nice and easy starter?

[baggins]

Any ideas for a nice and easy starter, enough for 8 people. I would like to make something a bit different from the normal, soup,egg mayonnaise etc. I'm not all that adventurous, so if anyone has anything nice and easy that would be great!!!!

[looby-loo]

something thats really nice is a plate of sliced mozzerella cheese with slices of tomato and whole fresh basil leaves. serve all layered up on a big plate and with some nice crusty bread like ciabatta and a bottle of balsamic vinegar. for people to add themselves. sooo tasty and looks pretty too

[Artemis]

Chopped Smoked Salmon and white Crab meat done in the style of a prawn cocktail. Different but delicious. Better to make your own Marie Rose sauce too.

[ursula62]

Slices of goatscheese on toast, grilled and served with cranberry sauce.

[andyjevs]

Stuffed peppers. halve a couple of peppers, remove seeds and fill with a filling of your choice.... mozerella, mushrooms, chopped onion, sweetcorn etc etc is my fave....oven bake for 20 minutes ish.

[Linda51]

I always enjoy a mixture of melon with some strawberry saute on the side

[Rebecca611]

Prawn cocktail.You will need 8 wide rimmed wine glasses.  Add tiny bit of salad, layer with prawns, top with some dressing (mix half ketchup with half mayonnaise) and garnish with a slice of lemon.  Voila!!  Easier eaten with a teaspoon.

[Polotoo]

My favourite starter at the moment is similar to Loopy-loos. Very easy to make!

Chunks of mozzerella mixed with tomatos, melon and parma ham. A little goes a long way! Serve it with a balsamic vinegar and oline oil dressing, hmmm... bliss! Can be served with some crusty bread to mop the dressing up with after!!

Always goes down well at my dinner parties and its light if you are having a heavy main course-if you see what I mean!!

[Kat535]

You could try fried cheese.  Get some Halloumi Cheese, cut into thick slices, heat a little olive oil in a frying pan and fry the cheese until golden 9about 2-3 mins per side).  Serve with salad and relish - sweet onion, redcurrant jelly or mnt jelly are all quite nice.

[crisgal]

this is super easy and tastes much better than it sounds. Also, it's preparable in advance.

Make some prawn butter and spread onto very soft brown bread.

cut off crusts and add very thin pieces of smoked salmon, topped with very thin slices of ham.

roll up, swiss roll style and then chill. When ready to serve, slice so that you get little pin wheel shapes and arrange in a circle on a plate, with some rocket in the centre, add a wedge of lemon and voila! 

[portocat]

A very easy starter is corn chips with home made salsa and guacamole dips.  You can buy a couple of big bags of corn chips from the supermarket. 

To make the salsa you need a tin of chopped tomatoes, some cajun spice (from the spice section!) and some sugar.  mix some spice and sugar in to the tomatoes until it tastes nice.  You can also chop up a few fresh tomatoes and add in.

For the guacamole, use a few avocados, mash them up with lots of fresh garlic and a tiny bit of lemon juice and a wee bit of salt and pepper. 

This always goes down well and is super easy.

[billearly]

Asparagus served with either Hollandaise sauce or Lemon butter  delicious .Asparagus should be eaten with fingers not knife and fork,I have only just found this out.

[privacybill]

Get tomatoes about 2" to 3" dia. make sure the tomatoes still have their stalk attached, cut off the top at an angle about a quarter of the way down. Scoop out contents of the tomato and  liquidise, mix with drained tinned Tuna,  mix together with 1000 Island Dressing. Insert contents into prepared tomatos, replace the top you cut off the opposite way to which you cut it. Serve on a lettece  base with buttered brown bread.............and............. Enjoy !!!!      

[Alixw]

God those all sound lovely! Think i'll be trying some of these too Baggins!!

[helpme!]

Bruschetta is delicious and one of my favorites..... by individual sized flat breads, put on top chopped fresh tomato and red onion (cold) and drizzle with pesto....mmmMMMmmmMMmmmm

[baggins]

Thank you for all your suggestions!! I certainly have plenty of choice now. Thanks again.

[Tweety]

Peel and slice one avocado pear and one ordinary pear per person and arrange on a plate then drizzle with a good blue cheese salad dressing

[heatherglen]

A few slices of melon per plate interspersed with Parma ham and some blackberry preserve on the side.