Your foolproof kids party food ideas for thirty x reception/year one children.

[PhylisStein]

My daughter's party is on Tuesday at 4pm and I have to shop and cater for thirty children on the day of the party because I am working flat out the rest of the time - I AM VERY NERVOUS that I won't manage it.

Please help me with genius time saving menu ideas and recipes ...

I would keep it really simple at this age as they usually have a short attention span for sitting and eating when there is a party going on. I would do platters of fruit , grapes , apples , strawberry etc another platter of veg , cucumbers , carrots , baby toms etc. A couple of triangle sandwiches per person and a few bowls of quavers crisps. I would then just do a plate of buns and maybe party rings.
I would serve the drinks in cartons less mess.

Think Lilyloo is bang on the money!

I just did sandwiches, cocktail sausages, cucumber batons, crisps, party rings and juice boxes. Then gave out cake to take home. Seemed to go well. I couldn't be doing the cherry toms/carrot batons thing as all mine ever want to eat is crisps at partys.

Soft bread rolls with popular fillings (cheese, ham, egg), little sausages, Baby-Bel cheeses, carrot sticks, crisps ..... and the biggest hit were those individual ready-made jellies in pots!!!

Good ideas here. So you wouldn't bother with pizza or anything hot? I'm organising my DD's 4th on Saturday morning. No time to buy that morning and not enough space in the fridge/freezer for too much food beforehand.

I bought 100 bags from this site for less than a fiver. I will put one sandwich, one fairy cake, a baby cucumber, a couple of chocolate fingers. I will also give a carton of juice and have spare milk/dilute.

For hot food you can't go wrong with hot dogs, the tinned things!! And ice creams in cones, this is cheap as there are no plates to buy!!

I did a party on Sunday for 30 reception/ Y1 children. We had:

Sandwiches (jam, marmite, cheese using 3 loaves of bread)
Cold Pizza
Peppers & carrots (pointless really but some ate the peppers)
Assorted crisps (cheesy ball things, hula hoops, chipsticks etc)

Party Rings (3 packs)
Chocolate fingers (3 packs)
Cupcakes (enough for 1 each)
Platter of strawberries & grapes (2 punnets of each)
Birthday cake

Plus a jug of blackcurrant squash and one of orange.

HTH

If you have a freezer where you'll be holding the party, I did ice cream cones for ds's party. Dead easy. I bought a large tub of vanilla, some cones, some chocolate sauce and sprinkles and handed out already served cones while a couple of helpers went round with sauce and sprinkles. Went down a treat!

That's excellent, esp giving an idea of quantities too!

does anyone ever put out carrot sticks/pepper sticks/cucumber/grapes for any other reason than to not draw cats bum faces from other parents at the unending parade of junk on the table?

I know that's why I did it :o

(although in my defence, ds asked for carrot sticks and white cheese at his party because they're his favourites)

That's why I did it too, HeadFairy. Although I did have some vegan/ gluten free children and wanted to make sure there were things they could eat too (also did a bit of rye bread & hummous but wouldn't usually)

Glad I'm not the only one... the parents ended up eating all the leftover carrot sticks etc, with the left over hoummous and cream cheese. The best bit of children's parties is hoovering up the leftovers IMO, but annoyingly it's always the sandwiches and healthy stuff, for some reason they always miraculously have room for yet another party ring or handful of hoola hoops :o

Such great ideas - thanks everyone - so do kids really not like the veg then?

Pizza is your friend. I stopped doing the fiddly finger sandwiches years ago and now just bung various pizzas in the oven and slice up. Get a selection - something for the veggies etc.

Buy a couple of foil platters and arrange ready made cupcakes over one, biscuits and/or crisps over another, and fruit and veg if you must on another.

Value fruit juice decanted into plastic jugs.

Birthday cake and candles.

Sorted.

All they really want is cake and crisps, btw.

There were a few older children 3/4 years old at ds' party last month, I did picnic/party boxes with two sandwiches (tiny) a mini sausage roll, cocktail sausages, quavers and raisins, plus extras for the grown ups! The kids were very happy with the boxes and most of them
Wanted second boxes of raisins, which surprised me! I did fruit too which was eaten by adults! And buns!

An old Kiwi staple that went down a storm at DD's party.

Fairy bread
Butter white bread. Sprinkle with hundreds and thousands (sugar sprinkles, am not sure of the UK term) Cut into triangles.

I think the 'make our own yoghurt and grow our own organic veg' posse at our school might flip at the idea of fairy bread!!

Prepare everything before the party. Small bite size sandwiches, if you have time cut off the crusts. Use brown and white bread with you're filling in between, looks great and healthier than plain white bread. Small bunches of grapes, freshly cut cucumber and carrot sticks, (the bought packs from the supermarket will dry out after 10 minutes and have no flavour), mini raisin boxes, a packet of crisps or savoury snack. Use juice boxes as cups are knocked over, food boxes are fantastic as all the children get the same thing. They won't eat very much but variety is best. A birthday cake for cutting up to go home with or you could also make cupcakes which they love.Pizza is easy so long as you get the timing right. Cut it up into really small pieces, it will go further and not be wasted. Hope it goes well!

Hot dogs (veggie ones too)
rolls
ketchup
carrot sticks if you must.

iced buns

squash. that's it.

We have loads for tomorrow, I can't imagine it will all get eaten. We'll be snacking on junk hoummus for the next few weeks.

They ate loads at my DD's 4th, sat and ate for over half an hour, all 20 of them except for 1 who bounced on the bouncy castle all the time. We were all amazed. Food was standard sandwiches, sausages, crisps, fairy cakes, those ready made jelly pots, biscuits, fruit and veg (to keep parents happy) and cake.

Have fun at the party.

I have been to lidl and tesco to purchase rubbish already since I had some unexpected time off - so I am not in such a panic now!