Party food ideas on the cheap? Foof needs your help please!

[FoofFighter]

I need help with planning the food for a birthday party but as cheap as I can get away with!

I don't want to do anything hot, and it all needs to be able to be done in advance or thrown together very fast too with minimum effort/equipment as it's not at my house. Not fussed if I have to buy anything ready made and am a competent cook.

It's for upwards of 20 adults, there won't be any children. I'd have liked to be all show offy and stuff but the budget is ruling it now

Any ideas for tasty, quick, simple, possibly impressive! party food that won't cost a fortune?

[wishing had never suggested a party now emote]

I can't do hot as there are no facilities for it.

Am writing ideas in my notepad

When you say no facilities, will there be a plug? If so you could borrow a couple of slow cookers and do a big chilli or soup.

Other than that Natasha has suggested everything I was going to.

Can you stretch to one large ham? Then serve with crusty bread and a coleslaw? Crisps etc.

Go Mexican? Crunchy tacos they can fill themselves. Wraps. Rice & kidney bean http://www.mexgrocer.com/mexican-recipes-salads.html salads etc. A cold soup eg avocado or there is a goats cheese one I've read about if that would impress?

How much do you reckon a whole ham would cost?

Bumping for the evening crowd :)

I think you can do a good cheap cold buffet if everything is very fresh.

The best buffet I ever had was this:

1. cold sliced ham
2. cold sliced beef
3. really fresh colourful salad (peppers, red onions, green leaves, cherry tomatoes)
4. cold spiced rice (got to be easy as pips- rice cooked with spices and added almonds and sultanas)
5. fresh crusty bread with real butter
6. warm new potatoes in butter

It was wonderful. As Olympic said, slow cookers are great for keeping stuff hot. Try cooked new potatoes in butter being kept warm in a slow cooker.

Keep it simple and do it well. Sometimes the less choice the less fussy it looks.

I just dread it being a table full of party rings and quavers [shudders]

whole ham is £38 from Waitrose to feed 20-25.

Some baguettes, cheese and crisps, and people would be totally happy.

oh. A ham is way out of my budget!

When I say cheap I mean CHEAP

Maybe MN wasn't the place to post this!

If you use my idea (it was actually a wedding buffet on a budget and was brilliantly done by the caterers) you could replace one of the meat options with cheese and hard boiled eggs (especially if there are vegetarians).

So: cold meat, salad, cheese and eggs, potatoes, bread.

Yummy.

right, job for tomorrow then to ask in butchers. All the ones in my town are master craft butchers which usually means >£ but fingers crossed!

What time is the party? How much food will people actually expect?

well, how much do you have to spend? Maybe if we have the budget we can work out?

I've had a bit of a meltdown about this so have "delegated" the task to someone else

What a great approach Foof

:)