Lunch ideas for a group of friends including 6 children and a veggie...

[louby78]

We're having friends over for lunch on saturday and I could just do with some inspiration as to what I serve for lunch. One's a veggie (she eats fish but I don't) and children who range from 1 to 8. Any ideas?

As it's winter I'd offer a choice of hot casserole dishes and team them up with some jacket spuds or rice (or both) and plenty of salad and crusty bread. A spicy vegetable and bean chilli pot is something everyone's going to enjoy, veggie or otherwise. Small children might prefer a traditional chicken casserole or even just the jacket potato with some butter.

Vegetable soup (homemade), sharing plates of cheeses, meats, bowls of bread & salad, sauces and dips (e.g. houmous, feta & yoghurt), cut up veg that the children can take or leave (carrots, peppers, cucumber)?

Veggie lasagne with homemade garlic bread & salad? If you serve the salad plain or 'make your own', e.g. bowl of green + little dishes with the veg in + dressing separately, then again the children can choose.

Make-your-own pizzas/homemade pizzas in loads of varieties (meat and veggie) so people can choose what they have, plus salad etc. Could team this with a heavier pudding, e.g. bread and butter/hot sponges, to be more filling.

Was going to suggest make your own pizzas too, maybe even just for the kids? Youc an buy mini pizza bases and have some bowls with toppings in for kids to pop what they fancy?

My v easy lunch fave is spicy chicken, sweet potato and couscous

Put 2 chopped up chicken breasts, and bite size pieces of sweet potato (2), and small tub cherry tomatoes in a roasting tin with olive oil, garlic and rosemary (try not to miss out the rosemary, makes and amazing difference, I just use dried stuff)

Roast for about 30 mins. Add 400mls chicken stock and a teaspoon of cayenne pepper and roast for another 10 mins. Then stir in 200g couscous and cover for 5 mins. Serve with big dollops of sour cream and slices of crusty bread. These quantities serve 3-4 so maybe double up if you want to have loads?

You could make a mini version of it without the chicken for the veggie? I do this for my veggie sister.