You could have purchased roast beef in gravy in the crockpot with rolls or sausage and peppers or meatballs in sauce all in a crock pot. Then people can make a sandwich whenever they want. All with the above side selections..the salad, dessert and beverages!

Good idea! I didn't think of meatballs, and even a few different sauces to eat alone or create a sandwich.

I'm looking for easy preparation, low cost, but tasty and attractive.

I agree with the roast beef. When my whole family comes (my parents,5 siblings,their spouses,and at last count,16 kids total) I always throw a big rump roast,seasoned with plenty of salt and pepper,with a sliced onion in the crock pot in the morning. When it's cooked, I take it out,shred it,make a gravy from the juice and put it back in on warm. Some rolls or good bread and butter on the side,or maybe some mashed potatoes that can also be kept warm in another crock pot would always go over well.

For dessert,with all the kiddies we have in my family,I always do an ice cream sundae bar. I get 2 or 3 big tubs of different flavored ice cream, then set out an obscene amount of topping options. Including but not limited to: hot fudge,caramel,crushed up oreos and chocolate chip cookies,all different kinds of candy,nuts,whipped cream,strawberries, cherry pie filling,butterscotch chips,toffee bits,brownies and whatever else I find that I think they would like. I say it's for the kids,but all the adults love it too. It's minimal effort for something that everyone will love because its customized to their own taste.

If some always arrive late and not hungry, I don't understand why it's not OK to go ahead and eat without them. If they're on time and not hungry, what happens? Do they just sit and watch the rest of you eat?

I cooked a boned turkey beast which stuffed with some safe and onion stuffing which is good hot or cold.

Our Christmas menu has a number of your suggestions included:

appetizers include raw veggies & dip, cream cheese & hot pepper jelly with crackers, and artichoke pizza. Dinner is lasagna with sausage & meatballs, garlic bread & salad. Dessert is an array of homemade cookies. This year my son & I also made a crock pot full of hot cooked spiced apple slices to serve over vanilla ice cream - everyone enjoyed it. I know some relatives that can be 2-3 hours late when invited for anything. After some frustration, we now say "dinner will be served at __o'clock" come whenever you want." I now have no qualms about serving dinner at the appointed time. Yes, they have come as we were finishing up, but none of us made a big deal about it - just made them their plates and continued on. I think that is also more fair to the other guests, as sometimes we are waiting a couple hours in others' homes who do wait for everyone to arrive, and we get pretty hungry and end up eating way more crackers, pretzels, what have you when the appetizer hour becomes 3 hours.

Restaurants do it all the time. patrons want their meat well done, medium, medium rare, rare, ---, and they all arrive at different times. Yet everyone gets their meat done exactly, on time and hot.

You can make life so much easier with a sous vide circulator. No more worries about cold food, and overcooked food for your guests, regardless of what they want and when they arrive. Set and forget.

dcarch

We make cabbage rolls every year. They can sit in the roaster or a crockpot and they only get better the longer they cook ;)

It sounds as if the latecomers are very inconsiderate of you and the other guests. I agree with others, just tell them what time dinner will be served. If they are not there at that time, go ahead and serve dinner to the polite guests who arrived at the designated dinner time. When the latecomers arrive, point them to their plates and eating cutlery and let them serve themselves. I don't know why you should be practicing consideration when they do not.

Sounds like you need ideas that hold well while waiting. Some people are just notoriously late especially during the holidays. Understandable being off a work schedule and rounding up a families needs. And every family has its issues regarding such.

Last year we insisted they not wait as our drive was long and unpredictable. They waited and it was horribly awkward. We had no idea a formal meal was even planned. It was like a nightmare surprise party.

Sounds like you need to accept the tardiness. Your menu ideas seem more like a buffet SuperBowl party. Not a sit-down. A crock-pot dish like baby meatballs served with biscuits and a cheese platter with olives, nuts, and a veggie platter with a dip...all prepped ahead easily the day before and served early for the ones 'on time' as a generous snack. Waiting for others will not be noticed. You could even hide a couple dozen meatballs (cooked) in the fridge with some sauce and add to the crock pot so the late folk can have a taste. And not fell left out.

A spiral ham is already cooked and can be served after heating up but can rest in a low oven covered for a couple hours. Casseroles can be made ahead and kept warm as well. Like a potato and a veg, maybe creamy peas and onions. or a cauliflower, or brussels, or a mixed roasted veg. Why casseroles are so popular for the holidays as timing is difficult for so many hostesses.

Having a frozen do-ahead appetizer soup like squash and leek or one of your favorites you have figured out a month ahead and frozen, is an easy heat-it-up on a back burner and can be served when all are in the house. In small bowls set in place, it often is what gets everyone to finally sit down.

When my family visited a few year ago for the entire Thanksgiving weekend, they were 6 hours early. And starving, lol. I had prepped all ahead by two days, kitchen clean and table set a day ahead. Well prepared for the chaos.

Hosting is a complicated dance that others just don't understand.

