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Fun Stuff => CHATTER => Topic started by: Slick on 25 Jul 2011, 12:06
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What are great foods that you can make socially with friends who have hands? This is one thing that I love to be able to do, have people come to my kitchen and engage in the food-making process and then consume the rewards. I want to know if you have any ideas on things that are fun to make, but best made with many hands to help.
An excellent example are juicy lucys. You can assembly-line them out with two people and save a lot of time and have a lot of fun. Portion the meat, press the meat, stuff the patties, seal the patties, it is a fun way to hang out and make a bunch of stuff. That is actually one of my stand-bys for barbecues, have a friend over early to help me machine through those, then surprise people with them later.
Full disclosure, I am trying to assemble a zine with recipes of this sort. I am presently sitting on three things that work like this and looking for a good fourth (for recipes is much better than three, I think), so I am actively trying to poach your ideas! All of the zines I have made so far have been in collaboration, though, so if you have an idea I could steal it and write it up, or if you want to be a guest writer, I mean that works too, whatever. Or if you want me to keep my filthy hands off your recipe, that's cool.
Anyways, what do you have fun making in the company of others?
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The one thing that seems to be a constant amongst our friends - when you are having people over for dinner, make spaghetti bolognaise. Everybody loves spaghetti bolognaise, and you can choose to have lots of people helping to assemble the ingredients (dice the onion, grate the cheese etc) or just pop it all in a pot a few hours before everyone is due over.
Other than that I guess we don't do too much cooking as a group. Most kitchens around here are extra small, with only enough bench space for one person, and most of us don't have kitchen tables either. I have had a Cupcake Decorating party with Jodie before, where I mixed up a bunch of icing and put out all my decorating stuff and we made a big rainbow of gooiness. I've also had a mildly successful potluck party where everyone brings something to eat. We need to have another one of these! Probably with our BBQ and backyard once it gets a bit warmer.
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Make your own personal pizza! Prep the dough ahead of time, then have everybody chop up toppings and then make pizzas. Depending on the size, we can get 3 or 4 on a baking sheet at a time, so it's not a big wait for everyone to eat.
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Shish kabobobs! Summer is the perfect time for this. You need three things, a shishkabob spit (you can get the traditional metal one or just build a rig with bricks), skewers to pierce and cook the your food with and the raw ingredients. Everyone can make their own if someone takes the time to prep the ingredients on a tray. These can take anywhere from 10 minutes to a half hour but the investment in making your own is very worth it. I've down it at parties and it's definitely a crowd favorite.
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Scones! You can put anything in them and they take about 20 minutes to bake.
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Beignets! :-D I have a friend who bought the mix in New Orleans, so you know it's the good stuff. As long as you have a stove, a pot with some water in it, a table, and lots of confectioner's sugar, you are in business! We made beignets several times in his dorm's tiny kitchen, so it's not like you need a lot of space.
Oh, also, beignets are basically fried crack. Just saying.
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Cupcakes, cookies, macaroni and cheese, and guacamole. Not all together, but those seem to be the the four main things we all make for each other when we gather. Chili was pretty popular, too, both beef and chicken.
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The other day me and my friends decided to make frozen bananas. They turned out alright.
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Pancakes!
And BBQ :-D
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I second the pizzas idea. Another option is muffins - like scones, they are quick and you can put anything in them. Assemble a large vat of muffin mix, and several bowls of potential fillings, and let people assemble their own.
I canvassed a representative proportion of the UK population (ok it was my family) and they suggested stir fry, meringue pavlovas, omelette, pasties... can't think of any more at the moment.
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Hmmm, its also a load of fun to make your own pasta. Like, not only interesting sauces, but also making the dough, and then figuring out what kind of shapes you want etc. (Even if you dont have a pastamachine, just roll it out using a empty winebottle (or, if you are still working on it, half full), and cut up bits of pasta.
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I had a pickle-making party once with friends. We made no-cook pickles. They weren't very good (tasted mostly like salted cucumbers), really, but we had a lot of fun. I'm sure if you used a better recipe than we did and were more willing to be patient than we were, it could be great.
I've also made sushi, bread, cookies (decorating is the best part!), and pizza with friends. I agree with Rosie and May that pizza is a good choice. Even people who are no great shakes at cooking can put toppings on a pizza--and if it turns out terribly, they're the only ones who have to eat it!
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i went to a sushi-making party with my parents once, that was pretty fun.
pizza seems like a good choice as well.
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Double yes to pizza making.
