What would you cook?

OK, here's the scenario:

Your friend Robert comes by at around 3:00 on a Saturday afternoon. It's a gorgeous day, so you end up sitting on the front porch with a bottle of wine open. A little while later, your across-the-street neighbor comes by and sits down with you. Then another neighbor and then another. Then some other friends come by to drop something off and they sit down on the porch. More wine gets opened. Next thing you know, it's around 7:30 and everyone's getting hungry.

So, what would you cook? These people all like to eat and appreciate good food so you want something tasty with a little style to it. It also has to be something quick that you can make with basic pantry staples. You need to feed 7 adults and 3 kids. Ideas?

(BTW, I punted and ordered take out from a Thai place nearby.)

[Jenise]

Pasta. Actually ended up with something of your situation a few weeks ago, and that's what I turned to. In fact, I just happened to have two 500 gram packages of buccatini on hand--multiple pounds of matching pasta isn't something I normally have--and the event caused me to make a note to always have two pounds of something on hand in the future.

We've generally got cheeses, cured meat, olives & tomatoes in. With whatever else we have in, that's a decent plate of nibbles. It might also give time to put something substantial but easy into the oven. Overall, I'd take the ambience of an impromptu get-together (and not over-fussing on the food) to missing out on the relaxed gathering by worrying about putting some fine food together.

regards

Ian

Jenise -

That was the first thing on my mind. Had I thought about it some, I probably could have come up with something to put on it.

Ian -

Not looking for "fine food", and we'd already polished off plates of cheese, bread, and crackers. By 7:30, we were all wanting something a bit more substantial.

If we have enough fresh bread, sandwiches. Other than that everything is in the freezer unless we had removed something for us that will go around. Other than that we would punt too. We have pizza and Chinese within fairly easy striking distance, about 20 minutes in opposite directions.

[Jenise]

Yeah, Mike I would have thought so. If you even have just butter, EVOO, garlic and parm on hand, you can make pasta--it adapts to any number of embellishments. I got extra lucky because one of my guests had made a pot of a marinara sauce that turned out to be too hot/spicy to serve to his wife's friends, but it wasn't for us!, so he went and got that. In the meantime the halibut I had planned to roast for Bob's and my dinner got turned into a ceviche and devoured. As for a salad: I am the queen of salads and never without a good supply of ingredients for that!

Carbonera! I have always said that I can always feed a crowd of unexpected guests without a problem. Most of us always have the ingredients for a carbonera in house. For a salad I would make a chopped sort of salad. I would use what ever I had around fresh and then add canned ingredients to it.

Yes: pasta. There are always enough ingredients in the pantry and fridge to throw together a sauce: cans of tomatoes, frozen stock, onions and garlic, spices and herbs go to make a base ... and any other veg or meat that happens to be available gives it a personality. Cooking impromptu for hordes of people is something I don't do much of these days but once upon a time it happened frequently. Pasta is simple, flexible, and quick. And it goes really well with lots of wine.