Uni students eating me out of house and home

threepenny_bit

no.1swimmum said:

today we are having Sweet Potato and pepper enchilada's with salad and coleslaw - quite filling and reasonable price, I use this recipe https://realfood.tesco.com/recipes/sweet-potato-and-pepper-enchiladas.html, I normally cook a double batch and then theres some for lunch the next day or for DH to take to work.  

Thanks for this - printed the recipe out and will be trying it

Spendless

Ok, hit the first obstacle.

I usually do prawn cocktail for a starter for Christmas day dinner, except for vegetarian DD, who I suggested breaded mushrooms for.

Housemate1 is allergic to fish including prawns and dislikes mushrooms. She's offerred to go without but I wouldn't find that fair. I remember a Christmas dinner at my IL's when pregnant and unable to eat shell fish. I got the prawn cocktail without the prawns,yes just lettuce with the seafood sauce and always thought it would have been nice if I'd been catered for with an alternative.

Any  suggestions? DD is suggesting  tomato soup, by which she means Heinz!  I do like HM veg soup but my efforts are hit and miss. Plus it can be messy and filling prior to a full dinner. Ideally I'd like something simple, either cold and can be prepared in advance or just a bung in the oven and heat up. I'd also like it to be vegetarian to suit DD too. Happy to just buy something ready done.

joedenise

Was going to suggest melon and parma ham and then thought you probably want to do something for DD and Housemate1.  So how about baked camembert?  Very easy to do as you just bake them in the bottom of the box, can be served with something like pepper sticks to dip.

Or for a cold starter, could do hummus with pita strips or crusty bread.  I make my own hummus using a recipe by Tori Avey (www.toriavey.com) but could easily buy some.

Bogof_OAP

Hard boiled eggs halved in the cocktail salad.

C_J

I’ve just been thinking about this, but it’s interesting how many of my go-to Christmas starters involve seafood!

How about a large grazing platter which everyone can share? Then you could have smoked salmon, salmon mousse and prawns for those who like seafood, then maybe some prosciutto or other sliced meats, olives, sundries tomatoes, tiny pickles, pate etc with warm crusty bread. I sometimes make tiny scotch eggs using quails eggs too.

I serve a soup course (this year it’s spiced cauliflower cream soup) followed by a starter (this year it’s pan fried scallops with a plum sauce and dashi  gel) so it’s no wonder everyone’s asleep by the time the main course has finished at 4pm!!

annieb64

We've  given up starters on Christmas  Day. Usually we just have some interesting  nibbles with pre-lunch drinks-really nice olives, blinis with smoked salmon, posh crisps. 
I struggle  to eat three courses  these days.

Spendless

Thanks everyone. I've since taken a phone call from DS who says that his girlfriend has never had a starter in her life before her Christmas dinner. Think I might have overwhelmed her. DS suggested I gave her 'the same random stuff his sister eats'  So I think I'll go with the suggestion of a platter, that she can nibble at or not. 

joedenise

Glad you've made a decision.  Might be worth doing the platter for everyone rather than DD and Houseguest1, then it can be a bit of everything - obviously you'll need more than one platter as the seafood will need to be away from anything vegetarian!

Spendless

ahhh yes, I meant for everyone. On 2 seperate plates to keep the veggie stuff seperate. I intend doing a buffet Xmas eve anyway, so shouldn't be hard to pick up extra items for xmas day starters.

VJsmum

We have 3 courses on christmas day but the starter is lunch, dinner is usually served around 5 and pud around 8 with cheese after for anyone who wants it.  Our starter is smoked salmon - but DS has heinz tomato soup cos that's what he likes.  You could do a tricolore / caprese salad - tomato, mozarella and avocado.  But couldn't housemate 1 also have the breaded mushrooms?  Have i missed something?

Christmas eve we used to have a gammon served with pickles and bread - then the leftovers of that and christmas day meat for the traditional boxing day meal.  

It's an amazing thing you are doing for them all.