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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think feeding 40 people for £50 is more than possible

361 replies

user1486841477 · 12/02/2017 00:00

I was planning to make a chilli con carne, curry, pulled pork, meatball pasta, carbonara in large pots.

Add sides of rice, garlic bread, potatoes, chips, pizza.

Snacks of crisps, nuts, quiche, cocktail cheese and pineapple, cruidetes with dip,

Large homemade cake

Different desserts.

My mum thinks this doesn't sound that interesting and I should be doing fancy canapés etc.

Caterers all wants £6 a head which I can't afford and don't need to ask I'm a good cook.

Am I being too ambitious?

What would you do to feed 40 people on £50?

OP posts:
ReapAndSow · 12/02/2017 00:52

I would make it much simpler - two main dishes plus a simple salad and 1 dessert plus cake.

Plus a few snacks.

I'd chose a curry and a pasta dish.

oprahfan · 12/02/2017 00:54

Was going to say....minced meat of any kind is good for the dishes you've specified. So for the chilli & meatballs,absolutely. Meatballs are great with a mix of pork & beef. Curry...if chicken...thighs are great (boneless if you can.) pulled pork...excellent choice as shoulder is one of the cheapest but flavorful cuts.
You don't have to use pancetta for carbonara,many places do bacon pieces. Grana Padano cheaper than Parmesan.
A large sweetheart cabbage (or two) should be £1 and a bag of carrots less for plenty of coleslaw.
I get great fresh herbs for 5-10pence reduced at most supermarkets.
Lemon posset a cheap dessert,so are meringues made with liquid egg white at £2.80 for a litre. You could make 60 pavlova no bother! Hoummus is great for crudités too. Can't wait to hear what you'll do .

GimmeeMoore · 12/02/2017 00:54

Your menu looks nice,its will be a nice spread.not over priced tat either

Frazzled74 · 12/02/2017 00:58

I would do the chilli, the pulled pork, lots of bread and rice/salad. I wouldn't bother with puddings etc.

Tigger1986 · 12/02/2017 01:06

Definitely doable!

OH plays Rugby and volunteered me a couple of years ago to do the food (when they have home games the home side provides after match food) I don't mind doing it as it's not a great deal of effort and get to socialise with the 'WAGS' after.

Usually pay me 50 quid but if it's a sponsored game I get 80-90. Today was sponsored, so I did a big chilli, with rice, wedges, crisps, garlic bread, sausage rolls, spring rolls, samosas, and chicken wings.
(Non sponsored I would do the first four things)

Iceland - 5 percent fat frozen mince (so not horrible and greasy), onions, peppers, chillis, garlic, kidney beans, sweetcorn, chopped tomatoes (and spices etc but I already had these) plus all the extra bits came to less than 50 quid.

Feeds 2 teams of hungry rugby lads, the sponsors, and all the coaches/managers/general hangers on. You could change the side bits to pasta/salad etc if you wanted and wouldn't cost any more.

I change it up and have done pulled pork, chicken curry, sausage casserole etc and I always make a few quid on what they give me. Aldi is good for cheaper meat if you can't get to an Iceland.

Definitely do it yourself if you can, the fella up the club who pays me used to use a caterer and he said it was rubbish compared in terms of both quantity and quality, I'm not a chef :)

oprahfan · 12/02/2017 01:10

Good work Tigger! Aldi & Iceland have great stuff TBHStar

Lynnm63 · 12/02/2017 01:29

The menu sounds fine. I'd have thought £50 was pushing it, maybe nearer to £75 but if you've costed it you must be right.
I've never heard of the M&S outlets where you can get wonky cakes. Anyone know where they're based. I'd like some cheap M&S food.

sycamore54321 · 12/02/2017 01:43

@Tigger your post sounds like the women get to cook but not to eat? Say it ain't so?

OP, better to do fewer choices I think. And do you have enough pots/ cooker space ?

YippieKayakOtherBuckets · 12/02/2017 02:10

What's the occasion? If it's a buffet you must be very careful with the rice.

YippieKayakOtherBuckets · 12/02/2017 02:12

sycamore I can't speak for Tigger's club but BIL plays semi-professionally and at his club it's only the players who have food provided for them after the match. Often the visiting side have a long journey home and are starving.

Klaphat · 12/02/2017 02:42

the fella up the club who pays me used to use a caterer and he said it was rubbish compared in terms of both quantity and quality

...does he pay you for the time you spend, though? Or do you just get what you can save from the money given for the food?

Pallisers · 12/02/2017 02:55

I think you certainly could do it. You will have to use really bargain ingredients which wouldn't bother me much except for the meat. But I did eat my share of bottom of the range bargain meat in my day - for mince, it makes no difference to the taste, it is only an ethical thing about the animals.

