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Fast Party Food Cheapskates Style 

​FEBRUARY 2019

​We're moving into the second birthday season for our family, so it's time to start planning parties and birthday dinners. No big birthdays this year, but we still celebrate and make a fuss over the birthday person. Yes, birthdays are big in our family, and we have our traditions that help us celebrate.

In fact sometimes birthday celebrations can last a week in our house! They always start with a special birthday breakfast, then the birthday person chooses their favourite dinner. The celebrations continue with either a lunch, afternoon tea or dinner with extended family, and this is usually over the next weekend.

All that eating takes a lot of planning, and part of the planning is knowing how much food is needed for each meal, and making sure the ingredients are in the pantry.

In planning a party, knowing how much food is needed is essential. 

There is a way to measure the right amount of finger foods you will need. The measurement goes like this: count on five finger food items per hour for each guest for the first two hours and three finger food items per guest for each additional hour.

So, if your party is going to last for four hours, you will need 16 finger food items for each guest. For veggie trays, count each veggie as half an item. So you would need 32 veggie items to equal 16 finger foods such as chicken wings.

If you had 10 guests you would need 160 finger food items. Sounds a lot but between sandwiches, party pies and sausage rolls, and perhaps chicken wings or skewers (if it's an important party) it's not too hard to come up with enough individual pieces.
 
Remember to have vegetarian snacks and snacks for the diet conscious. If you are going to serve hot appetisers, use fondue pots, heating trays or a slow cooker. Chili in a slow cooker with some tortilla chips make for a nice snack. Have small bowls for mini servings. The tortilla chips can serve as a spoon for eating the chili. A cheese tray, nuts, crackers, and chips are standards that are essential at any party. 
 
Here are some more standard items that you can include:
 
* Bagel bites, melba toast, crisp pita bread triangles, breadsticks, and pretzels.
 
* Celery sticks, carrot sticks, broccoli, cauliflower, cherry tomatoes, capsicum strips, cucumber slices, radishes.
 
* Strawberries, sweet cherries, pineapple chunks, orange wedges, kiwi slices, melon balls, seedless grapes
 
* One spread and two kinds of dip for crackers and vegetables 
 
* One dip for the fruit. 

If the party is for a child, then the food is even simpler, and you can cut the quantity by about one third. Children are usually more interested in the games and playing together to be bothered with eating. 

We had a standard party menu for all our children's birthday parties:
Fairy bread
Sausage rolls
Party pies
Frog in a pond
Birthday cake
Two bowls of chips or popcorn or corn chips
Party punch and water to drink
And a lolly bag for each child to take home.

These were all things I could make at home, and apart from the fairy bread, ahead of time.

I also had a box with plastic dishes and cutlery we used just for parties. They were originally $2 picnic sets I bought from Crazy Clints (a long-gone discount chain). I bought four sets, one each in pink, blue, green and yellow and that determined the maximum number of guests at each party: I only had 16 plates and cups, so we could only have a maximum of 16 guests. 

This helped to contain the party to family and good friends, and helped to keep the cost down. 

Birthday parties, for children or adults, don't need to be over-catered, over-expensive affairs. You can host a wonderful party without going over budget and without wasting a lot of money, time, energy and food.
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  • Home
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