ISO cold finger food ideas for a buffet.

[csalt]

In a couple of months time I shall be needing to do a buffet for about 30 people. All the food needs to be easily transportable in the car. It needs to be cold as there is only a microwave oven . Also I won't have time for heating stuff.
It needs to be food that can be laid out 1 hour beforehand and just coverings whipped off when the event which it follows is over.
It would be helpful if I could start making the things now and put them in the freezer.
It needs to be food which can be eaten standing up! and using the minimum amount of utensils! fingers preferably.


Im thinking

quiches
vol au vents
sausages
cheese and pineapple
scotch eggs
pea and mint tartlets
cherry tomatoes
olives

and an assortment of cakes for after?


I'd appreciate suggestions please.
As I said , it needs to be food which I can lay out, then go off for an hour then come back and just be ready to serve it.

 

[Andy M.]

Cheese puffs
Devilled eggs
Olive salad with pita wedges
(recipes available upon request)

 

[jabbur]

I have a recipe for cheese biscuits that work well. They can be frozen after baked and then set out at room temp. If you want the recipe, I'll find it and post it here later. We made these for my sister's wedding so they were made about 2-3 weeks ahead and you would have never guessed it! A southern US tradition of ham biscuits is another idea. It is dinner rolls (not buns) split in half with a slice of ham inserted. Tradition states it should be cured or smoked ham but any ham coldcut will work. These are good and substantial without being hugh sandwiches.

 

[csalt]

Yes please to both of you for the recipes. Thanks very much.

 

[csalt]

I have a recipe for cheese biscuits that work well. They can be frozen after baked and then set out at room temp. If you want the recipe, I'll find it and post it here later. We made these for my sister's wedding so they were made about 2-3 weeks ahead and you would have never guessed it! A southern US tradition of ham biscuits is another idea. It is dinner rolls (not buns) split in half with a slice of ham inserted. Tradition states it should be cured or smoked ham but any ham coldcut will work. These are good and substantial without being hugh sandwiches.

I'm wondering if those are what are called 'bridge rolls' in the UK? Oval in shape and slightly smaller than normal round rolls?
I was going to get a decent sized piece of unsmoked gammom and cook that for cold meat. In addition we have the most enormous chicken sitting in the freezer which a colleague of DH gave us and it's simply too large to use for just the 2 of us. I was keeping it for when we have friends to dinner but this occasion would do instead.

 

[Andy M.]

Cheese Puffs


3/4 C Water
1/2 tsp Salt
6 Tb Unsalted Butter
3/4 C All Purpose Flour
4 Eggs
1 1/2 Tb Chopped Fresh Thyme
1 C Grated Cheddar

Preheat the oven to 400 F.

Put the water, salt and butter into a 2-3 quart sauce pan, bring to a boil.

Add the flour all at once and beat vigorously, still on the heat, with a stiff whisk or wooden spoon until the dough pulls away from the sides of the pan. Remove the pan from the heat.

Beat the eggs into the dough one at a time using a food processor, electric mixer or a spoon/whisk. Mix in the thyme and half of the cheese.

Spoon or pipe teaspoon amounts of the dough 1" apart onto parchment covered cookie sheets. Top each with a pinch of the remaining cheese.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.

If you like, you can freeze the uncooked dough on the cookie sheets and transfer them to a container for later use.




Olive Salad

10 Oz Green olives w/ pimento (283 gr.)
1 medium onion
1 C Chopped Parsley (200 ml)
1 Clove Garlic
1 Tb Lemon juice (15 ml)
2 1/2 Tb Tomato Paste (40 ml)


Rinse the olives under running water and drain.


Finely chop the onion, parsley and garlic in a food processor. Add the olives, lemon juice and tomato paste and pulse until the olives are in small pieces.

The best flavor results from making this the day before serving.




Devilled Eggs

12 Eggs
2/3 C Mayonnaise
1/2 tsp Garlic Powder
1 tsp Olive Juice
S & P
6 Green Olives w/Pimento
Paprika

Hard boil and peel the eggs.

