Invited people for dinner - can?t cook

[midivydale]

Help! I have invited some good friends for dinner in the next couple of weeks. All good. Apart from one minor thing. I cant cook. At all. What do I do? Any fool proof ideas out there? Or any of these home cooked delivery firms that will deliver and I can pass it off as my own? Although chances are I would own up within 5 minutes.

I don?t need to impress these people, it is nothing like that. But they are women that are really good friends and I want to treat them to a nice time. They mean a lot to me so i want to make sure they have a nice time. Oh and they are organic market, local produce types that just ?pop out for apricots for this evenings tajine?.

I thought tangerine was an instrument!

Help!

[bonaome]

Go cold. Avoid cooking altogether and do assembling instead. Get a carton of gazpacho, good bread with olive oil and balsamic for dipping, some good Spanish ham, olives, anchovies, etc. Nibbles and starter done. Get some dressed crabs from Moxons. Make a good salad. Provide the same olive oil and balsamic as a dressing. Buy a tart au citron or whatever and some single cream (organic if you like). If you're pushing the boat our even further a cheese selection and a bottle of dessert wine / good sherry / port. No actual cooking involved.

[Mrs Y]

Here we go

http://www.cookfood.net/menu/entertaining/party-food/Artichoke-Smoked-Tomato-Salad/

[enjoy]

I would order a smoked salmon.

Looks impressive, tastes delicious but isn't cheep.

Then nice bread and all that stuff that has been mentioned above!

enjoy

[Monkey]

I think you'll find they pop out for apricots for this evening's tajine! :-)

Can't cook either. I would just order in.

[midivydale]

See Moneky, I can?t even spell the thing let alone cook it.

[beansprout]

Gosh, you ladies must have so much time on your hands..

Go back to Delia Smith..unless you are to young to remember..

Easy peasy, and if you have a slow cooker all done and dusted..

Beef Bougonion, chuck it all in..

And enjoy...

Green salad and garlic bread..

Yummy

[sjw]

If you can read you can cook. It is not magic .Make a big pot of chilli with various extras like rice bread salad etc throw in some wine/ beer --sorted

[treehugger]

Anyone can cook a roast chicken (my kids could when they were about 10), get ready to cook potatoes and veg (can be steamed in a microwave) from M&S and buy in a gu tart and ice cream. Or use Cook in West Dulwich (fab food) and just come clean about it.

[tomskip]

Am very curious. What do you eat if you can't cook?

[sanity girl]

Get something from Cook in West Dulwich - the Moroccan tagine is really good - then you just need to cook some rice to go with it. They also do puddings.

[midivydale]

Cook it is, thank you so much everyone.

[shafiq]

Bring everyone over to us - We run group cooking sessions. Its a lot of fun! Everyone learns to cook. At the end we give you special boxes to take the food home or enjoy in our garden of a Grade II listed building. The garden is small but very cosy and comfortable.

Just something very different - Just pick what you want to cook. Did an Indian Street Food for a group and they loved it. kitchenskills.co.uk take a look at what we do.

Farah

[Mrs Nice]

You can always hire a chef for the night ! I did that before. That definitely impressed my friends ! Why try hard and see your friends pretend they're liking the food when it really is mediocre ...

[midivydale]

Thanks everyone. Made a super easy pasta bake with chicken/broccoli/parmesan. It was lovely!

[midivydale]

tomskip, just saw your comment :) We eat pretty well at home, we don't starve, despite me not being very able in the kitchen. I can obviously boil veg and bung a chicken in the oven type thing. What I meant with my post was that in the context of a dinner party where I wanted to treat a group of good friends (who are all pretty damn good at cooking themselves) to a nice bit of food and a nice time, I felt my skills didn't live up to what I wanted to be able to do for them. Or so I thought. All sorted now with abit of pasta. Went well