Please critique my menu

[MrsArbuthnot]

Friends for dinner on Saturday. I love cooking so happy to put in the effort. Mix of vegetarians and omivores. Prefer not to do a dish only for vegetarians, all dishes on table help yourself style.

Starter
Twice baked soufflé
Roasted garlic tomatoes
? Salad

Homemade bread ? Focaccia

Chicken cooked in Sherry and cream sauce with shallots and tarragon

Spinach and ricotta puff pastry pinwheels

Green beans with almonds

Roasted butternut squash

Chocolate mousse with cherries in kirsch

? Maybe cheesecake as well.

So I read that as
1 starter with a salad
4 mains- 2 vege and 2 non
3 sides
2 puddings

Sounds like a lot of food and so very feast like. Also lots of colour so will look very pretty on the table.

I would make slightly more amounts of your vege options as the meat eaters will eat their meat options as well as the vege ones so I think you will need more.

I would do less variations and increase amounts

Soufflé and salad

Chicken and sherry
Celeriac and potato dauphinoise
Roasted green beans and tender stem broccoli with lemon and almonds
Roasted Veg and chick pea Moroccan stew
Green salad

Chocolate mousse
Eton mess

Thank you. The vegetables are for everyone, I can assure you I will make an abundance of veg. There is only one meat dish, that is not going to fill the poor omnis so they will be allowed veg!

Not sure dauphinois goes with Moroccan stew. And it would all be very wet maybe I just like dry food

And if we are going down the Moroccan route maybe slow roasted lamb?

I don’t think you need bread at all. That isn’t necessary. Sherry chicken sounds nice but I wouldn’t want to eat sauce without rice or potatoes to soak it up. Just a small dish of plain rice rather than in the butternut squash will do. You don’t need salad either, if you have veg.

Speaks someone who hates dry food and loves wet dishes.

Moroccan themed stuff also sounds lovely.

Suggested potatoes because it would be more substantial for the veggies. Pinwheels sound like a snack

What about put lentils in a herby tomato sauce with wilted baby spinach?

Puy lentils.

Second menu much better!

And better still if you replace the chicken with slow roast lamb.

Honestly it ALL sounds very delicious. What time shall I come over!

The lentils sound nice too.

Lots of lovely stuff there, OP. Maybe too much, though?

For the starter I'd leave out the tomatoes and serve with a few dressed leaves- something a bit bitter like endive to cut the richness of the soufflé.

I'd leave out the focaccia - quite a lot of filling elements in the meal already.

I'd also skip the pinwheels- too much faff and too many flavours going on- and have something like parmentier or even mashed potatoes.

And I wouldn't do more than one dessert.

Thank you, this has been helpful, although confusing as well. I guess you can't please everyone.

I love making bread so will definitely do that. I have made the chicken before and it was well received, so will stick to that as well.

I generally know what my friends enjoy eating, what they avoid, but I have a couple of people coming who I haven't cooked for before as well. And I just like to give plenty of choice.

So attempt 3 of massively overthinking what to cook for dinner.

Twice baked soufflé with bitter leaves and a scattering of roasted baby tomatoes

Lovingly handcrafted bread

Puy lentils cooked in tomato sauce and wilted spinach

Green beans with almonds

New potatoes

Chicken in sherry

Chocolate mousse sprinkled with freeze dried raspberry and a langue de chat for dipping

Sounds amazing.
Have a great evening!

Sounds delicious and I would be delighted to eat any of it 😁 I often do green beans with lemon and almonds as a healthyish side, and I make a good foccacia too. Other options I'd recommend for this kind of meal (not for this time - I think you've done enough 😂):

• Alison Roman's brothy meatballs
• Smittenkitchen.com spinach sheet pan quiche
• aubergine parmigiana (always messy to portion out though!)
• marmalade roast ham
• tabbouleh
• Ottolenghi confit chilli chickpea stew

Attempt three sounds perfect.

Sounds delicious to me. The only thing i'd suggest is checking that the cheese in the soufflé is vegetarian. I'm not too bothered if someone uses Parmesan or another non-veg cheese as a lot of people don't know and I'm grateful for any effort to cater for me. Stricter vegetarians might ask.