Help me friend with food in forty-five?

October 19, 2018 11:00 AM

Can you help me come up with an extremely crowd-pleasing potluck dish based on what I have on hand? Difficulty level: 45 minutes to cook.

Help! I have a potluck tonight and I don’t know anyone else there and I’d like to make something crowd-pleasing but I only have about 45 minutes to cook (and an additional ~30-45 minutes to cool or defrost or whatever while I walk the dog, which I could do at any point in the process.) Sweet or savory is fine. I just really want to make people happy with food, so that I have some confidence walking into this thing!

I’d rate myself a pretty average cook - I can follow recipes well, but I’m not all that inventive myself. I have most standard kitchen equipment, and an instant pot.

Food-wise, I fortunately have a ton of stuff on hand right now. Here's what I can remember, but there's probably more:
Vegetables:
-baby red potatoes
-spaghetti squash
-sweet potatoes
-picking cucumber
-lettuce
-red bell pepper
-onions, yellow and white

Fruits:
-honeydew melon
-dragonfruit
-frozen berries, mango, bananas

Other:
-ricotta
-heavy cream (and a nifty cream whipper, if you can think of something that would lend itself to that)
-some sort of cheese (Havarti, I think, plus maybe some cheddar?)
-puff pastry (this was my first thought, but I only have 30-45 minutes to defrost it and it seems like that’d be pushing it?)
-black beans (precooked + frozen)
-nutella
-canned pumpkin

I’m very well-stocked on pantry staples and butter/milk/eggs and everything at the moment.

posted by mosst to Food & Drink (13 answers total)

Do you have bread or nice crackers/can you get some? Ricotta on top, instant pot caramelized onions, cracked black pepper. Mmmm.
posted by wellred at 11:03 AM on October 19, 2018 [5 favorites]

If you're feeling sweet over savoury, these pumpkin scones fit the bill and people often love them. Great with crystallised ginger added if you have it, or dried apricots/cranberries, but I often just do them plain and they're still very nice. Just let them chill in the freezer while you walk the dog for ~20min, then bake for another 25 (depending on your oven). Don't skip the sugar topping, though! Demerara is best, if you have it.
posted by halation at 11:10 AM on October 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

Puff pastry can be thawed pretty quickly, if you're careful: Remove 1 pastry sheet from the box and outer wrapping and wrap in a paper towel. Microwave on high for 15 seconds. Turn the pastry sheet over. Microwave another 15 seconds. If pastry doesn’t unfold easily, microwave for another 5 seconds on each side.

I would probably make some sort of vegetabley filling (diced sweet potato and caramelized onion?) or desserty filling (banana and nutella, macerated berries and sugar, pumpkin with pie spices?) and plop that onto squares of puff pastry and bake.
posted by rachaelfaith at 11:26 AM on October 19, 2018 [3 favorites]

Take that cheese and make some gourgeres. So good, even at room temp.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 11:28 AM on October 19, 2018 [4 favorites]

chop up the potatoes, onions, and peppers and fry them in a pan

add beaten eggs and cheese, cook until the stuff in your pan becomes a frittata that is nicely browned on one side

flip it, carefully, and brown the other side

voila, frittata. everybody loves frittata.

if you have time, turn the heavy cream into a sauce to serve on the side
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:35 AM on October 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

It depends on your crowd but ricotta mashed potatoes are a homey favourite here.

You could also make silver dollar sized pumpkin pancakes and top them cinnamon spices whipped cream (or that would be awesome with the scones above too. So would cinnamon ricotta)
posted by warriorqueen at 11:35 AM on October 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

A sweet potato gratin would be nice. I think you can slice the potatoes thinly enough without a mandoline. Depending on the crowd you could halve the recipe. 3 lbs. is a LOT of sweet potatoes!

I agree you can thaw puff pastry very quickly. I have a go-to quick appetizer: I wrap a round of camembert in a sheet of thawed puff pastry and bake according to the directions until the pastry is puffy and brown. Serve with bread or crackers, chutney, relish, or marmelade—whatever you like. There are never any leftovers. :)

Hope you have a good time tonight!
posted by sister nunchaku of love and mercy at 11:36 AM on October 19, 2018 [2 favorites]

If you have flour, crepes!
posted by rodlymight at 11:54 AM on October 19, 2018

A beautiful fruit salad with side ricotta mixed with sugar and vanilla extract would be a real crowd pleaser because YAY something healthy and delicious!
posted by cacao at 12:01 PM on October 19, 2018 [2 favorites]

You could make a nice roasted vegetable salad out of the potatoes, sweet potatoes, onion and peppers. Something along the lines of this. Chop, coat, roast, coat with dressing!
posted by thebots at 12:42 PM on October 19, 2018 [3 favorites]

If I’m understanding the ingredients correctly, I think I’d just take the beans and mix them with diced bell peppers and some minced onion. I’d spice em with some coriander, garlic salt, red pepper flakes, and cumin. And a squirt of olive oil. Then I’d stop on the way to the party and grab a lime to squeeze over it before serving.

(Bonus points for also grabbing some cotija cheese and corn tortillas! Kinda-sorta-tacos!)

I’ve brought something similar to a potluck and haven’t really ever brought it back home. :)
posted by functionequalsform at 1:13 PM on October 19, 2018

Also, just sliced bananas and Nutella will kill it!
posted by functionequalsform at 1:16 PM on October 19, 2018

I vote for fruit salad - a real delicious and healthy one is always the first to go.
posted by yueliang at 2:54 PM on October 19, 2018