Saturday Lunch ideas please

[Merguez]

All too often we end up having bread and cheese.

Sometimes pasta.

I would like to do better - so what do others do for Saturday lunches that is quick and easy to prepare?

I am about to make a sweet chicken curry for our Saturday lunch. Fry a finely chopped onion and some garlic for a few minutes, add rice and curry powder , continue frying for a minute, add apple juice and chicken stock and cook til rice is done. You can add chopped cooked chicken for the last few minutes or raw before the rice is added. And I add frozen sweetcorn and peas a couple of minutes before serving. Both DC's love this and even fussy DH eats it sometimes.

With or without guests?

Without - homemade soup plus bread and cheese
Fritatta and salad
Go for a brunch instead of lunch - French toast, or eggy bread with mushrooms etc

With - quiche and salad

Puff pastry tart topped with mushrooms, spinach and camembert or indeed, anything you fancy - with new potatoes and salad or with little garlic roasties and steamed vege or salad

Falafel in pitta

Picky stuff - pittas, dips, salads etc

Last Saturday we had some asparagus and a fried duck egg. Crusty bread to mop up the juice. Easy and fabulous - perfect!

I hate cooking on Saturdays (usually quite busy) so when I prepare our supper for Thursday evenings (always veggie on Thursdays) which is usually some sort of veg cous-cous or chick pea casserole type of thing, I make a big batch of home-made soup at the same time. I find it's easier to do/less mind-numbingly boring if you only have one session of peeling and chopping to do and clear up etc.

So we usually have home-made soup, good bread and cheese for Saturday lunches - it's useful to have in fridge if your schedule changes and only takes 5 mins to heat up - and good rehydration if dd has been doing sport on Saturday mornings. Added bonus is that I don't feel quite so guilty then if we have a take-away on Saturday night.

21meals we had asparagus roasted with olive oil and balsamic and shaved parmesan for lunch today - very good.

DS1 is very annoying and claims he does not like soup, otherwise we would probably have it most Saturdays.

Ah that makes it more of a challenge Merguez - maybe if he could be persuaded to make some himself, he might change his mind, maybe??? Or make some sort of spicy Morroccan bean dish/or minestrone type concoction that he could be persuaded to eat on the grounds that it is 'stew' not 'soup'??

If not:

• home made pizza bases (made in advance and frozen) then you just have to throw toppings on?

-pitta bread stuffed with Greek salad type concoction with hummus??

• Croque Monsieur with salad??

• smorgasbord of ham, salad, pickles, rye bread, that sort of thing?

• cous-cous salad (v. quick to assemble) like this

• some sort of pancake/fritter dish like this (my dd loves Nigella's plain sweetcorn fritters which are v. easy to make but can't find recipe atm)

Racking my brains here (not very successfully). Actually I think bread and cheese and pasta are great too! (Bread and cheese v. underated!) Other than that, can really recommend cooking in advance albeit a bit of a pain at the time ...it does make for a lovely peaceful Saturday.

Really good thread this because Saturday lunch is quite difficult now I come to think about it!

Easy and good is salmon, new pots, salad and a chilli dipping sauce.

Some nice ideas, thanks. Although salmon is for supper, not lunch, IMO. Unless it is smoked salmon...

Ham & cheese toasties with Heinz tomato soup mmmmmmm

We both work all day Saturday. No family lunch for us unless we're on hols.

In warmer weather - salad, cheese & bread
In colder weather - soup, cheese & bread
Without Fail. Even with people round - then the soup & salad is just a little more gourmet and the bread might be homemade.

DCs know that Salad & Soup mean it's Saturday and have gradually accepted both as I just won't make another option. (DH grudgingly accepts it too now, as long as there is plenty of cheese!) DCs have gone from having a tiny ramekin of soup & lots of bread/cheese to a big bowl of soup and a smaller portion of bread/cheese gradually over time.

So perhaps keep offering the soup and hope your DS changes his mind?!

Bagels with various fillings
Quesadillas
Sausage in baguettes
Pâté, bread, fruit
Greek salad
Lentil dal
Tomato, mozzarella and basil salad
Avocados with prawn cocktail or s.salmon with horseradish
Makerel pâté with toast points

Tesco sell some nice chapatti's in their Asian section, so I make a spinach, pea and potato curry (almost like a sag aloo), and serve it wrapped in the the chapatti's. only takes half hour to make and really tasty, filling and healthy.

That sounds lovely Mullins. Could you post the recipe please?

Another one who would be interested in the recipe pls Mullins - sounds great!

Asian food = a v. good idea - we sometimes have really lovely samosas from (confusingly) a Turkish bakery nearby not good for the waistline though