Dinner inspiration incl. vegetarian & coeliac

[magicstar1]

I've a few people calling in tomorrow evening and I've said I'll lay on some food. For some reason (PMT week) I can't get my thoughts together on what to make - I've too many ideas and none at the same time! The weather is to be nice, so we'll eat outside. So far I'm thinking:

Roast chicken
Vegetable lasagne
Some salads - potato salad / caesar salad

I want a few bits to make it more interesting but I just don't know what. Any easy ideas would be gratefully received.

Swap out the standard lasagne for a layered pasta dish made with GF pasta and making sure that any white sauce is GF (as GF lasagne is the most disappointing offering in the GF pasta ranges), then you'll cover both in one dish.

Lots of salad-salad as well as the potatoes, things like olives, cheese (kept away from bread/butter knives - might be a plan not to have standard bread at all, as the risk of cross contamination is very high with buffet style meals), capers, strips of peppers roasted in olive oil and garlic with lemon juice and herbs, little stuffed peppers, artichokes, more cheese, a salad made with quinoa, cucumber, tomatoes, onions, mint, parsley, olive oil and lemon, strips of roasted courgette in dressings, fresh green and white bean salad with herbs.

Some chilled drinks of your choice (including GF beer if they drink - Peroni is the most beer like), fruit - you can make an absolute feast without a scrap of gluten ruining the proceedings.

Frittata https://realfood.tesco.com/recipes/halloumi-potato-and-spring-greens-frittata.html

rice salad https://hungryhealthyhappy.com/mediterranean-rice-salad/

I'd do a big tray of roasted Mediterranean veg with haloumi, naturally gf and popular with meat eaters and veggies a like. Then lots of yummy salads, I'd keep them all gf. A sweet potato salad, a homemade apple slaw, maybe a wild rice salad.

Unlike a PP I think lasagne is one of the better GF pastas!

I would also try to keep things as naturally GF and veggie as possible with an added meat thing or two. Especially as the GF is coeliac - then they don’t have to worry about cross contamination. So I don’t think you need bread for example, you could do potatoes in some form

Some good ideas here, thanks