Slice them in half length-wise and remove the yolks.

Add the mayo, garlic powder, olive juice and salt and pepper to the yolks. Mash and mix thoroughly.

Fill the egg white halves with the yolk mixture, leaving each slightly mounded. Use a piping bag or plastic bag with the corner cut off to fill the eggs.

Slice the olives in half – top to bottom.

Press an olive half into each egg half – cut side up.

Sprinkle with paprika and serve.

Makes 24 devilled eggs

 

[Katie H]

csalt, one of the things that is always well received here is something called "Tortilla Pinwheels." They are easy to make and can be made ahead of time. They aren't costly and you can make a ton of them in no time. Here's a link to a recipe: Tortilla Pinwheels. You can find lots more recipes for them by Googling "tortilla pinwheels."

 

[kadesma]

csalt,
I make this Rotolo for the kids most holidays and they always ask for it for birthdays. It's easy..I just get frozen bread dough, let it rise, roll it out with a little flour on the board to a 12x16 rectangle depending on fi they want one like pizza or just meats and cheeses I go from there. My youngest son loves his like pizza, so after rolling to size, I brush with a good amount of a pizza sauce,(store bought) then I tear up salami and provolone and mozzarella cheese and a small amount of onions I've sauteed. I just layer all this over the bread dough, then sprinkle it with parmesan.Start at the long end and roll up tightly like a jelly roll. Pinch the ends to keep it from oozing, brush with egg wash and let sit for 20 min. Then bake at375 in preheated oven for25-30 min. Remove from oven, let sit to cool down a little then slice thin and serve.
This will make 24-26 slices cut thinly. And once the bread has risen it only takes about 10 min. to pull together...One nice thing about it is you can let your imagination go crazy with ideas.

kadesma

 

[mudbug]

I'm a little worried about Andy's deviled eggs sitting around for about an hour before anyone eats them.

 

[mish]

Mini quiches

I haven't tried this one yet, but it looks yummy, to me:
Crustless Carrot Mini-Quiches

Stuffed mushrooms

Shrimp platter on ice - Put a party pick through each shrimp

Deli & cheese platter - Serve with sliced french bread or mini rolls on the side

Crudite platter - celery sticks, carrot sticks, broc & cauliflower, cherry tomatoes & a dip or dressing i.e. Ranch etc.

Stuffed cherry tomatoes

Mozzarella sticks (breaded & fried) w marinara dipping sauce

Spinach dip in a hollowed out pumpernickle bread bowl.

Fruit kabobs - starwberry & diced mozzarella on party picks (Any combo of fruits & cheese)

Tea party sandwiches - i.e. cucumber, watercress, chicken salad, roast beef, cream cheese, tapenade, etc.

Egg rolls

Wontons

Crab Rangoon

Tortilla wraps

Cucumber bites - slice cukes about 2" long, hollow out the inside, fill with mousse, pate, chicken or tuna salad

Mini (cream) Cheese balls on party picks

I have a recipe somewhere for mini cornucopias, you can fill with chicken, tuna shrimp salad. Let me know if you are interested.

If I think of some more, I will post.

 

[csalt]

Here, the food & hygeine rules are that no food should be left at room temp for over 2 hours. I will be taking everything over there in cool boxes and will try to plan it so anything like that stays in the coolbox til just before it goes on the plates. Best I can do.

 

[mudbug]

That's all right, then csalt. I was thinking you were leaving everything out on a table in a deserted room that would be filled with hungry people an hour later.

But a nice cheese platter would benefit from sitting out for an hour or so.

 

[BreezyCooking]

Hollowed out cherry tomatoes with herbed cheese stuffed/piped into them.

Peeled cherry tomatoes soaked in vodka & served with toothpicks alongside a container of herbed sea salt (aka Bloody Mary Tomatoes).

Small pepperoni/salami slices curled around a schmear of cream cheese (plain or flavored) & fastened with decorative toothpicks.

