolate sauce to dip into)
Some nice meat ones are diced lamb marinated in grated onion, olive oil, and garlic. Chicken satay is always popular as is BBQ0 -
Wow - lots of great ideas - now to put them into action - only a couple of days to sort things out!!!
Thanks x0
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