I think you have a lot of carbs/meat. It would be nice if you could have a big green salad or a big dish of peas or something to add something green. I also would probably drop the carbonara - hard to do in advance.

Do you have any vegetarians? If so you'll need some hot thing for them - bearing in mind everyone else will eat it too, it should probably be the biggest thing.

I think your mum is wrong by the way. A lot of people would love to have a hearty dinner type meal rather than fancy canapes.

If it was me, I'd have the cake be the dessert and would do a big fruit salad as well - nothing else.

123MothergotafleA · 12/02/2017 03:14

Sounds like the miracle of the loaves and fishes to me.
Sorry, 40£ would barely feed ten people in my opinion, unless we're talking about skimpy rations.
Why be so mean about it?
Go on, push the boat out and give them a proper feed. You don't want them grumbling with hunger as they leave your party.

megletthesecond · 12/02/2017 04:37

There doesn't appear to be anything for vegetarians?

MagicChicken · 12/02/2017 04:38

So you want to feed 40 people a variety of meat based meals with sides and desserts and a homemade cake for little more than £1 a head? I don't think there's a hope in hell. And I''ll be blunt - unless you are a professional caterer with a full freezer and a shedload of store cupboard ingredients already to hand, and you can source the fresh stuff really cheaply at wholesale prices I'm not sure it's going to be very nice. Sorry.

How do you 'bulk out' pulled pork, meatballs, carbonara etc with veg? Chilli and curry maybe but not the other things. It's going to look like you couldn't afford the meat to make them properly and skimped on it.

What if you have loads of people feeling shortchanged because they've got some claggy congealed carbonara full of bits of random veg that shouldn't be in a carbonara when they wanted the chilli cone carne but there wasn't enough? How are you going to manage to cook decent hot chips and garlic bread, spaghetti, rice and homemade pizza all at the same time and keep them hot?

Apart from anything else, you have given yourself a ridiculous amount of work. The pizza, the carbonara, the chips and the garlic bread are going to need last minute cooking or the carbonara will go like glue and the pizza and chips won't be hot/fresh. By picking so many things that are cheap you are (imho) biting off more than you can chew work wise.

Simplify things. I would forget the pulled pork for a start - that won't go very far unless you stand over people and ration it. And the pasta dishes - they will be really hard to keep from going all congealed. I think you should focus on making fewer dishes, pick ones that can carry more veg without looking dodgy . I'd do something like this:

one medium heat chicken curry that will appeal to everyone (assuming they like curry at all)

one vegetable curry full of cheap and filling stuff like potatoes, carrots, peas, cauliflower etc,

And/or one lentil dal.

A huge pot of plain or pilau rice using a rice cooker

Perhaps some samosas or pakoras (can be made very cheaply in advance, fried off and then reheated in the oven.)

Some poppadums (buy the raw/dried ones very cheaply from Asian grocers, and fry them yourself in advance., not the expensive ready to eat ones.) A couple of dishes of chutneys and raitas.

Then for children and/or anyone who might hate curries, (I'd find out in advance so you don't buy and cook anything unnecessarily) I'd do baked potatoes and offer some simple toppings like tuna sweetcorn mayo, or cheese and beans.

Or:

Make in advance several quiches/pies with homemade pastry to keep the cost down. A couple of cheese and bacon ones, a salmon and broccoli one, a roasted mediterranean veg one, a couple of chicken and mushroom ones. Warm them through and do a range of simple salads using cheap ingredients; pasta salad, coleslaw, cold bean salad, boiled new potatoes in herb butter (frees up the oven to warm the quiches.) Maybe serve a tray of hot sausages for quiche dodgers and children.

Or a giant shepherd's pie and a giant vegetable lasagne and a big fish pie, all prepped well in advance and warmed through in the oven as needed, served with some frozen peas and baked beans. That might be doable on budget.

Ordo JUST chilli and rice with JUST a big lasagne and one simple type of salad and some garlic bread.

Or do the pulled pork for everyone, but to make sure you have enough to go around, portion it up and serve it already placed into floury baps with apple sauce, maybe do some sausages for the kids, some homemade coleslaw and a potato salad.

I think if you have even the tiniest hope of keeping to a small budget without compromising hugely on quality then you really need to simplify it MASSIVELY. And I quite often see pork shoulder joints reduced in Morrisons so you could keep looking and bunging them in the freezer until needed.

Likewise with the desserts. If you can buy cheap M&S cakes for a £1 a bag then perhaps just stick to those.

