Dinner Party on a Budget

FatVonD

Starter
Spinach, onion and mushroom. Fry a finely-chopped onion, some halved mushrooms and a clove of garlic, when nearly cooked through add spinach and continue cooking until wilted. Serve

Main
Pasta with smoked salmon. Cook pasta and drain. Add strips of Value smoked salmon and put it all back on the heat, stirring until the salmon changes colour. Add a small tub of cream and heat through but not too much. Season with lots of freshly-ground black pepper and serve with lemon wedges.

Pudding
No cook cheesecake with Amaretti biscuits. Crush the biscuits and bind with melted butter and press into a baking ring lined with greaseproof paper. Mix together a tub of Mascarpone cheese, sugar, double cream and a few drops of vanilla essence, pour on top and leave in the fridge overnight to set. Serve with a dusting of cocoa powder and a few berries on top.

althas

Hmmmm

A nice carrot and butternut squash soup to start
Dice a few carrots
Dice a couple spuds
Dice a butternut squash
get a big pan
Dice and fry an onion and a few cloves of garlic
Bung the carrots, spuds and butternut in
A litre or two of veg stock
Salt Pepper to taste
When done, blend to a smooth creamy pan of winter deliciousness

Pasta and tomato sauce
Spagetti
2 tins of chopped tomato (You know the 40pish ones from Sainsbury kind of thing)
Onion
Few cloves of garlic
Tomatoe pure
Salt and pepper
Herbage (like Italian Mixed)

Cut and cook the onion and garlic
Add the chopped tomato
Add pure, salt, pepper, herbage to taste
Cook for maybe 5 mins
Blend to smooth
Pour over the spagetti
Serve with some nice crusty stick loaf

Can chuck some bacon lardons in and mushrooms if you like, its all good :-)

RealButter

There's lots of fab meals here for 4 people

queen_of_string

from real butter's linky, the smoked salmon pasta on the xmas planner ( bottom of the planner page) is particulalry good. There are plenty of meals on there you could do for others with no one knowing its frugal.

JulieGeorgiana

I have a lovely meal I made for my husbands birthday, it was 20 minutes to prep and cook and it was lovely.

I paid £7.25 for the ingredients I needed and it was enough to make 4 meals for 4 people!!

It's called Spanish Rice with Prawns (it also has onions, peppers and Chritzo in it)

It was lovely, and we are having friends over this weekend... and I am making this for her

If you want the recipe PM me.... or ask and I'll dig it out!

hanb

Thanks everyone it looks like it will be lasagne, i can make it tomorrow and then heat it up when i get back Saturday! Pretty easy too so it should be ok! Thanks again!

Penelope_Penguin

hanb wrote: »

Thanks everyone it looks like it will be lasagne, i can make it tomorrow and then heat it up when i get back Saturday! Pretty easy too so it should be ok! Thanks again!

No pudding? As this has fallen from the front page of OS, I'll add it to the existing thread for budget dinner parties.

stiltwalker

Lasagne sounds a good main course, how about a chicken liver pate for starters? Can be made ahead of time and looks posh, just fry off your chicken livers in butter, delaze with a splash of port or brandy (if you have) add a teaspoon of gritty mustard (again optional) add a good slosh of cream. Whizz in a blender or fp till smooth then put into a dish and cool. Serve with bread, toast or crackers and a red onion marmalade or cranberry sauce if you have any if not will be fine.

Did you watch any of the Jamie half hour prgrammes recently? A couple of times he made a lush frozen yoghurt pudding by whizzing up frozen fruit and mixing it with thick (greek) yoghurt before putting back in freezer all done and ready in a couple of minutes - not tried it yet but got frozen berries in to try it looked so yum.

Good luck, have a fab time and whatever you cook a meal with friends is always a fun occasion.

Vaila

why not have a student themed dinner party

-value tinned tomato soup with crisp sandwiches
-cheap instant noodles
-beans/spaghetti etc on toast

ok, maybe thats taking it too far

saveabobortwo

Then you can put what vegetables and or meats in ,your guests like.it is easy to make and can be done before so you have time to get ready .easy on the washing up .and cheaper ingredients ,serve with a wonderful bottle of wine and a superb desert from Iceland and of course add charming and interesting conversation and choclate sweets and coffee.