Dinner Party ideas?!

whatatwit

For pudding, how about Crepes Suzettes....can you tell what we had for tea last night. :rotfl:
You could make the pancakes in advance, as well as the sauce and then just heat them through and serve, they can be quite alcoholic if desired and if you are feeling brave,they can be flambéd.

Let me know if you want my recipe for the sauce.

Nicki

How about a simple starter - something fruit based, followed by a beef bourgignon using a fairly cheap bottle of red wine. As this is a casserole, you can use quite cheap cuts of meet, and bulk it out with shallots and mushrooms. Serve with plain boiled rice and a green salad. Looks and smells great and very formal. Best if made at least the day before and reheated on the night. Could do something light as a pud - maybe a sorbet - or some cheese and biscuits maybe if you think you'll have lots of red wine left over.

MrsTinks

How many people are you cooking for? And do you have any kind of budget in mind

Starters can be as simple as you want to be honest.. Pate and toast is easy and with a little salad garnish and a sliced cherry tomato it will look fab... If you have access to Costco you can buy a HUGE Pate for about £4 I think it costs. Should stretch to 8 people or more easily so that's a starter for 50p per person and make home made bread to make it extra special

Another starter is soup... easy to make in advance and simply reheat just before serving and serve with HM bread.

Mains I would say opt for a straight forward - difficult to mess up - kinda thing Take the pressure off yourself There is absolutely nothing stopping you serving a casserole dish that you can make in advance like Coq au Van. Use the slowcooker and just use some nice chicken instead of Tesco's cheapy... Again serve with home made bread as it's great for mopping up the sauce

Dessert... Make anything like apple crumble, pies or other desserts. To make it look posh make it in individual dishes and garnish with a few leaves of mint, basil or lemon balm.

You could even try for a home made lemon mousse... mmmmm yum!

dianeclaire

Hi Fibabe,

When you say formal, are they expecting michelin starred food or are you having people sit down to a meal? Either - or you can create some stunning food without spending a fortune.

Recently we have hosted 2 evenings for alarger groups, one for hubby's birthday and other for a friends, on both evenings I did not spend a fortune on the food but got fantastic comments and some lovely notes and calls regarding the food afterwards.

One evening I did a Hugh FW recipe for Beef in Stout and used Shin of Beef which cost approx £20 for 25 people and a bit more for stout, veg etc

Other one was a Delia recipe for Lasagne - again minced beef cost next to nothing, thing is with this recipe, the white sauce has some cream in and nutmeg, so does the bolognese, this makes it taste much more luxurious

It's not about what you cook but how it tastes, for both the above you can add rice for the stew - which we did or garlic bread and green salad for the lasagne, these would both stand up at a "sit down" dinner party......:T

There are loads more, Delia has a fantastic Beef Stroganoff which uses Stewing beef, or how about a whole sea bass stuffed with simple herbs and 1/2 hr in oven.

Any more ideas let me know, we tend to do the cheaper cuts for these kind of nights so we can spend a little more on the wine

*Sparkle*_3

I made a lovely salad/salsa which would be great for starters consists of king prawns(cold) then i finely chopped up red onion, spinach, mint leaves, mango, cherry toms, cucumber and some red peper mixed all in a bowl with sharwoods sweet chilli sauce. A very fresh, refreshing starter/side dish.
I got this receipe from tesco.com (bar the king prawns added that myself) they have lots of receipes on there.

Fibabe

Thanks for all the ideas I like the sound of Sparkle's salad/salsa. I'll visit the Tesco website.

There will be a total of 10 people. We've had these friends over for dinners before, so wanted to do something a bit special. Everyone will be dressed up so I want to give them something that we have not done before.

They're not expecting michelin starred food, but something fancy will go down well.

We also need to steer clear of creamy sauces and garlicky things due to allergies.

Thank you again everyone. Keep the ideas coming!

Penelope_Penguin

Try this thread: Menu to impress needed

There's then loads of recipes on the Menu Plan Index.

Penny. x

vixtress

i have an excellent recipe for slow cooked lamb with pomegranate, its lamb shoulder so fairly cheap and is served with cous cous and feta salad.
it can all be done a bit in advance and looks fairly flashy with minimum effort.
if this sounds like what you are looking for let me know and i will dig it out.

vix

competitionscafe

vixtress wrote:

i have an excellent recipe for slow cooked lamb with pomegranate, its lamb shoulder so fairly cheap and is served with cous cous and feta salad.
it can all be done a bit in advance and looks fairly flashy with minimum effort.
if this sounds like what you are looking for let me know and i will dig it out.
vix

Is that the Nigella Lawson one - I think it's on her website Nigella.com - keep meaning to try that one out, it sounds delicious. The HFW one with shin of beef sounds good too - I did a similar one from Jamie Olivers new book which was in Delicious magazine - melt in your mouth tender beef and shin is much cheaper than the posh cuts.

By the way don't go to Tesco for your meat, if you can try a local butcher - probably much better quality and not necessarilly any more expensive (might even be cheaper). Even if it does cost slightly more though using the best quality ingredients to start with really makes a difference to the finished dish as HFW points out all the time in his Meat book.

Fibabe

vixtress wrote:

i have an excellent recipe for slow cooked lamb with pomegranate, its lamb shoulder so fairly cheap and is served with cous cous and feta salad.
it can all be done a bit in advance and looks fairly flashy with minimum effort.
if this sounds like what you are looking for let me know and i will dig it out.

vix

Yes please that sounds great!