supper for 12! EEEk

[Pook]

Any input gratefully received....

I stupidly offered to cook the first night meal for our upcoming holiday in France with 12 adults. 1 non-mushroom eater and 1 non pork and cucumber (!) eater.
I was thinking tentatively along the lines of chicken and courgette in a cheese sauce, with pasta. Has to be straightforward and with ingredients available at first supermarket we come across. Alternatively, was wondering whether a pre-cooked and then frozen chicken (x2) could safely be transported in big freezer bag, defrosting during the journey and ready to be heater through and added to meal on arrival.

Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance.

Message withdrawn

Chile & Rice with lots of garlic bread?

Hmmm - that's a definite possibility. Would really like to pre-cook and transport, but would probably not be very popular if everyone got food poisoning the first night. I'll save that for later on in the week

Do they have mcdonalds in France?!

is there a barbecue? First night of a holiday I'd go for large amounts of sausages, nice fresh bread or jacket potatoes and salad. Not much good to the non-pork eater though! a beef burger or two?

If you put the frozen food in a cooler, it probably won't have thawed by the time you've gotten there, so it's safe. Both suggestions sound good (sorry Joanneg ), so it depends whether rice or pasta is easier for you at the end.

Like ggglimpopo said, buy the rest there, it's easily made up whilst the group is eating appetizers and drinking cocktails.

My husband makes chili for a bunch (20+) every year, so if you'd like a recipe for that, let me know. It's good ole American style chili.

Now I'm hungry for very meaty dishes!

Whilst? Argh, "when" or "while" or something like that.

How about a couple of chickens or a big leg of lamb? Just do salad or veggies and some roasties with it, dead easy!

Nigella Lawson has a good recipe for butterflied chicken with lemon and rosemary. You could probably double the recipe. I'm not good at links, but if you google it, I think you could find it. It has onions and olive oil. It's in the Forever Summer book, I think.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I WISH it was the type of get together involving appetisers and pleasant chit chat . Is actually very rowdy friends of DH (and mine) from way back. We are the only ones with baby. It is going to be interesting
JJ - I'd love your husbands chilli recipe, even if I end up driving to le macdonalds, I'm sure it is delicious.
Thanks again