Help - christening party for 65 on a shoestring!

[MrsMcJnr]

Says it all really. Was thinking I could do finger food only so wouldn't need cutlery but am beginning to get nervous. It's in 2 weeks.

What would you serve? the party is at 1pm.

Might be cheaper to do hot food - eg tons of baked potaoes, salads,quiche, bread, sausages?
Finger food wise I generally just do bread, cheese, salad,sausage rolls,crisps,quiche,fruit salad, cupcakes and the cake.
Thinking about it though making your own sandwiches is cheaper-for the kids birthday parties I have been known to use smartprice bread for sandwiches and smartprice crisps!No poncing about with £1 french sticks!

Why don't you do a "Jacob's Joint"?! This is where everyone brings a dish to share. That way you don't have to spent lots and everyone feels involved.

That what we did for my LO and it went very well. Have a few friends who did the same.

I was going to say that too actually. We had a naming thing for my kids and my mum made the cake and fruit salad, mil gots crisps and drinks, bil made salads, aunty got bread, friend got gateaux from hypermarket and so on- I think in the end I bought lots of cheap cava and made pasta salad!

Thanks ladies, it is complicated by the fact that I am in Spain, the guests are either relies and friends over from Scotland or friends we've made in the last year so I don't feel able to ask anyone to bring anything. I did think lots of fresh bread, olives and crisps could pad things out and then add some sausage rolls etc but I'd have to make those from scratch as can't get things like that here (not cheaply anyway) so that would take up a lot of time.

What's cheap in spain then food wise?
I went to a wedding reception in spain and it was in the local village bar and the cook produced fish and salad, followed by chicken and chips then cake. It was basic but tasty and both spanish and British enjoyed it. Could you ask somewhere local what they''d charge?
Or (thinking it's a long time since i've been in a spanish supermarket!) could you get chicken/sausages cook then serve cold with bread/salad and cake? Spanish omlette served cold is cheap. Do the bakers sell pastry cases that you casn fill yourself for sweet or savoury?
My friend's wedding was very cheap but nice and the food for similar numbers was a huge vat of vege chilli and another of meat chilli served with baked potatoes.
Have you had any more thoughts?

Chorizo, goats cheese and bread are all cheap as are olives. Thought I could put out a selection of those. Sweet pastries are really reasonable too so I will get some of those. Cold chicken is a good idea - maybe I should make a coronation or jubilee chicken but then I'd need forks I've not seen pastry cases but maybe vol au von (sp!) style ones, that's a good idea too. I do have two slow cookers so thought about some kind of hot dish but again the fork issue put me off though I guess 65 plastic forks isn't going to break the bank. Thanks for your help, you are inspiring me

Hmm - we recently did a 4 course meal for 40. I think you're right about the cutlery etc, because that was where we fell down - we had enough for 40 at once, but not enough for 4 x 40, and so we kept frantically going round grabbing plates and washing them up. However, it does make it easy to feed poeple cheaply, because you can do things like gazpacho or onion soup, which look posh on little money and can be prepared well in advance.

Could you do a few big tortillas (maybe with different additions, like chorizo or asparagus etc), and cut it up into canape sized pieces?

Chorizo bits on cocktail sticks?

Cheese and bread went down very well at our do, and is good value.

Little cherry tomatoes with a basil leaf on them?

Smoked mackerel pate? cheap to make in the UK at least.

Ah - I know! Empanadas! Cheap as chips, finger food, and everyone likes them. Do a big dish of tuna empanada, a big dish of meat empanada, and then a veggie one.

Could you ask a relative to bring over a Scottish smoked salmon? It's the kind of thing they like to bring, don't you think?

And could someone bring some mini oatcakes, to serve with smoked mackerel pate on ?

Is there not a "pound shop" equivalent there? You can get packs of 100 forks for £1 here. If not, try a local take-away, ask if you can buy some from them. (Get double the amount of forks to guests).

Really great ideas, thank you. Do you have a recipe for empanadas Grendelsmum?

Our best recipe is in a cookbook, but to be honest I'm not sure it's totally authentic - I think it's been cheffed up a bit, as it has polenta in the pastry and my gran never put any polenta in hers.

This recipe for tuna empanada looks about right:

spanishfood.about.com/od/tapas/ss/empanadas.htm

This has them made into the traditional cornish pasty shapes, but you can do them like you buy in a bakers' and just do an enormous rectangular pie dish. Traditional shapes makes the filling go further, but is more work than enormous pie dish.

A veggie filling would be pretty similar, except you put some chopped up peppers, eggs, etc in the sofrito.

You can also use sardine rather than tuna, especially if sardine happens to be on special offer and your DH has gone mad and bought about 20 tins of it.

HTH