3 course meal without buying anything

RedCola

I haven't been on here for a while, and have a couple of threads I need to get back to. However, just wanted to post this scenario quickly, and see if anyone can advise? My husband & I are having friends over for dinner Saturday & I'm not sure what to cook. Don't really have the money to spend on buying food in. I do have a lot already, just no idea on what to make with any of it. I will need to feed their toddler & my 12yr old something (I have 2 little ones, though they are away for Easter) And then a 3 course meal for us 4 adults. Can anyone help? Maybe if I post the main foods we have?

FairyPrincessk

Yep--post a list of your food and let us see what we can come up with! Let us know if there are any other requirements (i.e. allergies, vegetarians etc).

good_advice

Good morning
Cheep as chips 3 course dinner would start with soup and end with ice cream.
Easter weekend so it will be give out the chocolate eggs.
A saturday main meal you will have to decide = rice,pasta or potatoes and go from there.

Easter Sunday we are having roast Lamb.
Saturday we are having Gammon.
What ever you cook I should think people should be thankful.

The last meal I cooked for other people that always start - they could do better, everything always homemade....
I was ready! Said it was food on the table = toad in the hole and fresh steamed veg.
I said if they don't like it they should have cooked instead of me.
No One wanted to be the cook.
They like to sit and pick over my offerings. Told them, my food fills empty tums. I don't need fancy keep hots and veg dishes on the table.

Someone even said about saying grace?

clarryd

Starters as said before soup, you cant go wrong with soup, Heron Food 4 cans chicken, tomato soup for £1.

Lunch: a chicken, go to Aldi and pick up the big one, they feed 4-6 people/ or a pork joint which Aldi have for £2.99 (this is the one seal packed). You may be able to buy both and if there are any left over meat you could have it again on Easter Monday with maybe a sauce and rice, so this is working great as 2 meals dealt with instead of just one. Get your veg their also, as they are very reasonable priced, maris piper spuds, do your own roast potatoes.

Pudding: a few tins of fruit and have a old fashioned fruit cocktail, with squirty cream or fresh cream (tend to get more from a squirty can).

Hope this helps.

ash28

RedCola wrote: »

I haven't been on here for a while, and have a couple of threads I need to get back to. However, just wanted to post this scenario quickly, and see if anyone can advise? My husband & I are having friends over for dinner Saturday & I'm not sure what to cook. Don't really have the money to spend on buying food in. I do have a lot already, just no idea on what to make with any of it. I will need to feed their toddler & my 12yr old something (I have 2 little ones, though they are away for Easter) And then a 3 course meal for us 4 adults. Can anyone help? Maybe if I post the main foods we have?

Yes, post a list of what you have......I often can't think of things to make with what I have in.....and hopefully people will come up with ideas for a 3 course meal for 4 adults and something for the children.

Butterfly_Brain

I agree post a list and we will see what we can come up with.

A Roast dinner always goes down well as does ice cream or a sponge pudding for desert, I do a posh magic chocolate pudding that involves soaking raisins in a little rum overnight and it is lush with a dollop of whipped cream or ice cream.

Recipe is as follows:

serves four

4oz/100g SR flour
2tbsps cocoa powder
4oz/100g caster sugar (i use brown sugar because it makes it darker)
½ tsp vanilla extract (leave out if you are doing the rum version)
1heaped tsp baking powder
2 eggs lightly beaten
1-2 tbspns milk

For the sauce

4oz/100g soft brown sugar
2 tbsps cocoa powder
1 pint/ 600ml of boiling water.

If you do the adult version

4oz/100 g Raisins
3 Tbspns Rum preferably dark
Which you soak overnight.

Heat Oven to 190c/170 fan/gas 5

Lightly grease a 2½ pint/ 1.5 L fairly deep oven dish.

Sift flour into a bowl with the cocoa powder and baking powder and set aside

Beat butter and sugar together until creamy,then beat the vanilla and add the eggs a little at a time adding a few tbsp after the last few additions of the egg.

Fold in the flour and then add a few tbsps of milk to make it a nice dropping consistency.

If you are using the rum soaked raisins add them in last because you may not need to add the milk.

Spoon into the greased dish and level off

To make the sauce Mix together the brown sugar and cocoa powder then gradually stir in the water beating well to prevent any lumps.

Pour the sauce over the sponge..................Don't panic it will look awful at this stage

put in the oven for 35 to 40 mins until the sauce has sunk to the bottom and the sponge springs back.

