Dinner party that I can cook on Saturday morning

[boboggglimpopo]

I have 8 friends coming for dinner on Saturday night. I had planned to cook all afternoon, but now have a friend in Bordeaux just for the day and am off to see her in the afternoon.

Can anyone inspire me please? I need a starter and a main (going to do Suzy's brownies and homemade ice cream for pudding). It needs to be all do able in a couple of hours and then need very little fiddling with before they arrive (will come roaring in late and frantically bathing kids and feeding them before everyone arrives).

We all eat everything.

soup & boeuf borgignon (sp)

melon & shepherds pie

Lasagna with salad and fresh crusty bread

chicken breasts wrapped in parma ham with dauphinoise potatoes and a green salad.

Apple crumble and Ice cream / custard ( when I do this there's never any left and the fruit salad and pavlova is eaten by the kids for the next week !!!

Profitaroles from M&S / Tesco ....

Big cheese board

It is someone's birthday so needs to be bit more than lasagne or shepherds pie. The chicken sounds good but there are ten of us - that is a hell of a lot of chicken bosoms....

leg of lamb in red wine - large leg of lamb, studded liberally with garlic and rosemary. sweat onion and carrot , parsnip celery in olive oil, add this and lamb to large casserole, pour over bottle red wine. Cook on a low heat in oven for several hours - I do it for 7 or 8. Take out meat to rest, strain wine, should be a tasty gravy - can boil it rapildy to reduce and thicken a bit. Serve with mixed root veg mash - can easily make this in advance and reheat in oven while eating starter, and some kind of green veg.

do you fancy a smoked salmon starter? can dig out recipe if you want it, again fairly quick to make and can be made hours in advance and left in fridge. This is my standard dinner party when I am out all day!

Jereuselam artichoke soup with a drizzle of truffle oil just before serving. This can be made the day before.
Roast fillet of monkfish with roasted peppers and put lentils. Monkfish can be ready to go into the oven, peppers and lentils can be cooked in advance.

Hey Carmenere - we are having the soup (minus the truffle oil!) tonight

The monkfish is an idea though - I could get a big chunk and wrap it in parma ham and serve it with roasted peppers.

Yes please to the smoked salmon recipe!

I served the slow roasted leg of lamb last time one of these couples came over...

hmmm due to time restrictions think I would stick with Crystaltips chicken boobies, but would probably do the Jamie Oliver parcels of chicken, wrap each one in foil with mushrooms, wine, garlic etc. leave them in the fridge getting flavour for day and pop into oven for 20 mins when they arrive. eh voila! have a lovely night.

Salmon Mousse serves 8

10 oz smoked salmon trimmings
1pt double cream
Juice 1 lemon
3 tbsp chives, chopped
3 tbsp cucumber, chopped small
Black pepper

1 Blend salmon in a food processor until well processed ? I use a stick blender
2 Beat in cream a bit at a time, use a spatula not a whisk, keep going until all the cream is incorporated and mousse falls easily off the spatula
3 Fold in the rest of the ingredients and a good grinding of black pepper
4 Divide between small ramekins and chill for at least an hour

I serve this with crème fraiche mixed with lemon juice and honey to taste, to cut through the richness of the mousse, and wholemeal or multigrain bread. This is very easy to make, and can be prepared ahead for a dinner party. Leftover mousse makes a good sandwich spread too.

already typed this up for preschool recipe book - I think itis lovely!

shame you've done slow roast leg of lamb recently. What about Delia's fast roast pork? you could do all the prep inthe morning, and cook it while you were eating the starter?

I have been reading back and foudn the ham in coke recipe on the recipe threads - the details are a little hazy - is it a whole ham and how long does it cook for to the kilo? Is it good? Would do it with potato gratin and roast veg.

Smoked salmon sounds lovely - will do that for the aperitif. So still need a starter!

Could I have delias fast pork job please?

Delia?s fast roast pork ? serves 6 ? so you will have to fiddle with the quantities

2 thick tenderloins 350g each
Tbsp rosemary leaves
3 Granny smith apples cored ands wedged
2 cloves garlic cut into thin slices
40g butter
1.5 tbsp cider vinegar
1 small onion peeled and finely chopped
1 tbsp demerera sugar
225ml strong dry cider
2 heaped tbsp half fat crème fraiche
Oven gas mark 8 450F/230C

Insert garlic in slits all over pork. Bruise then chop rosemary. Melt butter, mix with cider vinegar, brush meat with some of this mixture and sprinkle with half the rosemary. Put onions on baking tray and pork on top

At this point you can cover with clingfilm and bung in fridge

Toss apples in rest of cider vinegar mix,, add to pork, sprinkle with rest of rosemary and the sugar. High shelf in oven for 25-30 mins ? will depend on thickness of pork, test for pink juices .

Transfer pork and apples to serving dish and keep warm. Deglaze pan with small amount of cider, tip into saucepan ,add rest of cider and reduce by 1/3, whisk in crème fraiche and add seasoning.

The salmon is pretty rich ? I use it as a starter all the time ? if you want to make it a bit posher line small ramekins with clingfilm, then slices of smoked salmon, then fill with mousse mixture, fold salmon slices over to neaten and chill. Use clingfilm to remove the salmon from ramekins and serve in the middle of the plate.

HTH

Main, you could do chicken breasts wrapped in proscuitto. Marinate them in lemon juice, olive oil and garlic for most of the day adn then about an hour before you want to cook them wrap them in proscuitto and cook them for 20 mins. Very easy and lovely and the marinating makes the chicken v tender. Oh, jsut realised Crystaltips has suggestd v similar! Never mind!

Easy but impressive starter: cook a load of mini potatoes in their skins (you could do in the morning). Leave them to cool and then just before serving split each one and add a blob of creme fraiche and a small blob of caviar.

Very easy starter. Chop tomatoes into ramekin dishes - two thirds full. Put a slice of goats cheese onto the top. Stick in oven til cheese melts a bit and browns, toms will be juicy underneath. Serve with crusty bread.

If doing salmon canapes and a rich pud, I'd go for a salad for starter TBH. I had a lovely salad the other day with walnuts, bacon lardons and toasted goats cheese on top of a crouton thing. Dead easy and all but the toasting of the cheese and dressing of salad can be done in advance. Have you seen the new BBC Good Food online? Loads of ideas and pics there.

if you search on recipes or food I posted an excellent recipe recently for moroccan lamb. only problem might be whether you'll be in to turn it off after cooking (takes 20 mins to prepare, 2 hours to simmer) it's a really good one for dinner parties - no last minute effort at all

Well - the menu has decided itself - am now doing pumpkin soup to start (lovely pumpkin going cheap int he market yesterday=, followed by smoked fish and lemon balls with homemade tartare sauce and monks potatoes, thenhomemade applepie with hey, hey, tinned ambrosia custard that I found in a local supermarket and will go down a bomb here as it is so different to "creme anglais"!

Am no longer going out this evening so am going to cook it all tonight when the kids are in bed.