I still don't think you can do even the things I have suggested for less than about a hundred and fifty quid

MagicChicken · 12/02/2017 05:01

I've just read all this again because I am amazed that some people think you can do it.

I was planning to make a chilli con carne, curry, pulled pork, meatball pasta, carbonara in large pots.

Add sides of rice, garlic bread, potatoes, chips, pizza.

Snacks of crisps, nuts, quiche, cocktail cheese and pineapple, cruidetes with dip.

Large homemade cake

Different desserts.

I go to the marks and Spencer's seconds factory shop in Oldham so for £1 I can get a massive bag of cakes with barely anything wrong with them except maybe slightly wonky chocolate decoration.

They have birthday cakes for no more than £5.

I will also make some cheap desserts.

So dessert will only be a few pounds.

The pizza will cost no more than £3 for two massive ones as I make everything from scratch

So it looks as though you've spend at least £15 to £20 on pizza and about four different sorts of cake and desserts before you've even started on everything else, so that leaves £35 tops. Then there's your crisps, dips and nuts, NUTS! Have you seen the price of nuts?.......your cheese and pineapple sticks......that brings you down to about 20 quid IF YOU ARE LUCKY.

Am I being too ambitious? Soooo badly I can't sleep for thinking about it. Shock

I'm a good cook. Yes but are you a magician? Or Jesus?

I will choose cheap quality. Not going to lie. It it will be all homemade.

ElderDruid · 12/02/2017 06:13

Magic Chicken my dear, here's a brew, calm down.

OP has said she will make everything from scratch, including pastry and other bits and bobs. I can't see that veg will be added to pulled pork. But OP could bulk out chilli & pasta dishes easy with veggies.

There was a time before convenience food when parties were pretty much a group of Mum's making sarnies, salads and the like.

It makes me feel sad for my Dads cooking. My Dad was super man & did all the cooking and it was lush. My Mum who wanted to be a cook her food was different. Like left over chicken and proper chips in a (death trap) chip pan. (Which is 40 years has never caught on fire!) The lasagnes and proper spag bol, all the party foods from the 70's & 80's! Nothing beats cheese and pineapple hedgehogs. The only thing I couldn't stomach now is meet paste. Yuk!

Rubies12345 · 12/02/2017 06:49

Are none of the 40 people vegetarians?

SilenceOfThePrams · 12/02/2017 07:10

I'd say absolutely it's doable, but not with your menu, sorry.

With so much choice, you will get people who take a bit of everything, the first 20 people could easily clear the lot leaving just dregs for the next 20.

You could bring a meal in for that price, but personally as others have suggested, I'd simplify to two options. Three if you need a veggie one too.

So I'd do something like shedloads of baked potatoes (not buying "baking potatoes" but by baking a large sack of regular spuds. And then I'd do a few different toppings - your chilli, a vegetable dal, maybe chicken supreme type thing, and a basin of grated cheese. Lots of lettuce and cucumber, could still bring garlic bread in under that, and probably a sack of cheap tortilla type crisps.

Bargain puddings sound great. But I don't see how I'd get adequate nuts and nibbles for a group that size - frankly that's the kind of budget I'd have for nuts and nibbles, not for everything!

If you have different kinds of base carbs, people will take more of them. They might take 2 dollops of rice, but if there's rice and pasta and potato they're likely to take one dollop of each, so you need more.

Pizza sounds like a good filler - if you wanted to make it more canapé like, I'd do little individual ones using a scone cutter on the dough rather than mammoth slices.

Are you providing drinks too?

omnishamblesssssssssssssss · 12/02/2017 07:22

I'd probably just do chickpea curry plus a meat chilli with rice/potato for the main. A hot chilli and a mild chilli so kids can choose mild.

omnishamblesssssssssssssss · 12/02/2017 07:25

Yes or just do a jacket potato each, chilli each, grated cheese, chilli sauce to make things extra hot if they wish.

Do a veggie bean chilli for veggies.

omnishamblesssssssssssssss · 12/02/2017 07:29

Keep it simple!

The cheapest meal I know is actually lentil Dahl.

Mrscog · 12/02/2017 07:30

It sounds like you've thought it through budget wise, but I think you've got way too many options for 40 people! I'd knock it back to 3 main meal choices and save yourself a ton of work!

omnishamblesssssssssssssss · 12/02/2017 07:32

I think pizza will be more labour intensive while one pot meal can be prepared first thing and then sit in slow cookers all day.

user1478860582 · 12/02/2017 07:33

What are you catering for? Catering for a rugby match or similar is different to catering for a party.

To put it bluntly, after a rugby match nobody really cares about the quality, but if it's a party do you really want people leaving, heading straight for McDonald's and quietly muttering to their other half that it was shit?