What is your default tea when your little ones have friends round?

[franch]

I'm talking preschoolers here, and the occasional 8yo cousin - so far the most popular have been spag bol; shepherd's pie; mini pizzas; marinated chicken drumsticks. None of these are universally popular though.

Oh and I always have Pizza Express marguerita pizzas in the freezer just in case.

Veg are so tricky, I usually do raw - carrot sticks, cucumber, cherry tomatoes.

Followed by fruit and I usually manage some kind of home made cake or biscuits.

Just wondered if anyone had any magic foolproof formula that works time after time - I keep thinking I've hit it, then the next kid hates it ...

Bacon roll and baked beans. I used to do DIY sandwiches with choice of ham and/or cheese.
nice plate of carrot/cucumber sticks, grapes, apple slices or whatever. Some sort of cake or biscuit - sometimes the girls will have made or at least iced some cakes and they get to eat some, take some home.

Thanks hc, we'll be over later for it.

I think I usually do some combination of:
pizza
sausages
pesto from jar (the shame)
Broccoli
cooked or uncooked carrots
macaroni cheese (lovingly handmade)
I did do Cauliflower cheese once but a child reported he'd had cauilflower in custard to his parents...

Earl Grey

Some funny caps, there - not just any old broccoli but actual Broccoli from the Broccoli region of, er, Italy...

Large pizza - one half margarita, the other half ham & pineapple

Jacket potato halves (with cheese)

Baked beans

Corn on the cobs

Pudding - usually apple crumble or

bananas with icecream

i do the make your own pizza thing with wedges then yoghurt and/fruit

pmsl at kid going home saying he'd had cauliflower in custard!

There's an idea actually - serve a large mound of steamed vegetables liberally doused in custard - what's not to like...

grape and cream cheese sandwiches, I've never had a child not like them! They are a guaranteed hit, even with fussy eaters.

Like others, I've also had lots of success with wraps, kids will add all sorts of fillings that they would never otherwise eat, even kidney beans and chickpeas, it's great!

This really brings it all back... 10 years ago our standard friends-round-for-tea meal was meatballs and spaghetti - with a weekly instalment of 'Meatball News' where DS & his best friend did funny (by their standards)news announcements with meatball-on-a-fork puppets....

pasta with pesto (from shameful jar also)
sausages with broccoli/carrot/sugarsnaps
pizza
roast chicken drumsticks
fruit
icecream - sometimes exotically in a cone

Actually the best pudding I have done (in my own humble opinion) is "make your own" sundaes (two flavours ice cream, whippy cream, sprinkles, strawberries, choc sauce, caramel sauce, flakes, wafers, whatever). Although have known ascetic chidren sit and eat one scoop of vanilla icecream whilst I own children piggishly eat the remainedr.

oooh yes, def agree with stirfry, kids love noodles (mostly)

krabbie I did something similar once for DS, I dipped broccoli and carrots in melted dark chocolate , it was more a joke than anything else but he ate them!!

Chicken stirfry and noodles always goes down well here too. I do same healthy, quite veggie based ones as I do for us, somehow even if I make loads, once it's mixed up with noodles they don't seem to bother or notice. Macaroni cheese popular too, even with kids who initially say they don't like it. Usually do it with cauliflour. If you've time, children always seem to like roast chicken and veg or salad and bread.

Stirfry enthusiasts: what kind of noodles do you use? And what kind of sauce/seasoning? I'm very curious - would never have considered this - thanks, that's what this thread was for

egg noddles (cook in 5 mins in boiling water - boil water then turn off & leave). No sauce/seasoning (although ds insists on soy to sprinkle

Chicken, pasta, cheese and broccoli

And I will fiddle with a guest's food in a way that would make my eyes POP with my own.

I provide good nutrition, but if a child isn't mine I won't enforce good nutrition.

Also happy to dish up chips instead.

Orange food

Baked potatoes. Garlic bread for those who don't like potatoes.

with chipolatas, ham, cooked turkey slices from the deli, cheese, plus peas, cooked carrots, corn on the cob, raw carrots, cucumber, olives, cherry tomatoes. Butter on the baked potatoes, heinz tomato ketchup on the side.

This way even the most fussy eaters will eat something! My dcs will have a little bit of all of those, LOL!

Find fussy eaters extremely difficult to tolerate but then you can't choose your dcs friends, can you?

For pudding, always vanilla icecream: with grapes, cherries, strawberries, nectarines, pineapple

or tinned peaches,tinned pears, tinned pineapple, depending on the season.

If the little blighters can't find something they want to eat out of that lot ... then ... they've not invited again!

We all seem to have fussy eaters round here so I do pancakes for one child, eggy bread for another and fishfingers and chips for a third (different days!) all served with raw carrot, salad and fruit. They usually don't want pudding because they can't bear to sit at the table any longer.

Fishfingers, broccoli and oven chips. Find it's the only meal which is foolproof

We have to do a cooked meal option because dd (5) attends a small village school which doesn't have the facility for school dinner- hence all children have packed lunches and don't want more of the same on a post school play date