Hot food ideas for a party of 40 adults

[Twims]

As the title says - I am reall hoping you can give me some ideas about what food I can serve (hot) to 40 adults at a big 50th birthday party - I am hoping to have everyone sitting down to a meal of some sort so also need to think of a desert.

My thoughts were a roast chicken and all the trimmings (how many chickens do you think I'd need?) Any more ideas?

my idea would be

a very large chilli con carne with baked potatoes or rice
and a salad

with to follow

a big round of brie and crusty bread

and to follow

chocolates (cheap ones that nevertheless seem not to be like own brand seashells) decanted from boxes into large bowls to be dipped into as and when

Roast chicken sounds great.... but I reckon that you need a chicken for every four people (on the basis that everyone might want a leg/wing!) In reality loads of people will probably just want breast, so that will get even more complicated. Have you got space to roast 10 chickens???

My fallback for lots of people is jerk chicken pieces - mix of thighs and drumsticks. Any kind of spiced up or marinated chicken would be good. You need minimum two pieces each. Then do some big pots of rice, loads of salad, corn on the cob, bread - a bit like an indoor barbecue if you like.

am crap at desserts so will leave that to someone else. I don't do much more than ice cream or fruit.

So I would do a big bowl of strawberries, watermelon, pineapple, blueberries etc and let people help themselves. Scoop of ice cream and everyone's happy

I would do

Vegetable Lasagne, Garlic Bread and Salad

Chilli con Carne and Rice and Salad

Fish Pie and Garlic Bread and Salad

followed by

Apple Crumble

Trifle

Chocolate Gateau

(Apparantly Costco have fab desserts for not much money - have you got a friend who could take you?)

Agree with chilli. Roasting enough chickens for so many could be a logistical nightmare, unless you have Gordon Ramsey's £50,000 oven.

Big bowl of meat chilli, big bowl of veggie chilli, bowls of tortilla chips, bowls of rice, guacamole, soured cream, grated cheese, salad.

Pud = industrial sized dish of trifle; huge chocolate cake; meringues with cream and fruit.

Picky bowls of chocs, as Bleurgh says, plus jelly beans!

or beef stroganof pad it out with mushrooms and cream, plus rice...
Delia's cheat's chocolate trifle is a easy pudding to make and is lovely.

Thank you and keep the ideas coming - yes tink a roast is out of the question lol