Ideas for party food

Having my 30th bday bash at home and i am looking for some party food suggestions Will be going to a wholesale meats place to get sausages, goujons and chicken wings Hoping to also do some mini chicken and mushroom vol-au-vents(served cold) possibly bacon and cheese Quiche, Also having a range of sambos on brown and white breads: chicken tikka Ham & Cheese Ham Egg mayonnaise salad and lots of desserts, but just wondering does anyone else have any suggestions of some handy food with little preparation involved? or that can be made in advance and frozen?

It may depend on how many are going to the party, but what about throwing on something like a huge pot of chicken curry. You can make that in advance and just need to heat it up and people can help themselves from the pot.... If you have a rice cooker you can have it ready so you just need to flick the switch?? Maybe not much help but thought this might be easier than messing with oven timings for lots of little bits and pieces... Or how about pizza's?

You could do mini cornish pasties!

Not sure if this is any help to you but i was at my friends birthday party in her house a few weeks ago and she was looking for ideas etc for party food and she seen that her local chinese did party food, so for €5 (i think) a head she got them to deliver the food for her it was gorgegous She had Chicken balls Veg / chicken spring rolls Spare ribs Chicken wings Chips Prawn crackers Curry sauce BBQ Sauce Sweet and sour sauce then she made some sambos / salads to for anyone that didn't want chinese The chinese delivered massive big steaming hot platters and all the asked was the dishes be back by 6.00 the next evening It was great for her, she was not sweating over an oven that night, barely any cleaning up, no worrying about shopping for food!!

thanks for the suggestion Diamondz but dont really want to go down the dinner route, if at all possible,i dont have a rice cooker and would be weary about reheating the chicken if ppl all arrive at different times etc! understand totally what you mean about the timings of the fiddley bits for the oven though. not sure how many ppl yet, maybe 30ish

im liking the pizza and cornish pasty suggestions mmmm and the chinese too! all sounds great! might just contact local chinese and see

cocktail sausages, sausage rolls, spring rolls and garlic bread always go down a treat!!

cup cakes, jelly sweets, and mini brushettas-v easy to make. Basically slice a large french baguette into slices, put on a dollop of cranberry sauce and chunk of brie on each slice and toast in oven and hey presto! Can also do it with bit of carmelised onion jam and goats cheese, or chopped tomatoes/pesto with slice mozerela, YUM! smoked salmon on brown bread. cheese straws, breadsticks with dips also nice,

Just remembered this place, My mam had a party for me before i got married and ordered platters from http://www.sweetcicely.ie/menus/item/party-platter/ it was so much less hassle, they deliver at a time you want them to!...again no stressing over what to cook, shopping for it and standing over an oven etc all night, you can chill out with your friends the last thing you want to be doing is cooking the night of your own birthday party then maybe do some cold meats, salads, rolls, etc... Or ask your local pub do they do platters and order some for collection / delivery from them!!

For our parties I always do a cheese and cold meat platter. Lidl is brill for picking up all you need. A selection of cheeses, cold cuts (ham, pastrami, salami etc), crackers, fresh bread rolls cut up into small pieces on a big serving plate with grapes, chutney etc. It can be done in about 15 mins max and looks great. People can help themselves and it is always cleared by the end of the night. Also a couple of pates, smoked salmon etc on platters works well. I find a lot of the ready made sausage rolls, onion bhajis etc very greasy and I don't eat them myself, so I tend not to serve them.