Easy Entertaining Meals on a Budget

Finish the meal with a luscious dessert.

Getting together with friends while you enjoy a meal can bring you closer together. The camaraderie, conversation and cuisine combine for a delightful evening or afternoon. Don't let budgetary constraints or even a lack of gourmet cooking skills get in the way. Use easy entertaining meals that don't cost a fortune.

Breakfast or Brunch

This is one of the easiest and cheapest meals to prepare. Eggs are still relatively inexpensive as of 2011. Stretch out the bacon and other breakfast meats by scrambling them into the eggs rather than serving separately. Count on two eggs, one slice of bacon and a small amount of another type of breakfast meat per guest. Add a selection of juices, hash brown potatoes, made with chopped peppers and onions, toast and fresh fruit. Another easy budget-minded dish is stuffed French toast with cream cheese and bananas and breakfast sausage.

Lunch

Remember the three S's for lunch: soup, salad and sandwiches. Add a fourth: sumptuous desserts. The menu can be filling, a snap to prepare and cheap. Choose a theme for the meal or a cuisine. For example, for an Asian lunch start with hot and sour soup, which is chicken broth with chopped mushrooms, carrots, peas and bean sprouts. Add a chopped jalapeno pepper for the "hot" and the juice of a lemon for the "sour." Serve with chicken wraps - chicken breast slices, scallions and cilantro with hoisin sauce served in a flour tortilla. The salad is sugar peas, sliced radishes and spinach, dressed with ginger, garlic, soy sauce and rice wine vinegar.

Dinner

Make it easy on yourself and fun for your guests with a do-it-yourself dinner menu. Set up a burrito bar with fillings and toppings guests assemble themselves. Or a pasta bar with two or three kinds of pasta, a tomato based sauce and a white sauce. Set out bowls of chopped ham, fresh peas, cooked mushroom, baby shrimps -- not expensive if you buy the over-70-shrimp-to-a-pound size -- cheeses, nuts and herbs. Add a tossed salad and a dessert and you're done.

One highlight

Choose just one item -- one dish -- to splurge on and keep the rest of the menu cheap and easy. Offer a crab bisque as a luxurious starter, an elegant avocado, grapefruit and shrimp salad, a stuffed rolled slow-cooked roast or an elegant chocolate mousse cake with raspberry sauce. Guests will remember your show stopper.

References

• "Down Home"; John Hadamuscin; 1993
• "Martha Stewart's Menus for Entertaining"; Martha Stewart; 1994