Nice People 13: Nice Save

Generali

Spirit wrote: »

Tomorrow evening DD is having friends round to celebrate her birthday on Sunday.As I am not in full catering mode food for 20 people is sausages and mash. Three types of mash, plain, cheese, mustard. I will make onion gravy, mushy peas and beans to accompany. Any suggestions on how to improve these? There will be Ketchup and HM bread.

Puddings are M&S and for the first time she has a shop bought Birthday cake.

I am assured no one is veggie, and I know that there are no faith /cultural based diets to consider.

AS well as making baked beans more appealing what else is needed to make bangers and mash seem like a party supper?

OH is shooting tomorrow, he is potato peeling tonight, DD and Bf will get house ready tomorrow. I am management.

Sounds perfect to me.

TBH I'd stick with plain mash as I always feel that putting in 'just one more thing' makes the cook feel they're doing something posh rather than it actually adding to the enjoyment of the guests.

I make quite a nice onion gravy. For 20 I'd do about 6-8 medium red onions, halved and each half cut into 4 thick slices. Coat in oil and flour and bake in the oven for 20-30 mins until they start to catch on the edges and the flour is mostly brown.

Then bung into a pan. Add a bottle of quaffing red wine and a couple of stock cubes (assuming there isn't a nice bit of HM lurking in the freezer). Balance the seasoning and add water to get it to the right quantity.

I'd just do plain steamed green veg on the side. The mash and sausages are pretty rich and don't need the other stuff.

Just some thoughts and I hope not written in judgmental style. You know your guests far better than I for a start off and know what they'll enjoy.

By 'eck we had some good food in the West Cundry. Roast pork belly on 29th with yorkies, roasties and plenty of veg. I was put on gravy duty and I think did quite a decent job. Meal was for FiL's birthday of mein host.

Then NYE. We pulled out the big guns. Sika venison belly casserole with porcini and a wine and brandy sauce. Had a very, very good bottle of claret as a enlivener as we cooked (actually a properly good glass of wine that: an 18 year old wine that had been stored in a good cellar that was drinking perfectly) and then plenty of 'House Red' with the dinner.

A plate of cheese I bought from the market in France on the way over for afters. Bottle of Verve at midnight and a load of Cava to see us through the wee small hours as we listened to 'The Pope Song' and 'Prejudice' (most definitely NSFW but very good) by Tim Minchin. Then, rather surprisingly, mate went to bed and I ended up sitting up with his OH until 4:30am discussing this and that in a very pleasant way.

PasturesNew

Spirit wrote: »

... sausages and mash. Three types of mash, plain, cheese, mustard. I will make onion gravy, mushy peas and beans to accompany. Any suggestions on how to improve these? There will be Ketchup and HM bread.

Puddings are M&S and for the first time she has a shop bought Birthday cake.

I am assured no one is veggie, and I know that there are no faith /cultural based diets to consider.

AS well as making baked beans more appealing what else is needed to make bangers and mash seem like a party supper?

OH is shooting tomorrow, he is potato peeling tonight, DD and Bf will get house ready tomorrow. I am management.

Great/proper party food going on there! Glad you've not opted for some poncy catered affair, or a blank cheque to a poncy chain restaurant.

The only comment I can make is that I'd consider mushy peas a little unusual, with regular frozen peas being more "normal" with bangers and mash.

Nikkster

Yorkie1 wrote: »

I'm a bit gutted.

You can do it Yorkie :beer:
Hope you've managed to find some inspiration

Yorkie1

Generali wrote: »

FWIW, I have a Breville slow cooker and I have had no problems with it. It works first time every time.

Just checked, and mine's a Breville too - not that model, as mine's got Auto (starts on high then switches to low after a certain amount of cooking). It cooks OK but I find that it does cook hotter than a previous slow cooker - the steam makes the lid bubble up and down a little, so the condensed water can drip down into the cavity where the pot is. Perfectly safe but annoying.

Crockpot are a well-known make too.

Again with a slow cooker, there's just so little to go wrong and very little stress put on the components. If you get a decent one it should outlast you as long as you don't drop the lid or bowl.

That's true - in reality there's probably not a lot between all 4 that you've identified.

