Yorkshire Air Ambulance - Lets Welcome...
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i'd try something you can prepare in advance and that doesn't require too much fiddly last minute cooking. How about shepherd/cottage pie?
Fry a large chopped onion and a crushed clove of garlic in a little oil in a deep saucepan for a few minutes. Add a 500g pack of beef or lamb mince and fry until brown. Add a couple of chopped carrots, a couple of sprigs of thyme and a good slug of red wine. Simmer for a few minutes then add approx 300ml beef stock and simmer for 45 minutes. Add a good spoonful of bisto granules and cook until gravy thickens. You might need to add extra water/gravy granules to get the right consistency.
Boil up about 6 large baking potatoes until nice and soft. Mash with some butter, a little milk and lots of black pepper. Then pour the mince mixture into a deep dish and top with the potatos. You can do all this the day before if necessary. To finish, pop it in the oven just before your friends arrive and then have a couple of beers and some nibbles - pie should take about an hour to reheat and crisp on the top from cold.
BBC food has loads of great recipes which are easy to follow - www.bbc.co.uk/food
Pre cook some pasta sauce then all you have to do is cook the pasta, drain and plop on top the precooked and reheated pasta sauce. Or you could try carbonara which is very easy. Grate 6oz parmesan cheese (don't use the ready grated it's yukky). Cut off the rind from some smoked bacon and cut it up quite small. Fry in some olive oil. Add the grated cheese and some double cream. It takes only a few minutes and it is so obviously home made your mates will be impressed.
Chicken breasts or thighs are easy. Put them in a baking pan, cover with your favorite sauce, bake for an hour.
Last night I made a version of this - I put about a teaspoon of pesto sauce on each, spread it around so the meat was covered, poured a drop of lemon juice and a drop of olive oil on each thigh. I think I sprinkled on a little pepper and sea salt as well. Dumped in some whole brown mushrooms on top, baked uncovered in a medium-hot oven for 1 hour. It was delicious. Probably it would have been equally good with chunks of sweet potato instead of mushrooms, or with barbeque sauce instead of pesto, or even plain tomato sauce.
You can serve it with rice, potatoes or pasta, and steamed or sauteed veggies. An easy pasta recipe that I like is that you saute some greens in a little olive oil (spinach, or kale, or turnip greens are all good), while you cook the spaghetti. When the spaghetti is almost done, add 1/4 to 1/2 pound of feta cheese to the greens, crumbled up, and stir until it melts. Add a small handful of parmesan as well. Dump in the drained pasta with a small amount (like 1/4 cup) of the pasta cooking water, stir, and serve with pepper and more parmesan cheese.
If you're really that bad at cooking, just do a curry! A 'cook in sauce' like Chicken Tonight or Homepride - there are loads to choose from - as mild or hot as you like.
A chicken breast per person (diced) then just pour the sauce over and cook - usually for about an hour.
You can even do 'boil in the bag' rice (just follow the instructions!) and buy ready prepared naan bread and poppadoms. Easy!
I regularly cook for 10 - 12 friends, and am confident enough now to do it all from scratch, but heavily relied on ready made stuff in the early days. Good luck!
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