Help with post-children's-party dinner please

[whateverfloatsyourboat]

It's my ds' birthday on Weds and he's having a party in the afternoon. My brother and his gf are coming after work (by which time all the children will have left) as are two other close friends of mine. So when they get here, there will be leftover birthday cake, biscuits, crisp crumbs etc. lying about.

But they're going to be hungry... any ideas what I can make for them (and us, I suppose, although I will definitely have been eating cake all afternoon)? That's super-easy? I was thinking about making some pesto and just offering them linguine with pesto and some good wine. Or is that not enough? There will be 7 adults altogether, mil will be here too.

I would probably do a bit more than pesto pasta to be honest. Maybe make a lasagne or tagine or something that you can cook before hand and then heat up.

pesto pasta, salad, nice ham (of course), cheese and good bread.

It was DD's party this weekend, followed by both sets of grandparents and my sister coming for dinner at ours later on.

I made chilli - a meat one and a veggie one. I made them in the morning and then reheated later and served with flour tortillas, guacamole, soured cream, grated cheese and crusty bread.

It went down very well with all.

Took me about 5-10 minutes to do the prep, 15 mins left on hob to cook, and then rehetaed later for 20 mins.

The recipe I use is a doctored Nigella one and it is DH's favourite chilli ever. And it is very easy to make.

We're always so exhausted after DCs parties we have takeaway!

Hi, thanks all. Yes - I was going to do the pesto pasta and a big tomato salad, but it does feel like it's not really enough. I like your idea HullyGully - some prosciutto, salami etc, and cheeses, maybe I'll do that.

2yo has been poorly so I'm very behind and still have to do basically EVERYTHING, so not sure I can face doing a lasagne on the day too! There will be one vegetarian there too, and I definitely don't want to make two separate things. The veg chilli's interesting though, thank you.