Well what a day! It was Vienna's christening today so Steve and I had quite a lot of planning to do.
That's as far as I got last week before I realised I still had to clean up after the do ;)
Planning a party with a baby was, for me, fairly stressful. It was our first time hosting a do so that in itself was something to be aware of, plus it was me that came up with the whole menu, did the shopping, the cooking, etc etc... THAT was the easy part. The hard part was coming up with a menu that would (I hope) please everyone- Steve's dad doesn't eat anything spicy, only plain food (my brain, which runs off garlic and chilli, finds this concept totally alien)... Vienna doesn't eat any salt/sugar/nuts/junk food... AND I knew there'd be at least one person there who would be wheat intolerant. You get my drift.
I really wanted there to be something for everyone, but at the same time I knew there was quite a high chance that Vienna would look at all the food and assume it was all for her so I wanted to make as much of it baby-friendly as possible while still keeping the costs down. I hope you find this post useful because it was actually pretty straightforward to do all the shopping and cooking.
In the end, here is what we came up with. I didn't manage to take any pictures because I was a bit busy dunking Vienna in oil and water ;) so you'll just have to take my word for it that it all went off without a hitch. Except the spaghetti. More about that later...
Note: I did the sandwiches salads and garlic breads sunday morning for the afternoon so they wouldn't go stale, the rice salad saturday night and the hot dishes friday night but I froze them so they'd still be good for sunday. Mum did hers the same morning but then she's annoying skilled at that. I don't normally like to talk about money, but this whole menu fed 20 people for £65 and we had food left over.
Drinks
Pretty easy as babies only need water so it's standard jug of water, juice, wine (for the grown ups), tea (for me and mine), coffee and cider (my uncle david is quite manly and lives off these) and lemonade.
Food
That's as far as I got last week before I realised I still had to clean up after the do ;)
Planning a party with a baby was, for me, fairly stressful. It was our first time hosting a do so that in itself was something to be aware of, plus it was me that came up with the whole menu, did the shopping, the cooking, etc etc... THAT was the easy part. The hard part was coming up with a menu that would (I hope) please everyone- Steve's dad doesn't eat anything spicy, only plain food (my brain, which runs off garlic and chilli, finds this concept totally alien)... Vienna doesn't eat any salt/sugar/nuts/junk food... AND I knew there'd be at least one person there who would be wheat intolerant. You get my drift.
I really wanted there to be something for everyone, but at the same time I knew there was quite a high chance that Vienna would look at all the food and assume it was all for her so I wanted to make as much of it baby-friendly as possible while still keeping the costs down. I hope you find this post useful because it was actually pretty straightforward to do all the shopping and cooking.
In the end, here is what we came up with. I didn't manage to take any pictures because I was a bit busy dunking Vienna in oil and water ;) so you'll just have to take my word for it that it all went off without a hitch. Except the spaghetti. More about that later...
Note: I did the sandwiches salads and garlic breads sunday morning for the afternoon so they wouldn't go stale, the rice salad saturday night and the hot dishes friday night but I froze them so they'd still be good for sunday. Mum did hers the same morning but then she's annoying skilled at that. I don't normally like to talk about money, but this whole menu fed 20 people for £65 and we had food left over.
Drinks
Pretty easy as babies only need water so it's standard jug of water, juice, wine (for the grown ups), tea (for me and mine), coffee and cider (my uncle david is quite manly and lives off these) and lemonade.
Food
- Sandwiches- cheese and ham; cheese and meat are pretty much the worst ones for salt so you really have to read the nutritional value properly but don't panic about these because babies can eat them
- Salad- plain greens with Steve's dad in mind, then one I mixed up for everyone else which had lettuce/radishes/beetroot/spring onions/tomatoes/cucumber in
- Rice salad- I wouldn't give this to a baby, but I would give it to a toddler that had teeth and it's really nice for using up rice without the risks of reheating it:
- 1 cup of rice (not an american cup, just a standard mugful)
- 1 handful of peanuts
- 1 big dollop of melted butter
- 1 handful sultanas
- 1 handful peas
- 1tbsp chopped herbs (chives and parsley are nice with this)
- Yes, all very technical ;) and here is the highly complicated recipe: mix!
- Spaghetti bolognese- I thought this would be ok for Vienna right up until my mum told me there was well over half a bottle of red wine it it... hmm... I'm a bit loathe to try spag bol because I'd be MASSIVELY disrespecting my mum but I would really recommend it at a do this time of year
- ah, note about the spag: keep it warmed. It cools like sticky schlop.
- Chicken supreme- again, mum's famous for her chicken supreme but it was baby-friendly so I might try and wangle the recipe off her ;)
- Chilli con carne- the one I made! It actually got all eaten, too!
- Moroccan-style slow cooker beef stew- yes, I know. Another moroccan dish. I LOVE moroccan food, it's my favourite. I'll do a post about this recipe later.
- Garlic bread and doughballs- shop-bought but suitable for babies, and from what I've gathered speaking to people at the baby groups, they do like their garlic!
Desserts
- Lemon tart- not for babies, only mummies ;)
- Fruit salad- 3 bananas, 3 oranges, 3 apples, a punnet of strawberries, half a punnet of blueberries, 5 plums, apple juice (half as much as the fruit, it keeps it fresher)... mix!
- Cakes and cupcakes- Steve's mum organised some really, really tasty cakes for us- I do have pictures of these so I'll show you how lovely they were but no credit claimed here, unfortunately!
I am a bit jealous, they were amazing. This is the aim, people! Watch this space, baby desserts...!
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