Ideas for small bites at a party please!

[lovecloud]

Hello

I am holding a little party before xmas for family and because there are so many I decided to not cook a sit down dinner and just prepare a kind of buffet!

I wanted to stay away from the usual dips and as much as i love pineapple and cheese on sticks I would like ti impress everyone with something different.

I have collected a few jamie oliver cards from sainsburys which have some nice ideas.

Basically anything small and easy to make... and if possible not too expensice.

Thank you

I have just seen those little fish and chip things from M+S - have you seen them, they are fab? One chip and a tiny piece of battered fish, wrapped up in card printed like newspaper. So cute.

How about mini kebabs - veggie ones are nice - little skewers with bite sized pieces of courgette, pepper, baby sweetcorn, etc. Perhaps with a glaze or marinade before you grill them.

i will have to check them out in m&s - sound great!

I had tiny jacket potatoes once, may have been new potatoes, which were delicious.

sauasge wrapped in bacon goes down well in our house

little roast new potatoes are nice too

bilinies (sp) with cream cheese and smoked salmon(lots of offers on for salmon at the moment and a little goes a long way)
mini quiches can buy or easy and quick to make bitesized ones
I saw an advert on tv I think it was Jamie and he had little gem lettuce leaves with a seafood sauce and a prawn on the top, Looked nicer Than my description!
chicken drumsticks are popular but nothing new though, maybe make some chicken goujons instead,again quick to do

Mini Samosas and onion bhajis
Spring rolls with whatever that sauce is ( name escapes me..?)
Fruit half dipped in choc and chilled so it sets (looks colourful and decorative too)

pesto Pastry Rolls ( can be cooked ahead )

Puff Pastry Sheets
Spread with Pesto ( or grated cheese and chutney, or Onion marmalade and pine nuts ... or whatever )
Roll like a swiss roll and cut into slices.
Freeze if you have to
Bung in the oven and cook for about 10 mins

mmm blinis

parsnip fritters bit controversial but always get scoffed in seconds at our parties - i think its a gary rhodes recipe

mmmmmmm... getting hungry

recipe for onion bajas and samosas?

mmm i would be interested in the recipe for bhajis too. but we go to asda for easiness. 8 bhajis £1 and a tray of mixed pakora for £3 fab value

REally nice cream cheese mixed with garlic and chives stuffed into rolled up ham is a yummy nibble as is cheesy mushrooms.

Place mushrooms on a baking tray, talk out stalks stuff with a mixture of crumpled stilton, chpped spring onion, pepper, 1 beated egg and some breadcrumbs - bake until golden -
These are great warm or cold with a spicey tomato salsa.

Also green beans about 3 or 4 wrapped in parma ham.

I always do home made sausage rolls and home made veggie sausage rolls, both from Delia, and they go down a storm. You don't have to make the pastry (that's a bit too much of a faff), just buy the sheets of pre-rolled puff pastry. They can be frozen uncooked and just cooked on the day. I usually just serve them cold.

slice a french stick into very thin slices - I do them slightly diagonal so they come out a big elongated, drizzle with olive oil and grate a wee bit of parmesan on them - cook in oven for 20 minutes til nice and crisp and golden (can do day before), then top them with lots of yummy stuff - I like a combination of one veg and one chees or meat: veg - roast pepper, roast cherry toms (drizzle with balsamic as well as olive oils before roasting - GORGEOUS), little cubes of roast sweet potato, fried slices of pear, salad leaves - meat: proscuitto, chorizo, bresola, cheese - cubes/crumbled feta, goats cheese, blue cheese(fantastic with the pear), taleggio, mozeralla. Rip a bit of basil over them. If you do cheese you can put it under the grill to melt but you don;t have to. I love stuff like this annd could eat it for ever.

In waitrose you can buy crustade shells. They are like mini pastry cases. You can fill these with any kind of fillings, but on lazy lazy occaisions I have bought sandwich fillers and just spooned them in. The secret to pulling this off is the garnishes

I do egg mayo, with a spinkle of cayenne, smoked salmon and cream cheese, with a few mock caviar eggs on top, tuna and mayo with a bit of paprika.

OMG soapbox!!!

spanish omelette cut into cubes- very nice - and healthy and cheap!

When I do this tommy,it is always wolfed in seconds!

Moondog - sometimes there just isn't enough time to be a domestic godddess

Although I had promised the children pasta and pesto for tea tonight only to discover we had no pesto in the house.

I did manage to rustle up a passable attempt although the basil plant on the windowsill is looking a little worse for wear now

Definately yes to the spanish omelette

SP...just the thought of sandwich spread...
Looks like vomit to me.
Hey,but gold star for homemade pesto though-very impressed!!

I think she means sandwich fillings, not anchovy or sardine paste!

Well I have had several threads on this in the past, will go and look up. Last year I spent ages trying to inject a mix of vodka, tabasco and worcestershire sauce into baby tomatoes with a syringe but the bloody things kept splitting so I can't recommend that!

SilentBite, I did a similar thing a few years ago but instead of injecting the tomatoes, the recipe said to score a cross on them with a knife and then marinate them in the vodka mixture. They had a real kick, although people were a bit taken aback, having expected an innocent cherry tomato!

"Last year I spent ages trying to inject a mix of vodka, tabasco and worcestershire sauce into baby tomatoes with a syringe"

PMSL!!

yes I know

The pharmacist PHSL when I said why I wanted the syringe

I think it would work better with oranges-tougher skin.