Do what we do with Aunt Carol....if dinner is at 7, we tell her dinner will be at 5 or 6 pm. By 7 pm, Carol is there and we eat!

pkramer60, I hae to do just that with one BIL LOL

Get hold of a sous vide machine and a circulator for low temperature cooking. This year I did a boned and stuffed turkey breast at 60°C for 5 hours - it could have waited longer in the water, and it was the juiciest, most succulent turkey. Even turkey haters were coming back for more, and the left-overs were great cold too. I cooked a sirloin roast also at 60°C for 7 hours and that was great too. Took a lot of the stress out of cooking for a lot of people all wanting different food.

When you have a "dinner" situation when guest arrive at variable times and with variable tastes and levels of hunger, the simplest thing to do is just serve a buffet. Nothing complicated about that. When I do that, with meat, I serve some kind of crockpotted stewy thing which I can keep warm by turning the burner on and off, the crock holds the heat well. Meatballs and shredded meat sandwiches are made for that kind of situation, but I went to a buffet where they had cheesy potatoes also on the menu. Not sure how the hostess kept them from over browning but they were great so I know it can be done.

Yes, I wouldn't do roast beef. I want mine at least pink, but still warm, Joe who arrives late wants shoe leather and warm. (Well, unless you DO eat at different times!) A good roast beef does require attention to timing, even the timing so that both Joe and I can enjoy the portions of cuts we enjoy. That's near impossible to spread out over several hours of waiting.

You could go two routes: A ham or a chili that can be kept just warm enough until everyone arrives. Or you could do a cold buffet with maybe a couple sides that can be warmed up at the last second, needing maybe 5 minutes of, say, nuking time. This would include a couple of salad choices.

In any case, snacking foods should be available for those who arrive on time and are immediately hungry - a bowl of grapes, sliced cheese, some crudites and dip(s)?

I do remember one Sunday night we were supposed to have a dinner party, service at 7 pm. I figured this probably meant 8, but anyway... The host and host had planned all the food, we weren't to bring anything except wine. One party didn't make it there until something like 11 pm. We waited. Dinner was either overcooked or cold, depending on the item. The ONLY snacking food they had for before the arrival of the Late Couple (who arrived unapologetic) were tree nuts (which I can't eat). Well, there was the wine, but... At a certain point, you have to think about the on-time guests, and on that occasion, I had to be at work by 7 am the next morning. I never accepted another invite for a meal at that home again.

pkramer60

Do what we do with Aunt Carol....if dinner is at 7, we tell her dinner will be at 5 or 6 pm. By 7 pm, Carol is there and we eat!

Grin - I have one friend who was like that for everything, even for going to a movie. (At which point, we'd be like, "we so not paying to be going into that movie an hour late, and we really don't have time for the later showing", when she did show up.) We'd have to tell her an hour early, but eventually she caught on. She kept doing this through the 1980's and into the early 1990's when I lost track of her for a decade or so.

She got over this habit when she had a child, and the child started getting docked at school for his one hour late arrival habits... She's now learned how to be on time!

The thing about being late - call! Nowadays most of us have cell phones. Personally, I'd tell the host or hostess to carry on without me, but save me something.

Beef bourguignon. Or, better yet, pot roast done in the style of beef bourguignon. It really has to be done ahead and reheats to finish for serving quickly and easily. Rather than cutting up the chuck as you would for traditional bourguignon, I leave it whole and just call the result pot roast. Trust me. This is a really honking good pot roast. Brown the whole piece (or pieces for a crowd) of salt and peppered chuck in some olive oil in a dutch oven. Remove and set aside on a plate. Saute the mirepoix in the same pot until it starts to brown a bit and becomes aromatic. The mirepoix I use is carrots, onions and celery as well as some bulb fennel (a good use for the stems since they have plenty of flavor and the cooking veg will be discarded anyway). Add several whole cloves of garlic and several stems of fresh thyme (no need to remove the leaves - again, you're going to strain the sauce anyway) and a bay leaf. Pour in half a bottle of decent hearty red wine and reduce by at least 1/2 to 3/4. Pour the rest of the bottle in and reduce by half. Put the meat back in the pot. Add low fat, low salt chicken stock to cover as for a braise. Cover the pot and cook in a low oven until the meat is tender, usually about 3 hours. Remove the meat from the pot, strain the juices and discard the cooking vegetables. Refrigerate the meat and juices separately as it is easier to skim the fat from the cooled cooking liquid if it's cooled separately. Recombine after the juices are defatted. This keeps very well cooked a day or two ahead of time. The day of serving, saute a big pile of fresh mushrooms (and, if you like pearl onions - just get the frozen ones and saute) - I use a couple of pounds for even one piece of chuck - in some butter/olive oil. Season the mushrooms as they cook. Spoon the sauteed mushrooms over the beef and cooking juices and put the whole works in the oven to reheat. Garnish with fresh parsley and serve with a salad and crusty bread or potatoes or noodles or polenta or whatever you like to serve this kind of food with. Basically, you can have it on the table within an hour of the scofflaws showing up for dinner.