Try not to overcook it because you will not have any sauce left if you do.

RedCola

*Ok, meat wise... Chicken legs (2 large)
Loin lamb chops (5)
Pork loin steaks (3)
Rump steak (2 large)
Pork chops (5 large)
Pork loin steaks (2)
Whole chicken
Pork joint
Sweet chilli & mango sausages
Pork & sage sausages

Otherwise...
Practically every frozen veg available
Sure their is pastry in the deep depths of freezer
Soup mixes

In my cupboard I have chopped toms, purees, variety of herbs & spices, flours, pastas, egg noodles, lasagne sheets, oils, flavourings (mustard powder/ soy sauce/ Worchester sauce/ vinegars etc)

JIL

A home made nandos?
The whole chicken jointed and made into piri piri chicken. The pork chops cooked in a bbq sauce. make some mexican rice, half a jacket baked middle scooped out, mashed with cheese and onion put back into jackets and baked again, corn on the cobs/frozen sweetcorn a green salad.

Starters, could be nachos, nibbles, olives, dessert eton mess?

Tapas? make the sausages into meatballs in a tomato sauce. a spanish omelette, spicy fried rice, spicy chicken, served with some olives and salad and bread.

a roast dinner using the chicken and the pork joint to stretch it, you could use the sausages skinned and mixed with some breadcrumbs and onion for a fancy stuffing.

you could make an apple pie, with the pastry or use it to make a starter with some roasted veg and topped with a little grated cheese.

a buffet? with cold meat and joint the chicken and the chicken legs, marinade or breadcrumb coatings. You could do sausage rolls with pastry and sausages,
can some veg make a pasta salad or a rice salad.

Spendless

Have you got any soy sauce and garlic in? We make this a lot in my family, we call them 'Mike's Chops' because they were 'invented' by hubby's Uncle Mike.

Marinade the pork chops/loins by pouring soy sauce all over one side and then flipping the pork over to coat the other side. Then pour garlic on. I use granules, but I've used garlic salt before and I can't see why fresh gsrlic wouldn't work. Sprinkle black pepper over (you can omit if you don't have any) Leave the longer the better. Overnight is brilliant but I've made them shortly after marinading.

Cook, it comes out with a lovely savoury taste to them.

Or do you have a slow cooker, bbq sauce and onions? If so bbq pulled pork. Put a layer of sliced onions on bottom of sc. Put pork joint in. Pour enough bbq sauce over to coat the joint but not submerge it. Leave to cook. When ready take joint out and 'pull' it. Put the meat back in to mix with the juices and sauce. Serve.

MandM90

I'd keep it simple.

Homemade soup from frozen veg (if you tell us which veg you have im sure someone could help)

Roast chicken, potatoes and veg

Crumble/pie and custard

You could wrap some 1/2 sausages in pastry for a cute finger food.

Or use the pork and noodles to make a Chinese dish (bbc good food has loads of reviewed recipes)

Check your cookbooks too!

FairyPrincessk

For starters you could do a tomato soup with the tinned tomatoes, a veg soup as mentioned above, or cook your chicken legs, mould your pastry into small cups and blind bake, shred the chicken and mix up either with mayo or make up a coronation chicken and stuff into the pastry cups for vol au vents. Another option is to make bread with some of your flour, and use some tinned tomatoes and herbs to make a kind of bruschetta.

Not sure if you have any spuds or not, one option might be to marinate the lamb chops in worcester sauce with a small splash of soya sauce. Add in two crushed cloves of garlic and dried rosemary and allow chops to marinate for 30 mins. Cook the chops in the marinade in the oven. I'd serve with mash and cook the sage sausages for the children who could then also eat mash.


Alternatively, you could cook the chicken and make a chicken and leek pie with frozen leeks if you have them. If not you can get them for 39p for 500gr. at Ald! right now. Shred some of the cooked chicken, cook sliced leeks in a bit of butter and then make a white sauce. Season with a pinch or nutmeg, or instead if you have bacon you can crumble that in. Top with pastry and bake.

Another option is to cook and shred some of your pork and use the egg noodles and veg to make a pork stir fry.

You could also do toad in the hole if you have eggs, a roast chicken dinner as someone else has suggested.

For pudding cakes, brownies, if you have any fruit you could do a crumble, or have a go at making speculoos and serve with coffee or cocoa for the children.