Cold buffet ideas for boxing day please

[Alexindisguise]

I'm hosting 15 on boxing day and my main oven is broken. The tiny top oven works, so we're managing with that until we get a new kitchen in the new year (out for Christmas dinner).

Suggestions please so its a bit better than just ham sandwiches and crisps 😀.

Thanks

IF you can afford to buy a slow cooker (I got a great one, with timer, from dunelm for around £25) then you can do delicious ham. I’ve done it in Coca Cola but I’m sure there’s lots of ways.

Then use your little oven to roast up some squash on Christmas Eve, and do a winter squash based salad. Loads of nice recipes on Pinterest, using eg cranberries, walnuts, pecorino, crispy bacon...

Do another no-cook salad, eg rainbow coleslaw with red cabbage and carrot.

You can probably pre-make fancy cranberry sauce in the slow cooker, or you can definitely do apple sauce.

On the day use your little oven to prepare some hasselback new potatoes before people arrive, doesn’t matter if they aren’t piping hot when served as part of this cold buffet, and then put in a load of part baked bread rolls right before people eat.

I got my slow cooker from Tesco for 15. I agree use that to make ham.

Pita bread with peashoots (if you can find them) and hummus/tzadziki/babaganous/tapas. Olive and chargrilled artichokes/peppers. Selection is cheeses and crackers. Cold cuts. Caviar and crackers/eggs. Smoked salmon. You could also do a bunch of salads.

Thanks for the ideas.

My dsis has a slow cooker which I could try and borrow. I've never used one, how do you actually do a gammon in it?

Pitta bread is a good idea, I would only fit 4 parbaked rolls in at a time, it really is tiny (1 small shelf) and anything put on the bottom just turns black.

We once did a New Year's buffet at my MIL's which couldn't involve any cooking. I can't remember everything, but I did the BBC good food beetroot and feta salad with vacuum packed precooked beetroot. My SIL did some kind of couscous salad with pomegranate and chickpeas.
You could use top oven for baking a Camembert.

Oh baked camemberts are a good idea thanks

Cheese and pineapple sticks are proper naff. But they always get eaten!

A festive cheese board often goes down well.
You could also make Nigella's Christmas cous cous.

For our boxing day buffet I always buy 2 packs puff pastry and roll them out. On one I spread goats cheese, vine tomatoes and rosemary. Then I sweat onions with smoky bacon and add that to the other.

Both go in the oven (you should be able to fit them in your small oven one at a time) and cook for approx 15 min. They are really good served cold so you can do them in advance, cut up and store in fridge until needed.

Gammon in the slow cooker is reallly difficult, listen carefully.

Throw lump of meat in slow cooker.

Pour over a can or two of full fat coke.

Turn on.

Leave for several hours.

Turn over lump of meat (not essential, but prevents an odd colour on one side).

Remove when cooked.

Do you think you can handle the challenge?

Buy a large honey and mustard glazed ham from your local butcher. Serve with a couple of salads you've thrown together, a cheeseboard, some fruit, a bunch of french sticks chopped into rounds, and a shop-bought pâté. Wash it all down with lots of cheap southern Italian red wine, like a Nero d'avola.

Ha marmite thanks, sounds like something even I could manage!

Puff pastry tarts sound good too.

Thanks so much, you're all saving dh's family from a rubbish boxing day feast!

If it's just the oven that's broken, but the hob is ok, you could do spag bol or chilli instead, perhaps a big pot of soup. Crusty bread and butter with it. Salads and cooked meat.