Feeding the 500 over Easter - ideas please

[sweetheart]

Well ok so 500 is a bit of an exaggeration! We have 11 for dinner on good Friday, 10 for dinner on Easter Sunday and 6 for dinner on Easter Monday. Easter Sunday will of course be a lamb roast but I'm struggling for ideas for the other 2 meals.

We had 2 big bashes this weekend where we knocked up chilli, curry, lasagna and pizza's so looking to do something else.

Anything minimum effort maximum wow factor?

[EdithWeston]

Loaves and fishes?

Seriously, fish on Good Friday is traditional for many, so how about a salmon? Perhaps en croute.

[TondelayaDellaVentamiglia]

Well edith already did the joke!!

I'd do a massive fish pie for Good Friday....biggest roasting tin that will fit in your oven...put spinach in the bottom, uncooked fish in generous chunks on top. Prawns also and hard boiled eggs if you like (I do!) Make a super thick white sauce....add parsley if you like it and a good slug of double cream, let that cool before you pour it over the fish and then smother the lot in buttery mash

It wants at least 45 mins in the oven ( hot) and serve when it is toasty and golden with a green salad or crusty bread.

[sweetheart]

Thanks for the idea but I don't think most of the guests would like fish.

[janethegirl2]

Do the fish pie and a cottage/ shepherds pie and serve with green veg. People then have a choice

[annandale]

Toad in the hole for Easter Monday

Soup, salad and nice bread and cheese for good Friday? Buy loads of tomato soup for kids and fussy eaters, make a curried parsnip or mushroom soup yourself. Put out lots of separate salad ingredients and dressing and let them choose their own.

[momb]

If your guests are traditionalists presumably they won't want to eat meat on Good Friday even if they don't like fish......Veggie Mexican feast? chilli, fajitas, nachos, quesadillas, burritos etc?

[annandale]

Fish pie and cottage pie sounds like a spectacular amount of work to me, though as long as someone else does the washing up it might not be too bad.

[sweetheart]

Nope it doesn't need to be traditional - I think some of my guests would spontaneously combust if I told them we were having a religiously authentic meal to be honest so any meat ideas are fine.

[TondelayaDellaVentamiglia]

nonfisheatingfussarses!! ...fish pie my way is no fuss....other than mashing the tatties.

some sort of casseroley taginey one pot chicken effort with a pile of couscous then

or beefy beerish affair with baked potatoes, or dauphinois if you can be arsed with all the slicing.

What about sausage and mash....really lovely sausages and a rich onion gravy?

[janethegirl2]

Fish pie and cottage pie are easy with not very much mess other than prepping and mashing the potatoes. And much of the prep can be done a couple of days before.

Now beef wellington is a pain to do, although very nice.

[ArmfulOfRoses]

One of the easiest dinners I do is to chuck gammon and jacket potatoes in the oven.
Massive bowls of salad/coleslaw/etc on the table for people to help themselves.