Ideas for feeding 24 adults/ children in summer please

[Frog253]

It is DC3's 2nd birthday in June and we are planning a family party. DH has suggested cooking curries, me I am not too sure. We are trying to avoid a sandwich style buffet cos we hate making sandwiches and it's all a bit last minute (as are BBQs). OTOH a hot meal is not terribly summery. I want something summery BUT can be prepared in advance. Any thoughts?

Whole shoulder of pork, cooked for 24 hours. It falls off the bone, you pull it apart with forks. Serve luke warm with bbq sauce and baps.

Its incredibly simple, you essentially just stick it in a very low oven for a day and a night.

jacket potatoes, cold meats and vegetarian fillings, served with lots of different salads and dips?

Rather than curry, how about something mediterranean inspired. Lasagnes, for example... You'd need about four lasagne dishes. Or a few big casseroles in the style of Chicken Cacciatore, Coq Au Vin, Boeuf Bourgignon, Normandy-style Pork, Morroccan Lamb. All of those kind of things are quite 'outdoorsy', easy to make in large amounts & go nicely with lots of green salad, french bread, rice, cous-cous etc.

Now that sounds really interesting....could just do that with baps and perhaps a salad then thinking ice cream in a cone for afters. Will sell idea to DH. Is there a recipe you use? Or would a general google through up a few ideas?

Am not a fan myself of jacket potatoes, also they require knives and forks to eat and people will be eating from their laps.
Have considered doing the mediterranean thing and have not ruled it out but I do a lot of that sort of cooking anyway and fancied something different.
Still liking the shoulder of pork idea.

I would go for BBQ. The cooking is part of the fun and you can oven cook the difficult parts at your convenience.

If you can get hold of Delia's Summer Collection, she gives plans for large gatherings.

I used this HFW Donnie Brasco one, which fed 35 people.

My biggest tip with it would be to take your largest roasting tin into your butcher, check the shoulder fits and then measure the joint and check it fits in your oven. I kid you not - its massive!

Ice cream cones are a blast, I've done them a few times, but again a top tip is to get some kind of holder for them so they can be handed round more than 2 at a time. I couldn't find anything a few years back, so DH made me a couple of large table tennis type bats with 6 holes each in for the cones, which worked brilliantly

Have just got home from hosting a big barbecue at the woods in our motor home. It was great fun, but loads of cooking, so not much time to chat.
I love the sound of the pork too. Can you put it in a slow cooker?

You'd need a blardy mahoosive slow cooker......

Our slow cooker is big, it held a huge ham at Christmas, but off the bone, I suppose it is the bone which makes it so big.

It is enormous, believe me, its the shoulder blade and everything.....

.....put it this way, I have a big double oven, and it just fit

....and the other thing is it needs to sit on a rack so the fat drains away.....

The HFW looks good, will speak to the butcher this week and may order the meat. Will offer sausages as well (keeping to the porky theme) aimed at the fussier children. So it will be..pork (or sausages) with rolls and salad. Ice-cream in cones for afters (may set my dh the challenge of making a cone holder) and cake after that. I should then have time to chat and get some games going for the children....

Good plan. I did little sausages too! Get someone to halve and butter the baps and someone or two to pull apart the pork. Men like doing this, IME. It takes aaaages!

DH is already enthusing about the pork idea and has been looking at recipes and so on. Also the plan is to have the party on Saturday which means that while I am at work on Friday DH can prepare the meat...he'll enjoy doing that; more manly than crust cutting.

Just to say thanks for the pork idea, did it today and was v. popular!

Just marking my place so I can print the pork recipe when I get to work tomorrow