pre-Christmas dinner menu for fussy friends

[misshardbroom]

Can anyone come up with any suggestions for me?

Every year I host a dinner for 6 a week before Christmas (3 couples, including DH & I).

The guest list includes one pseudo-vegetarian who eats fish (but not if it still has skin / head / visible fishy features), doesn't eat shellfish, not mad on lentilly things, no red meat.

Two other guests are really big guys who are confirmed carnivores and would need something really convincingly robust if I wasn't going to give them meat.

And one guest is teetotal on the grounds of not liking the taste of alcohol, which rules out many a pudding.

Oh, and the day of the dinner is dd's infant nativity at school which I've somehow agreed to help with, so could do with as much as possible prepared in advance, even stashed away in the freezer if possible.

As a starter for 10, the starter will be either
a) this

or b) mixed antipasto / tapas stuff

Pudding probably a sort of panettone bread & butter pudding because I've a dirty great big panettone and nothing to do with it.

What goes in between? Answers on a postcard please...

I had some friends over the other night who were veggies and its more of a kitchen supper thing than a posh dinner thing, but I made spicy bean enchiladas and baked them in the oven once they were wrapped in their tortillas, with cheese on.

I served them with sour cream and salad and they were delish. you could make chilli beef ones for the carnivores.

I made the 'chilli' the day before.

yum, that sounds the sort of thing DH would love. And while one is Mediterranean & one is Mexican, it probably would work OK with the tapas-y bits to start with.

Should perhaps stress, before anyone picks me up on it, that when I referred to my friend as 'pseudo-vegetarian', it wasn't because she eats fish and doesn't like lentils, it's because she also eats meat-based burgers and kebabs!

Yes, I think tapas-y bits would go well. I did thin slivers of warm French baton and olive oil/balsamic vinegar dippy stuff.

What about Jamie Oliver's fish pie? It can be quite special.

I second the fish pie suggestion. A friend made one for us a while back and used cubed parboiled potato instead of mash. It was lovely, less time than mashing the potato and the topping crisped up beautifully. You could make 2 fish pies - one with prawns and one without for the non-shellfish eaters. I think prawns are a lovely addition to a fish pie.

You could also do a cheesboard so you can be sure the big guys don't go away hungry!

antipasto

lol

I did tapas recently and it went down really well - there are some good recipes here

Just do drinks and olives/bread/nuts then bring out the tapas followed by your pudding.

Also, I know the veggie can't have them but at Christmas I always do dates, stuffed with chorizo and wrapped in bacon. Hold them together with cocktail sticks then bake in the oven for about 10 mins - delicious!!

Speaking of cod, I made Eton Mess for pudding! HA!

Why not do a curry night? Then you can do a fish or prawn curry, a meat one, some rice and bits and pieces. Job done.

you could do some prawns in your tapas starter.

Really good idea re curry night. Doesn't have to be Indian, could be Thai.

Gawd, fussy kids are bad enough, let alone adults (and I speak from experience)