How can I turn a roast chicken in to a VERY easy quick help yourself lunch for 4 adults and 4 toddlers?

[BrownPaperandString]

and how many large chickens will I need??

I just want to throw some stuff on the table and people pick at what they want.

1 chicken, roasted with herbs and lots of lemon including a few lemon halves in the cavity.
nice bread rolls, enormous salad, real gravy made with chicken juices, into which you squeeze the lemons from inside the chicken, so it is lemony enough to work as a salad dressing.

Salad ,sauces and wraps -stand back and let them at it.

(though when I do this the bread is very fresh, ie it goes into the oven when the chicken comes out.)

Fajitas - fry up the chicken with seasoning and put out with tortilla wraps and the other bits.

oh yes that sounds nice! Do you mean tortilla wraps?

I love fajitas but I won't have time to cook as we'll be arriving at the house to hopefully a meal ready to eat. I'll have the chicken cooking while we're out.

What if the kids don't eat salad?

There's the nigella thing where you tear the chicken off the carcass and chuck it in a big dish with some tagliatelle and pine nuts and olive oil. Big bowl of salad and some bread and you tick all the boxes

You could do roasted veg - can be cooking away for an hour or so in the oven so you could come home to them like the chicken depending on how long you're planning to be out.

We do small new potatoes (parboiled first), peppers, onions, courgettes, mushrooms, aubergine, cherry toms and halloumi cheese. Roasted in lots of olive oil, sea salt, pepper and rosemary.

Then just put on table next to chicken and let everyone help themselves.

You could do a green salad alongside as well.

yum those do sound lovely but I really want stuff I can just pull out of the fridge with no extra cooking / clearing up.

"Mixture" then - roast chicken(s), houmous, bag of salad, mozzarella balls, sunblush tomatoes, cheese, tomatoes, cucumber, sliced peppers, crusty bread and butter. If you've time to make something in advance, potato salad and coleslaw (although M&S do a surprisingly good coleslaw).

Agree with prudence then - a yummy roast chicken is great as centrepiece with salad stuff