Just a thought PN. You are on a very tight budget. Thought about a pressure cooker instead...?

:eek: They scare me rigid too!!

Nikkster wrote: »

You can do it Yorkie :beer:
Hope you've managed to find some inspiration

Ta - I may have a Plan C but will need to wait until I go back to work on Monday to decide; also to find out how much source material I can adapt so I don't fall foul of the plagiarism rules ...

I'm putting it on hold for the weekend as I'm off to the panto tomorrow :j

Doozergirl

Spirit wrote: »

Tomorrow evening DD is having friends round to celebrate her birthday on Sunday.As I am not in full catering mode food for 20 people is sausages and mash. Three types of mash, plain, cheese, mustard. I will make onion gravy, mushy peas and beans to accompany. Any suggestions on how to improve these? There will be Ketchup and HM bread.

Puddings are M&S and for the first time she has a shop bought Birthday cake.

I am assured no one is veggie, and I know that there are no faith /cultural based diets to consider.

AS well as making baked beans more appealing what else is needed to make bangers and mash seem like a party supper?

OH is shooting tomorrow, he is potato peeling tonight, DD and Bf will get house ready tomorrow. I am management.

It sounds fab already and a perfectly better than good party supper.

You already have an onion gravy and I don't think anything needs changing but Nigella has a recipe in How To Eat that is very good, for red wine, cumin and onion gravy. Simple but a bit posh.

No direct link, but someone's quoted it.
http://boards.fool.co.uk/nigella-has-a-lovely-recipe-for-red-wine-cumin-7399829.aspx

michaels

I think the Argos offer is 3 days only but thanks for the thought (I am also anti apple on principle)

We sometimes do a BBQ style sauce/gravy with bangers and mash mostly based on fried onion and ketchup. Would def do normal peas not mushy ones.

PN I assume you would never go out and leave the slow cooker on so perhaps you should cook as we do using a nonstick lidded saute pan on the hob, brown first, pour of xs oil and stock and barely simmer for an hour or more. Seems a shame not to get frost free if you are getting new, we are really missing the ice maker here as well. I was surprised at your nye revelations as I would have thought your specialness would rule out such behaviour.

DD2 is now much better after a little wobble when she had a major allergic reaction to the antibiotic which is great. Not so great is that It appears I am now allergic to sunlight :eek:

zagubov

I'm very used to pressure cookers. Used to work with them all the time in my laboratoire.
They'll destroy a lot of the vitamins if you leave them on too long. And turn anything into stew, even if you didn't mean to.

I'd go along with those that say a frost-free FF is worth the extra money. We've is been burned by a dud FF before. From the other thread I gather there's no way white goods should be failing in under five-six years and ten years is more reasonable nowadays.

silvercar

PN wrote:

One of the problems with cooking is you go into this separate room to cook, for one ... and you're standing, bored, in a room waiting for it.... something that's depressing and isolating. The SC will relieve me of the fear of leaving something unattended on the hob or in the oven, and alleviate me of the boredom of standing in a separate room for 30-40 minutes stirring/checking/poking stuff, so will make food more achievable.

You need a radio and small TV in your kitchen.

PasturesNew

silvercar wrote: »

You need a radio and small TV in your kitchen.

And a table and chairs

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

DQWD

Another fruitless week of car shopping for the big trip idea. Hey ho....

On a positive note the choice of vehicle is well and truly narrowed down to a Toyota. Only quandary now is whether to go with an older 100 series land cruiser or a much newer crew cab hilux. Decisions decisions.....

Santa was very kind. An Alessi Moka pot espresso maker and kelly kettle. Ideal for civilised travelling. Amazing bits of kit. Although I suspect actually using either one would give PN a heart attack! The pressurised vessel in the Moka pot even makes me a little nervous.....:)

Route planning is progressing, well, it would be progressing more if the world would just bloomin calm down a bit!!! Looks like a 3 week shakedown trip to Morocco/Western Sahara/Mauritania (and maybe even Senegal if we're lucky) may be on the cards in the next year or so..... and then a departure for the big one 6-9 months later. With the usual caveats around finances, jobs, health, visas, etc....