easy peasy party food

[littleoctonauts]

Please can you give me your easiest recipes for party food.Am planning a small buffet type thing with things that can be served cold ie pastries, sandwiches etc for a couple of small parties.

Many thanks!

Vol au vents. Deliciously retro and dead easy to make. I make my own (with cheaty bought puff pastry) rather than expensive empty shells. Roll pastry to thickness of a pound coin, cut out rounds, or squares or whatever, place on oiled baking sheet. Score an inner line with a sharp knife to make the rim, brush outside rim with beaten egg and bake until risen and golden.
Leave to cool then fill with whatever you want. Cream cheese and green pesto topped with half a cherry tomato, or smoked salmon and cream cheese go down well here. Try to get as many out of one rolling as you can as puff pastry doesn't rise well with more than one rolling.

Or mini quiches with paprika or parmesan flavoured shortcrust pastry. Crustless mini quiches for those on diets, although mine always come out of the tins a big ragged round the edges.

Do you want finger foods or stuff you need a fork for (salads etc?)
Depends a bit on event I.e lunchtime buffet or evening drinks and I guess whether you've got to cater for kids
Crudités, breadsticks, tortilla chips with dips and humus.
Pearl mozzarella balls with a cherry tomato and basil leaf on a cocktail stick.
Flavoured (tandoori, lemon and garlic etc) chicken breast pieces.
Mini quiches
Olives
Cheese board and crackers
French bread and pate
Homemade cheese straws
Pesto palmier
Smoked salmon and philli on rye or blinis

Cheese and pineapple hedgehog!!!

Huge cheese board. Add small bowls of onion jam, chili jelly. Add olives, grapes, dates, almonds, quince paste. Add slices of salami and Parma / Iberico ham. All on the same huge wooden board. Serve with walnut bread, crackers, breadsticks etc.

Thank you some great ideas here, I really needed some inspiration! I should have said I'm doing 2 childrens' parties, 8-10 children and 4-5 adults in each one.

Many thanks!

Jelly and ice cream!

Ah mine may not all be that child friendly then, although actually kids would probably eat the vast majority of that. Maybe add in some cocktail sausages, sausage rolls, hula hoops, crisps etc. Personally not a huge fan of cold pizza but it does seem to go down well at children's parties. Also little pinwheel sandwiches made with wraps.

Thank you so much I loved the ideas on here and they're were definitely some kid friendly stuff on that list, how could i have forgotten breadsticks on my list lol

So far my menu for the party, Tom-eek!- is

Home made vol au vents (had no idea how to make the cases myself so thanks for the tip to do that, much cheaper!!)
Filled taco shells
Pizza pinwheel
Sticky chicken wings
Cheese and pineapple hedgehog
Veg sticks

And some cake, jelly pots and fruit for pudding

I need to clean the house now and make the vol au vents cases! And wash the school uniforms!! I just wanna put my feet up

The hedgehog made it!!!