What do you serve for 'everyday' lunch but still with guests??

[LapinDeBois]

I've got the ILs coming tomorrow for a couple of days (they quite often come to visit the kids). I'll cook them something nice in the evening, but I'm always at a bit of a loss as to what to make them for lunch. I don't have the time/money/inclination to go to a huge amount of trouble, but at the same time I don't feel right just bunging them the cheese sandwich that my toddler and I would normally be having. DH said 'why not make them a quiche?', but that's actually a reasonable amount of work (I've got to shop tomorrow am and have DS at home). What do you serve in these situations?

A sandwich would be ok to me, jacket potato, toasted sandwich and salad, soup.

Homemade soup
Quiche and salad
Nice sandwich (good bread etc)
Pizza and salad
Omelette and salad
Baked potato
Pate and toast
Thing on toast (beans, eggs)
Bacon butty

The easiest thing for you would be to buy some nice sandwich things then ask them to make themselves the sandwich they like.

I had friends over for lunch today and we had smoked salmon and cream cheese bagels. Yum!

I do sausages, coleslaw, bread and salad, or just cucumber and tomatoes.

Soup, nice bread and cake, or you could buy a quiche and serve it with salad?

Nice bread, cheese and pickle, salad, cake.

Job done.

Or a big batch of veggie soup and nice bread.

When my inlaws come to stay they will just be served whatever we would normally have for lunch , so a sandwich, omelette or some soup. Would probably buy some nice bread rather than warburtons sliced though

Would probably be soup (ideally home made, but there are so many lovely fresh supermarket ones these days) or french bread and camenbert here.

Oh, ok, I'm glad people think it's ok to just buy stuff. I tend to get 'the fear' when MIL comes - she's lovely, but she makes everything (and I mean everything) from scratch, so I always feel I ought to as well. Quite like the idea of smoked salmon and cream cheese bagels - I've got some Boursin in the fridge... And I've just remembered I've got a homemade cake in the freezer - hurrah!

I often do a Ploughmans type thing, do that people can pick and choose a bit. If you put a couple of chutneys, cornichons, pickled onions etc out in proper dishes it looks impressive. If you have 20 minutes you can make your own soda bread to serve with it. I also like a kind of coleslaw without the mayo: today's was fennel, carrot and apple all sliced thinly. Walnuts would have been nice with it too. Delicious!

Alternatively, as others have said, soup.

Or a puff pastry tart - as impressive as a quiche but less work. You need lots of salads on the side.

Homemade soup with garlic bread?

You could even ask them what they might like!!! They may not want much lunch & be very happy with just a sandwich.

Or even ask MIL to make lunch - she might be delighted to but feel it would be pushy to offer.

When anyone comes for lunch they get whatever I would normally have, although I would probably get a nicer type of bread (crusty loaf, baguette) etc. So it could be cheese, ham, sausage, bacon or a tin of salmon!! I would always make/buy a cake to follow if I know I have company. No one really cares what they eat as long as the kettle is filled regularly!!

Wraps, various fillings, salad bowl and people make their own.

Big bowl of kettle chips.

Pasta - carbonara, tomato sauce, Bolognese sauce, broccoli & anchovy etc

Thanks all. I did manage to find the time to make a celeriac soup this morning (which was lovely!) and we had it with nice bread, then I bought a bit of cheese and a bit of pate, then we had the cake from the freezer for pudding. All good .

Next time, you could try a risotto. Takes about 30 mins if you choose a straightforward one and it's easy and yum.

Lapin, that sounds delicious. Perfect!