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Carpaccio is quite a good one with friends although it does require trusting your friends with very sharp knives. Other than that I've done friends cooking with kebabs, spring rolls, raclette, fondue and bruchetta.
Does martini count?
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Oh did anyone suggest Mexican food yet? Almost all the Mexican dishes that people make for parties can be assembly-lined! Burritos, those warm ones (sorry, ME memory loss day) and the crispy taco shell things.
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Assembly lining burritos and kabobs are like the best idea.
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Or tacos, because tacos are better than burritos.
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Guacamole is one of the best things to make with other people. Avocados are kind of a pain to peel, get apart and mash and more people make it actually fun and somewhat less or more messy depending on your friends. Then tomatoes and lime-juicing and discussion of possible-to-be-included spices. Then after you're done with all that it's instantly ready for eating and will taste delicious.
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Avocadoes are easy to peel and get apart?
If you're making guac, do the choppy-in-half seed twisty thing and then scoop the flesh out with a spoon. For ease of mashing, slice through the flesh before you spoon it out.
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Sushi buffet is my favorite. Give everyone free reigns to create fantastic and unorthodox sushi they can treat each other to. All you really need are prepared ingredients and flat surfaces and a few knives.
Breakfast/brunch buffet is also nice :)
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i don't feel like looking to see if somebody's already made the obvious cannibalism joke, so i'm just gonna do it anyway...
i made steaks with my friends! they were delicious! too bad i don't have anyone to share it with now :cry:
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My friends and I are having a sushi-making and miyazaki-watching party in a few days... I'm not sure how it's going to turn out, but it'll be an adventure.
Making cookies and frosting (many different frostings) and then decorating and eating is always fun, plus you get to eat dough which is awesome.
Lastly, mashed-potato bar. Make people into your own personal washing-and-cutting-up-potato slaves and then you can put out little bowls with like scallions and cheese and bacon bits and beans and chicken and whatever else you want, it's easy and delicious and accommodating to people with a lot of different dietary needs.
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The last time I had friends over we had stuffed pheasant.
You might want to avoid that, expenditure-wise. But it was yummie and fun!
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If pheasant costs more than an afternoon and some birdshot, you're doing it wrong.
full disclosure: i have never done it right
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I usually prefer eating my friends roasted, but I sometimes go for a stew.
I can't believe that joke hadn't been done already.
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Four posts above yours, dude.
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Dammit! I skipped it somehow.
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Anything Mexican is an easy bet. Nachos can be made en masse pretty easily. As for tacos / burritos, just set up a serving station as if it were a buffet table. Let people just grab what they want. Hell, it's the optimal way to do it even if you're just making your own. Many hands simply make lighter work.
Though we had fun at my friend's "Let's Pretend He's Not 30" party. We had a pyjama party and watched awesome movies we liked as kids. For dinner we had a mini-pizza crafting station, as suggested above... bowls of meat, cheese, toppings, and mini pizza bases to use. For dessert, similar idea but with cupcakes.
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This is probably why I have no friends....but...I don't understand the idea of preparing food WITH someone...unless you work in food service and it's a job.
Why?
Maybe I'm just so hopelessly antisocial I don't even realize this is normal behavior?
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At parties, as a fun activity (and an avoidance of massive preparation beforehand, very cunning).
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It's more social than cooking alone for a bunch of people, and more rewarding (and usually more healthy) than ordering take away. Also if something goes terribly wrong you can blame it on somebody else, instead of having the friends come over later and discover all the food is ruined.
That said, I rarely cook with people. We usually just go out for drinks, or my boyfriend comes over and cooks for me since I'm a terrible cook and if I was trying to help out I'd just mostly be in the way. Sometimes I get to chop vegetables!
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At parties, as a fun activity (and an avoidance of massive preparation beforehand, very cunning).
Parties?
What are these 'parties' you speak of?
lol.
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Next spring we're going to have a Massive Party which will actually be a small concert, a buffet supper and a ceilidh. I'm considering whether to ask different groups of people to bring different types of food (some bring dessert, some bring main course, some bring drinks) or whether to invite a small group of friends to come as the vanguard and help me to make delicious foods! Buffet-style salads would be great to production-line; lots of them have the same ingredients in different ways.
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Gingerbread Men.
Then get them to decorate them.
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The problem with this crowd is that you just know there'll be little icing penises everywhere.
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Dickerdoodles?
http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/10782065_R3z23#751595270_aTDAb
(NSFW).