Hollowed out cabbages filled with dip & surrounded with a variety of raw &/or blanched vegetable crudite.

Hollowed out round breads filled with dip & surrounded with their cubed inards.

Raw fresh snow peas filled with herbed cheese.

To be honest, my list is virtually endless.

 

[csalt]

MB I will be leaving some of the food out, in a deserted room , for an hour tops, but I will plan to have things like meat and egg based stuff stay in the cool box til I dash back and put it out.

DH belongs to an Association of Christian Gentleman. They are having a Mass for Vocations in July. Normally we would have the buffet at our home but

a) it's too small
b) the venue for the Mass is 8 miles away
c) As he is on the Staff of the Church /Shrine where the Mass will take place, we will use the Staffroom, which is perfectly OK for buffets as long as most people are standing!

I will ask one or two of the other ladies to help me do 'the rush' bit!

Any ideas for 'afters'...it has to be stuff they can hold, so no trifle etc.
It's fresh fruit season so probably some strawberries and grapes and different sorts of cake. I can make the cakes and freeze them. At least I've got time to get myself organised

 

[mudbug]

why not something simple like cookies for "afters"? Easy to bake/freeze/thaw.
Or petits fours, if you're ambitious and want to impress. Another way to go would be to dip those seasonal strawberries in some nice choc.

 

[kadesma]

I'm a little worried about Andy's deviled eggs sitting around for about an hour before anyone eats them.

csalt,
I get a bag of crushed ice, put it into a baggie then place it into a container with sides, then get a matching serving try, line with my greens, set the eggs on that and place the platter onto the tray so it touches the bagged ice, works great to keep things cool. You could also get those containers you freeze and place them under your tray of eggs.

kadesma

 

[mish]

I jumping around here, as you mentioned dessert too. I thought of a few more:

For after:

Strawberry Blossoms - wash & hull the berries, slice in quarters (like an X), but not all the way through (the berries will look like little flowers), pipe in herbed cream cheese.

During:
You can fill the cherry tomatoes (I mentioned earlier), the same way - pipe the herbed or salmon cream cheese in som -- and prepared pesto in the rest. Top each cherry tomato w a tiny bay shrimp.

Puff pastry wrapped pencil asparaugs - slice the asparagus in thirds, blanch in saloted water, pluge in ice water, dry; and wrap a piece of puff pastry around each & bake.

Zucchini-di-Carpaccio (below) and/or bruschetta
carpaccio-di-zucchini

Rumaki - chicken livers wrapped in bacon w a water chestnut on party picks.

Back to the after:
Cherry Cheesecake Cookie Cups

Cheesecake Cookie Cups

 

[QSis]

Mini quiches

I haven't tried this one yet, but it looks yummy, to me:
Crustless Carrot Mini-Quiches

quote]

Oh, I am DEFINITELY going to try this recipe! Not just with carrots, but with Vidalias, mushrooms, scallions, ham, green pepper, all of the above!

I have mini-muffin tins, too, so they would be a wonderful appetizer to add to our Lazy Susan. (probably not so good for csalt's cold appetizer gig, though)

I bet Eggbeaters would work great, too.

Thanks, mish!

Lee

 

[QSis]

csalt,

I adore tea sandwiches, but they are a pain to make!

I have done this for a bunch of people and it's quick and easy:

Get a bunch of French breads, slice on the side, lengthwise. Spread each one with a different filling: chicken salad, egg salad, tuna salad, crab salad, cream cheese and olive, salmon and cream cheese, cream cheese and hot pepper jelly (cream cheese is very versatile), pb and j, etc. Wrap up in saran wrap and chill till it's time to serve. Cut the breads into hand-sized sandwiches (an electric knife helps).

I love parties like yours! I could appetizer my way through life!

Lee

 

[BreezyCooking]

DH belongs to an Association of Christian Gentleman. They are having a Mass for Vocations in July. Normally we would have the buffet at our home but

Well, I guess that automatically votes out the Vodka/Bloody Mary Tomatoes - lol!!!!!