Six quick meals for feeding surprise guests

February 13th, 2012

Appliance Talk BBQs Food Preparation Small Appliances

We all love guests and the companionship they bring, but being a host is a big responsibility, which is made trickier when guests take you by surprise.  If a long-lost relative comes calling, a child organises an impromptu sleepover, or an old friend drops by unannounced, how can you fulfil your hosting duties with flair and make an impression on your guests?

Keeping your guests well-fed is one of the first steps to keeping them happy.  If you’ve already cooked, you may need to split the portions further to accommodate the guests, or quickly whip up some extras to supplement the meal.  If you don’t know how many guests you’ll be catering for but have a little warning, a good bet is to make a big communal meal they can serve themselves.

Here are six quick meals you can whip up without too much effort or preparation to make your guest’s visit a memorable one:

Fresh bread or banana bread

It’s been said that man can’t live on bread alone, but if it’s made well, he can certainly snack on it.  You can dash to the local bakery for a fresh loaf, or if you’ve a breadmaker and some ingredients handy, you can create something a bit special for your guests.  Many breadmakers have a quick-bake setting so you can whip up a loaf of your own at short notice.  If you’ve got some fruit to spare, think about adding it to the mixture as a delicious twist.

Combine slices from your fresh loaf with some cheese or spreads and you’ll have turned what could have been something fairly average into something unique.

Chips and dip

Really simple?  Yes.  But when you add a personal touch?  Really special and effective.

Dropping a couple of avocados, some onion, tomato, garlic and lemon or lime juice into a food processor makes you a tasty batch of guacamole to go with some corn chips (which you can grab from the shops or make for yourself if feeling ambitious).  Other everyday ingredients can also be mixed up into a range of dips that’ll entertain your guests – check for recipes online or in the manuals of some food processors.

Sandwiches

There’s an art to creating a good sandwich.  Or is it a science?  It sounds familiar…

In any case, a platter of simple sandwiches should keep guests fed without being a hassle.  Using the fancy home-made bread we mentioned earlier is one way to give sandwiches a unique twist, and giving them a quick toasting on a sandwich press or contact grill provides an added bit of texture, which can be all it takes to turn an everyday sandwich into an extraordinary one.

Slow-cooked dinners

Using a slow cooker to get meals on the table quickly sounds contradictory, but it’s handy for if your unexpected guests will be staying for a while.  When you’re flat-out with a full schedule of activities plus guests to deal with, your slow cooker can be a lifesaver.

Combining some meat, vegetables, seasonings and stock in the slow cooker in the morning means that in four to eight hours you’ll have a casserole, stew or other delicious meal ready and waiting for you and your guests – all you need to do is serve! What’s more, this is a good way to use up those random ingredients that end up sitting left over in the back of the fridge, which is great for those in a hurry.

Barbeque

Take meat.  Place on hot surface.  Scorch.  Eat.  Simple, and practiced by people worldwide since time immemorial.  The great thing about hosting an impromptu barbeque is that it’s a communal activity, prompting guests to bring their own foods to contribute to the success of the event and taking some of the pressure off of you, the host.

It doesn’t just have to be meat, either – corn, potatoes, capsicum, mushroom, eggplant, asparagus and more can all be successfully barbequed to perfection, adding some much-needed variety to what’s typically on offer.

Salad

When in doubt, add salad.  It can be used as an accompaniment that helps a meal shine, an additional element that makes a meal bigger (so it can be divided between more people), or even a light meal in itself.

Chopping the vegetables (or fruit) is one of the simplest yet time-consuming parts of preparing a salad.  If you need to whip up a salad in a hurry, try roughly chopping the veggies with a quick blast from your food processor on a low setting.  This leaves you with more time to sort out the main meal if the salad is an accompaniment, or the flourishes such as dressings and garnishes if the salad itself is the meal.

How have you whipped up a meal at short notice?  And what did your surprise guests think?