Your most popular recipe for play dates?

[Lovepancakes]

We have 8 year olds coming I don't know and what would you cook?

I thought about spag bol?!

I would buy a couple of pizza bases, a jar of tomato sauce and let them pick their own toppings

Pizza and garlic bread!

Fish fingers, chips and peas.

shoot me

Nuggets, chips and peas. Or pizza. Dsd will eat most things but her friend only ever eats pizza, nuggets or KFC. So that's what I cook after several play dates where I spent ages cooking nice food only to have it rejected every time.
I wouldn't do spag bol, even if the child likes it at home there's too many variations in the type of sauce, stick to pizza.

Pizza. I have done spaghetti Bolognese a few times, but quite often it doesn't get eaten. Almost everyone eats pizza

Pizza is a fail safe but to mix it up a but if trying to escape the 'typical kiddie food' trap toad in the hole has yet to be refused. In the summer BBQ, so sausages, burgers and chicken skewers. For fussy ones a grilled chicken breast in toasted ciabatta with chips or wedges and crudités seems to work. I think a lot depends on the age of the children, how fussy they are and how often they come round. The more often they come the braver they get!

I often do a picnic style thing....sandwiches, mini sausage rolls, a few crisps in a bowl, some cheese cubes and fruit along with some cucumber as a nod to health.

At least with that kind of food, there's usually something most kids will eat.

They don't all like pizza or chips. Then I offer icecream/cake or muffin.

Thank you so much- it's really helpful to know what often works and i might work through all these ideas! Thanks again

I agree if the meal has a help ourself element it helps, so use serving bowls for salad, garlic bread etc.