PUtting on a "spread" on a budget

kittycat204

Jennie wrote: »

I am so far thinking quiches, pigs in blankets, mini meatballs, coronation chicken, a couple of home made breads, garlic mayo, a big salad, something to do with smoked salmon, banoffee, a chocolate ganache tart (if I can ever sort out the pastry) and a strawberry cheesecake. I am cooking a turkey to go with sliced cold meats and I need some kind of sauces to go with them, aside from cranberry.

It all sounds great. The only thing I wanted to add was, don't underestimate salad side dishes.
Potato salad
Roasted red pepper and tomato cous cous.
Pasta salads.
Beetroot and walnut salad.
I love roasted butternut squash with a vinaigrette.
Mozzarella, basil and tomato salad.
Bulgar wheat salad with loads of herbs and diced salad items.
Pear and blue cheese on rocket.
Rice salad.

I could go on forever but I'll stop. The colours and flavours are an excellent addition to any table. Best of all they are relatively cheap and can be made in advance.

carefullycautious

Make a large batch of rice add peanuts,mandarin orange segments feta cheese.

There are so many variations you could use.

Kedgeree also goes a long way.

Wish I was near you I would love to help out

gibson123

I would avoid lots of "bitty foods" if you are having to make these from scratch rather than pop down your local iceland. Do you have access to lots of lovely fish and seafood, if you do, you could do a lovely British style dressed whole salmon, served with lemon baskets, flavoured mayonnaise (suggest dill, tarragon, marie-rose and lemon) filled with the local equivalent of caviar and blinis. Do another platter with various smoked and pickled fish e.g. rollmops and seafood.

Do your turkey and serve with cranberry, loganberry and other berry preserves. Do a number of big bowls of salad (potato, coleslaw, sauerkraut, rice, pasta) and baskets of assorted breads, that should be a good enough mix.

Uniscots97

Jennie wrote: »

I am cooking a turkey to go with sliced cold meats and I need some kind of sauces to go with them, aside from cranberry.



unixgirluk - I had forgotten dipped fruit. Great idea! I am struggling to get the toffee to set for banoffee as the condensed milk seems a bit different. Mini ones sound great!

sauces to go with turkey? mustard, barbecue, mayonnaise, thousand island, sour cream & chive (all of these can be used for other things on the table)


As for the caramel? I have problems with condensed milk going to caramel too, I cheat I use caramel sauce meant for ice cream etc. Can you get that?

meritaten

you can buy condensed milk already caramilised. little bit more expensive - but worth it!

nuatha

Jennie wrote: »

nuatha - glad to hear someone else suffers from verbal malfunctions! I am not sure what was on the list to be honest but it would be "typisk Norsk" food (typically Norwegian). Mother in law is doing a bit of that but it's not something I know how to do. I can cook quite well but I am struggling a bit with shortcrust pastry (I thought a couple of different quiches would be good). My pastry is coming out impossibly short.

I am so far thinking quiches, pigs in blankets, mini meatballs, coronation chicken, a couple of home made breads, garlic mayo, a big salad, something to do with smoked salmon, banoffee, a chocolate ganache tart (if I can ever sort out the pastry) and a strawberry cheesecake. I am cooking a turkey to go with sliced cold meats and I need some kind of sauces to go with them, aside from cranberry.

Fairly random thoughts in response, I've tried to avoid duplicating some of the excellent suggestions already made. Happy to sort out recipes for anything that appeals.


Badminton Chicken, Mary Berry's variant on Coronation Chicken, prepared 24 hours in advance (its far better for this)
Hot Vol au vents, If you have access to frozen puff pastry vol au vent cases, these can be baked 24-48 hours before, with a cheese and ham and or prawn in sauce filling made the day before, assembled then finished in the oven for 20-25 mins on the day.

Cheese and almond biscuits - made 48 hours before.
Cheese Aigrettes - cheese choux pastry, make 48 hours before and warm through on the day (12 minutes)

Stuffed Cherry Tomatoes - Prep the tomatoes the day before, prep filling the day before, pipe the filling into the toms on the morning.

If you've access to small tart moulds you could do individual versions of your chocolate ganache tart - I do them at 1 inch square, with a layer of raspberry jam under the ganache and topped with a single fresh raspberry.

Parmasesan Crisps


Sauces: Bread Sauce, Apple Sauce

Meatballs could be flattened and served as mini beef burgers (or sliders to use the current buzzword), ideally in mini breadbuns. The same buns would make two bite pulled pork sandwiches with the excellent recipe from SDG31000 serve with coleslaw.

If you have access to filo pastry, mincemeat moneybags, cheese parcels even samosas.

Refrigerator cheesecakes could be prepped up to 48 hours in advance and kept in the fridge, or further ahead and frozen.

Caprese skewers (caprese salad on a stick, cherry tomato, mozzarella pearls fresh basil leaves)

Basic pastry recipe - 225g plain flour, 50g white fat (trex or lard) 50g butter, about 2 tablespoons cold water.

HTH

craigywv

some great ideas here!!!

nuatha

Additional thoughts:

A touch of British Christmas would be sweet mince pies. This recipe is an excellent sweet pastry recipe. I bake them in a mini muffin tin, which produces elegant bite size pies. I've also replaced the egg white and water with reduced orange juice and adding orange zest and filling them with lemon syllabub (or curd).

Originally Posted by Jennie
nuatha - glad to hear someone else suffers from verbal malfunctions!

Opening my mouth in similar circumstances, "you've been quoted how much?" led me to catering a friends wedding (and I'll be catering mine next year).
I've found the biggest problems are working out quantities to serve and planning a menu that can be prepped in advance as far as possible, then planning a production schedule which tells you what you need to buy and prepare each day in the run up to the event. Then trying to work in advance of that if at all possible.
The general guideline is 6 items per person per hour for the first two hours, 4 items each for the next two, 3 each per hour after that. Assuming a noon start, that's 5 hours so, 23 items per person or around 360 individual servings.

A couple of URLs that might be useful:
English translations of Norwegian recipes
Suggestions from a discussion
HTH

[Deleted User]

Can't really think of anything to add to what has already been suggested, but if you're worried about your pastry buy some frozen or fresh pre-made from the supermarket if it is available.

It's very inexpensive when compared to the time you could spend making it from scratch, which will give you more time to concentrate on other things, and the ones I've tried here (UK) have been excellent.

meg72

Great ideas but have to admit that my absolute favourite nibble is cheese and pineapple on cocktail stick, could happily munch these all night. I like to reassemble the pineapple casing and use for decoration.
Although if really pushed for time just use a whole pineapple for decoration and use canned on the sticks.