Party Food. Iceland ? Tesco ? Sainsbury. Where to buy non crap?

[Oblomov]

We have our family party this weekend. Often I do a gammon and a roast chicken.
But this year my sil asked me to do party snacks. Nibbles. Chicken squewers and the like, I assume.
No problem. But actually its quite hard.
I have bought a few 'platters' over the years, and bascally found them to be, well, RANK.
The iceland ones I bought, (filo prawns and spring rols, I think) were horrible. The siansburys ones not much better( chicken squewrwes and something else). I remember tesco had a special offer, 3-4-2 on prawns, chicken squewers and something else, one christams, and have never seen them since ! Dh and I commented that these were the nicest.
I don't have time to make it all from scratch. I just want to spend a reasonable amount, without ending up with bad naff stuff.
What shall I buy ?

Marks and Spencer maybe?

never iceland! sainsburys and co-op currently have packs of party food on 3 for a fiver. mini duck spring rolls from co-op are yummy, as are the tempura king prawns

Yes, but which ones ? any suggestions Blu ?
Sorry to post and run but must go to bed, will catch up tomorrow. Bad day diabetically. Thank you.

Lidl did some lovely greek filo and spinach pastry things, and I like to look of some of their other party stuff too.

you might be better off buying a pack of smoked salmon and a loaf of brown bread and producing a large plate of your own stuff. Add in some cheese and crackers, decent mini sausages/sausage rolls from M&S and some posh crisps. Nicer than anything you'll buy in Tesco/Iceland

I would second M&S, but don't have any specific recommendations or suggestions; they are all lovely in my experience!

Yes, smoked salmon!

Buy a huge smoked salmon, pickled herring, curried herring, Cheeses such as brie, and cured ham, and lots of french sticks for bread. Olives.

Make ONE HUGE salad. Let people help themselves.

Chocolate and strawberry trifle for afters.

Iceland stuf is awful

Second smoked salmo and blinis

Def m&s

I don't need to do cheeseboard, one of my other sil's is doing that.
And the desserts ( all 10 of them !!) is organised by one of the other sils' !!

Waitrose ordering service do nice party food for about the same price as M & S.

Did you order the platters from the deli counter? We've always found them to be great!

Am on my way to M&S tomorrow. Should have known, really.
Thanks everyone.

Waitrose Entertaining better quality than M and S, IMO.

Its perfectly possible to do your own without making it complicated. Chicken skewers ( love your spelling on that one, subliminally you think they are complicated maybe ) are a faff, don't bother.

Things like puff pastry discs using pre bought puff pastry, Delia's current crisp type things on Waitrose ad, chicory bots filled with homemade smoked mackerel pate, peppadew peppers stuffed with cream cheese, crostini topped with stilton, walnut, celery and honey. These things take a few minutes. The pre bought stuff I think always tastes a bit dead, iykwim.

Rant over.

I honestly thought M&S were quite poor last Christmas. You'd be better off doing your own stuff (although much more labour intensive than a gammon and chicken!)

Ideas:

Mushrooms stuffed with a mixture of goats cheese, parma ham, bread crumbs and parmesan.

Cheese palmiers

Mini yorkshires with roast beef and horseradish sauce

Mini goats cheese and caramelised onion tarts

Veg crudites with dips.

Gravalax on dark rye bread cut into squares.

A baked brie or camembert with bread to dip in.

Every time i look at the adverts for iceland on celeb in the jungle at their food, it all looks so revolting and unappetising.

The prices seem cheap though and a friend of mine shops regularly there and says its fine. I just don't like the look of it.

M&S, waitrose, with some tesco thrown in to fill the table i would suggest.

Sorry about spelling of Chicken skewers, taffe.
Bloody chicken skewers are bane of my life. Everyone is asking about them, 'oh you are cooking lots of those chicken on sticks, aren't you ? they are yummy'.
YEAH ? so where are they from then ? Because I can't find any , apart from vile looking ones in Sainsbury's, 3 satay for £3.99. I don't think so.

Why is SIL dictating what you do ? Gammon and roast chicken sound lovely!

here you go - 36 of the f*ckers for £20.

Obs, lovely to see you! I was answering thread before realised it was you. Here's an option. I went to a party last night and was to bring 'seafood nibbles'. I took scampi and made a lemon mayonnaise. And got some mini fishcakes from Somerfield (party food section) and they were absolutely DELICIOUS! I was really surprised. One was smoked salmon fishcake, and the other was haddock and cheese, I think. They were lovely, and very cheap. 3 packs for a fiver, 12 in a pack.

Waitrose or Cook if you have one near by

Asda frozen sausage rolls are nice - think they are only £1 a bag or something?

P.S Lemon mayo was mayo mixed with fresh lemon juice and black pepper.
Also made a garlic mayo - fresh garlic in mayo.

Dead easy, but made it all look a bit more home-made and like I'd put some effort in!

Do you have a Boothes nearby? You can get them from the deli counter. Hubby loves them. 35p each chicken satay on sticks. if you dont have a deli counter in Boothes then they sell prepacked ones.

£3.50 = 10
£7.00 + 20

x

Hi MerryMarigold. How you doing.

Well, I don't mean to muck you about. I do value your advice. But things just happened today. We have had the most awful year. But dh had an interview today, where they had a very very huge ADSA. I like Asda, and do not have a local one. So I went today and they had a HUGE party range. So I bought about £50 of stuff. Most of it frozen. Will cook it tomorrow morning, just before party. Feel 'just about o.k.' about it. Would prefer to spend time cooking curry, lasagne. But that was not what I was asked to do, this year. tis over.

But thank you for all the advice.