So what is your most successful dinner party menu and what made it so great?

[dosydot]

Have friends over for dinner on Saturday and am trying to plan a menu that is impressive but manageable with toddlers running around.
Come and boast of your successes, I will nab all the best ideas and take them as my own

please, humour me

Brie stuffed mushrooms to start, can't find recipe right now but any stuffed mushrooms recipe is good as you can make it in advance and leave in teh fridge.
Then make a stew (beef and guiness always goes down well) with a slowcooker, start it in the morning, transfer into a dish and cover with a pre-rolled and cut piece of pastry and bung in oven while eating starter. Again, you do stew first thing and forget about it and can roll and cut pastry in advance and leave in fridge till needed.
I always do a creme brulee for pudding as it's my specialty and again you make it the day before and leave in fridge until needed, then just put on sugar and set fire to it caramelise it.

Basically anythign that can be mostly done and cooked in advance and only needs to go in the oven for 10-20 minutes is a winner!

starter: sussex smokies - super easy and pre-preparable.

Main: beef wellington with asparagus and bearnaise sauce. Wouldn't recommend the asparagus and bearnaise if you are phobic of last minute cooking but the beef wellington is emminently pre-preparable and looks amazingly impressive. (don't use liver pate though - lots of people hate cooked liver. My tip is mushroom pate wrapped with parma ham)

Pudding: v simple fruit salad - raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, tossed in a squeeze of lime, a teaspoon of sugar and half a measure of dark rum, served with amaretti biscuits and a bowl of softly whipped cream. Mmmm...