What's your "Go To" menu when entertaining?

[Glee Fan]

We have friends coming over in a couple of weeks and I feel like I have exhausted all the recipes I like to cook and everything I am good at! I need a change but not sure what to do

Any suggestions please? Even better if they can be prepped and made in advance etc.

Both savoury and dessert options please

[Smilesonfaces]

I’m not the most inventive cook. ! My go to’ s are lamb shanks, hunters chicken or timed to coincide with a M & S meal deal weekend. It’s the company that counts ha ha (and plenty of wine !)

[princess allie]

My fall backs are as follows:

Starters: Baked Camembert with fresh bread for dipping
Selection of continental meats, olives and variety of breads

Mains: Easy seafood lasagne (made with tinned fish) you can google the recipe
Fondue - we use a burner at the table with a fondue set with hot oil. You
can pre prepare, chopped steak, seafood, veggies to go in it.

Dessert: Eton Mess
Home made Pavlova
Cheese board and crackers with pickles and chutneys.

Interested to see other peoples ideas too and get some new ideas

[sha9]

I’m not a fancy cook but stuff I like to make for company (usually just Mum & Dad) are

Chicken breasts stuffed with haggis or black pudding wrapped in bacon with a whiskey sauce.

A “chilli lasagne” with chilli, tortilla wraps and cheese. Mary Berry has a good recipe for that. A bit different to a usual lasagne although I sometimes make a straightforward lasagne.

Steak pie.

My sister usually does pudding as I’m a bit rubbish at that.

Starters will sometimes be just soup but I’ve been known to do a haggis, neeps & tarries filo parcel with whiskey sauce (yes, I know, there’s a theme!) or another is Brie and cranberry filo parcels.

Good old prawn cocktail!

[batleyboy26]

We don’t really do entertaining any more but when we did, we would usually do a gamma on with loads of veg done in different ways (we are boring with veg otherwise - everything in the steamer). If we had veegetarians over, I have a baked red onion and mushroom risotto which was good as could pre-prepare most of it.

Starters were homemade mushroom soup which could be done earlier then just warmed up and made to look a bit posher with swirls of cream and served with the pick n mix bread rolls from the supermarket OR tapas style platter with breads, olive oil & balsamic, hummus, alioli, olives and some continental meats and cheeses. All just needed tarting up on a nice board.

My hot fudge sundae always went down a treat and again, the ingredients for the sauce could be all put in a bowl earlier and then just melted and warmed over hot water in no time. Adding a bit of alcohol such as courvoisier to the sauce with lovely toppings made it a very popular dessert.

[MissFortune]

These have been tried, tested & very much enjoyed.

- Posh Lamb Balti made with lamb shanks
- Seven Hour Lamb (actually very easy, you just leave it to do it's own thing)

We like lamb!

The Seven Hour lamb is lovely served with:
- Honey-mustard parsnip & potato bake

[justacey]

My last get together I served a big dish of bolognese and a big dish of chili. With rice / pasta / chips and garlic bread. My friends had been watching a rugby match on telly so had been drinking and didn't need anything fancy

Why not try a campfire stew pinchofnom/recipes/syn-free-campfire-stew/

[Disney_time]

I have a simple but eye catching starter which always attracts compliments.

Take slices of black pudding, one per guest, top with round slices of goats cheese about 1cm thick (goats cheese is usually a smaller circle than the BP). Cook in over for about 20 mins. Serve immediately on plates dressed with sliced cherry tomato & rocket, drizzled with balsamic glaze. (Unfortunately cant be made in advance, but can be popped in oven 20 mins before guests sit down.)

My friend always serves asparagus spears rolled in a slice of parma ham. Served hot from oven with shop bought mayo or hollandaise.

[djewkes]

My regulars (family normally) are
Home made Leek and potato or Roasted butternut squash soup
Paella or home made meat and potato pie and mushy peas (not fancy but always goes down well)
Sticky toffee pudding (Gary Rhodes recipe) or Danish apple cake with caramel cream

[Vanillapod]

Both of my go to dishes are Ottolenghi ones and easily googled.
Chicken pastilla which is AMAZING. It’s probably my favourite meal. It’s very time consuming but I always make the filing up the night before.
I can’t stop ‘testing’ the Catalan spinach when I’m making it 😋

Also chicken with tarragon brioche.

Both are in Nopi or Plenty. I can’t remember which is in which

He also has a recipe for a delicious pea soup with goats cheese cigar crouton things. (Technical description!) I could eat a whole batch of those 🐷

Desserts are usually fig and pistachio frangipane tart or james martin’s sticky toffee pudding.

Following this with interest 😊