Simple dinner party meal

[Anonymous]

Happy back to school! I'd love to host some of the kids' friends' parents over for dinners.
In my ideal world is that I have that "go to" dinner party meal for 8-ish people, including 4 kids. Easy, delicious, kids will (well, not one of mine; she eats only fruit and popcorn, sigh) eat it.

Do you have one of these? What's your menu?

(yes, this may have been asked before, but people change their menus )

[Anonymous]

I go to h mart and get a bunch of meat to grill and some sides plus make a few of my own.

[Anonymous]

lasagna, salad and brownies

[Anonymous]

Make your own taco night: ground meat (beef, chicken, turkey or pork), fish (tilapia is easy), a veggie blend, buy some sour cream, cheddar cheese, a jar of salsa, a can of green chiles and slice up tomatoes and make guacamole.

Buy some tortillas, hard taco shells, etc.

Easy and picky eaters can be picky and make their own, and you can go as cheap or as expensive as you want with the meat quality, cheese, etc.

[Anonymous]

I knew it wouldn’t be long before the taco bar or baked potato bar person posted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I knew it wouldn’t be long before the taco bar or baked potato bar person posted.

Ha--I generally don't post in this forum so there's probably more than one of us. Just trying to help a busy parent out!

[Anonymous]

I second the suggestion for taco bar. Lasagne is generally popular but I have one tomato and cheese averse kid so that wouldn’t be my pick.
I find Indian food is quite popular these days too. Kids like butter chicken, Chana masala, saag paneer, samosas, buttered naan. I usually do store bought for the samosas and naan and make the curries myself.

[Anonymous]

Manicotti or stuffed shells
Salad
Bread

Grilled steak and veggies
Rice

Chicken parm or chicken Marsala with bread or salad

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I knew it wouldn’t be long before the taco bar or baked potato bar person posted.

NP. How weird that you have to point this out. You might want to look in the mirror and assess. I have never posted either of those, but they're great suggestions.

I notice you didn't bother to add some great, creative, never-been-posted-before option.

[Anonymous]

Already prepared shredded brisket
(I put this is a rectangular steamer pan (plug-in)
Slider rolls
Salad and/or slaw
Potato salad
Condiments (variety of sauces and pickles)

Sundae bar for dessert

[Anonymous]

Crock pot pulled pork sandwiches, coleslaw, cut up veggies for the kids. As you move into colder weather, meatballs, red sauce with spaghetti, salad and bread.

The pulled pork and meatballs can be made the day before and reheated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I knew it wouldn’t be long before the taco bar or baked potato bar person posted.

NP. How weird that you have to point this out. You might want to look in the mirror and assess. I have never posted either of those, but they're great suggestions.

I notice you didn't bother to add some great, creative, never-been-posted-before option.

+1 you can be snarky, but your post added zero value from a content perspective

[Anonymous]

Baked ziti, garlic bread and salad works perfectly for this.

[Anonymous]

I have been wildly overthinking this. I was thinking some sort of lovely salad, a pretend fancy main dish (risotto? paella?) and then something for a dessert.

Folks are cool with this level of casual? Honestly, this is incredibly useful. I had been using dinner parties as experiments for fancy cooking, and it takes all day, and then I don't do them very often. I am dumb.

[Anonymous]

Pizza