Dinner Party ideas?!

EC12345

Hello, me and my husband do this quite a look for a special occasion at the weekend, although I like to turn it into a challenge and I try and get three courses for £10. Now, I'm not a brilliant cook but the last time I did it, this is what I cooked.

Starter: Fresh prawn cocktail (luxury prawns were on offer) with lettuce, salad cream and lovely bread.

Main course: Mussels in white wine sauce and spagetti.

Pudding: Fresh fruit salad and cream.

You guys who are super cooks will have loads more ideas but for £10 for two people, £5 per ahead, you can't go wrong. I always think as well home cooking is so much nicer than eating out.

Good luck

E x

flea72

if wanting to do something fancy, then i quite often look at the menus for my local posh restaurants online, and use that for inspiration, then hit google for recipes

as they change their menus monthly, the meals are seasonal and we get to try food id normally overlook when doing my daily shop

so things like

pheasant wrapped in pancetta with blackpudding and quails eggs

belly pork with champ and a mustard sauce

venison stew with beetroot wontons

i find when looking through recipe books i get too caught up in the all variety, so cant narrow down an actual meal - but by looking at what i might have chosen, should i have actually gone to that restaurant, at least gives me a clear plan on what style im going for

F

SUESMITH_2

i love cooking for us and friends, i have loads of recipe books and enjoy spending time finding nice things.

for new years eve i did assorted starters - lots of differant things that we could help ourselves to. main course was a huge sugar baked ham with salad and new potaoes with parsley butter, pud was baileys cheescake and cheese and biscuits. i deliberately didn't do winter food and cook seasonally although i normally do this - i wanted to do a summer menu on the basis that spring and summer will soon be here and its something different. friends brought wine and whiskey

we love eating out however its v expensive and usually i can cook better than whats on offer iykwim

jollymummy

We stay in and cook for each other for special occasions too. Our son is 5 now so we usually wait until he's off to bed and then get out the Jamie Oliver recipes and do a main and a pud and have a nice bottle of wine.(The BBC Good Food has some great recipes too). Like others have said we sometimes do the M & S meal for a tenner too. After paying for babysitters, taxis and the restaurant it would cost us a fortune to go out. Half the fun for us is deciding what we're going to have a go at making. If our little boy stays up and eats with us, he insists on having posh wine, ie Ribena in a wine glass

Spendless

Yes, we frequently do this with another couple. We did this NYE, the hosts pay for the food, the guests sometimes fetch something, but are not obliged to. For us as hosts it just costs us the ingrediants for the meal, for us as guests the price of a babysitter. The wife of the other couple is still sufferring from 'flashbacks' a couple of years after being attacked so doesn't feel overly confident in public, and we have 2 primary school aged kids so have to pay a babysitter. so it suits us both.

The nights usually follow a 'theme' normally Indian. On NYE DH made kurzi lamb, we also had bhajis, samosa, rice and naan breads. Guests fetched a keema curry. We have also had a German night before with bratwurst, sauerkraut, and potato salad. Dessert is usually a bought one.

costaerer

i often cook for friends instead of takeaway. i enjoy cooking and my OH likes my food. were only 22 and most friends are in the same financial situation as us- not much money! take aways are a rarity.

i occasionally buy certain meat which is slightly more expensive and OH does appreciate it....but then i cook every day so the fact im cooking isnt the thrill.

costaerer

by the way spendless, things like apple pie/crumble are dead easy to make if you were looking to make your own dessert

kkebay

Not sure what we are having yet, DH wants Lasagne but I have a problem with that as cant eat pasta.

Kitchenbunny

I've been trying to arrange a night like this and think this year will be the year of doing so. It certainly seems to be the best way of getting a restaurant-style meal for a lot cheaper and is going to improve my culinary repertoire no end.

The menu I want to try is a Chinese-style one - with lots of Chinese restaurant courses going through all the mixed starters, then a couple of main dishes and finally something like fritters for dessert. Another night, an Italian one, and then a Thai one, etc. Whatever we feel like at the time. Good luck with it, as I really want to do this too.

KB xx

Toonie

We don't often do special meals for ourselves, however we do go back and forth to friends houses where we throw dinner parties. The way we do it is if you go to someone's house you tend to take the wine and contribute something (pudding perhaps and chocolates for later). We try to do this once a month as we can't really afford to go out for dinner and love entertaining.

Our last one had mozzarella and pesto tarts to start, sticky glazed ribs with potatoes and veggies for main and gooseberry fool for pudding and then lots of wine and good music and conversation.