Any good ideas for a pot luck lunch at a small office?!
Answers: its just a small lunch at my office, and people are already bringing chips and dips, dessert, salad, and i have no idea what to bring...something simple!
A cheese board with gourmet crackers and fruit
A premade cheese spread with toasted baguette slices
Chicken salad finger sandwiches
Hot wings
If you have a microwave you can warm some brie to go with crackers and fruit
How about making the pumpernickel loaf with the spinach, onion and water chestnut dip. Knorr's sells the mix and the recipe is on the back. It is great if you make it a day ahead of time.
There are little phyllo cups that come 15 to a package--they're in the frozen section of most stores--you can get a can of tiny shrimp and make shrimp salad--then fill the pastry cups at the office. You don't have to bake them. Make them really tasty by getting wasabi mayonnaise and chopping some celery into tiny pieces. Mix all with just enough mayo to hold the mix together. Put a tiny piece of parsley on the top of each one.
Cut honeydew melon, cantaloupe and pineapple into 1 inch pieces, Thread on 6 inch skewers with a whole stawberry on the end. Serve chilled.
Have a good time!
A salad may do since it would not have to be refrigerated and you do not have to keep it warm.
Bean Salad
Get a can of light red kidney beans, garbanzo beans and mixed beans. Drain them and add them to a bowl with a chopped sweet onion. Pour over a bottle of French Dressing and carry with you a bag of Frito's Corn Chips. When you are ready to serve add the corn chips to the beans and blend well. Awesome flavor.
Spaghetti Salad
Cook your noodles and drain them. Add them to a bowl with a chopped tomato (seeded), chopped sweet onion, chopped red and green bell pepper and a chopped cucumber. Add a bottle of Italian Dressing to this and a bottle of McCormick Salad Supreme (in the spice section). Stir well and enjoy.
Chocolate Popcorn
3 to 4 quarts popped unsalted popcorn, (remove unpopped corn to save the teeth from injury)
1/2 cup margarine, butter or Smart Balance,
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1 square unsweetened chocolate
1/2 teaspoon salt
Mix the last five ingredients in a saucepan and cook over medium heat until bubbly around the edges. Cook 5 more minutes. Stir in 1/2 teaspoon baking soda until foamy.
Mix popcorn and syrup in a large pan or bowl until well coated. pour mixture onto a buttered cookie sheet and bake in oven at 250 degrees for 1 hour. Stir mixture every 20 minutes. Cool and break into a large bowl. Serve and enjoy.
If you have a crock pot, make some chili and take cornbread.
Buy some little cocktail wieners and put them in a Crock pot with one large bottle of ketchup and one can of beer, the sauce this makes is great also with meatballs.
Make a vegetable plate with dip, use broccoli florets, baby carrots, celery, cauliflower (depending on your taste), or make a fruit plate with strawberries, kiwifruit, mandarin oranges, any fruit you want.
How about sliced cheese, sliced summer sausage with crackers. Or make a big sandwich out of a large whole round loaf of bread. Unsliced. Slice it horizontally. hollow out some of the bread. Brush with a vinegar and oil dressing. Top with your favorite meats - ham, salami etc, some cheese, lettuce, whatever you like. Put the top back onn (brush that cut side of bread as well). Put this together just before serving. ANd then cut it but leave it all together to look like a giant sandwich.
bean salad is easy to do, and won't go bad if it sits out..... Just get cans of kidney beans, green beans, garbanzo beans, wax beans and mix with a good Italian dressing (or Girard's Champagne dressing)
a box of saltine crackers and pickles.
or ritz crackers and cheese.
