Bring Your Own Course (BYOC) Dinner Party

Bring Your Own Course (BYOC) Dinner Party

Hosting a dinner party can be a totally stressful experience. You might be looking forward to seeing your friends, but deep down you know you won’t be able to enjoy the evening. It takes careful planning and perfect timing to host a successful dinner party. I love cooking but I am not a planner, I just throw things in, experiment and hope for the best. I would find sticking to strict timings pretty difficult.

If you want to slave away for a day in the kitchen and make three courses for a big group of people that’s fine, but there is a far easier alternative. Two of my friends and I have come up with a solution, it’s called ‘bring your own course’ night (BYOC). Yes, I know it’s not exactly a new concept but it works ohhhh so well.

Three couples attend the dinner party, one couple offers to host and each couple is tasked with bringing one course. We insist that all the courses have to be homemade, but if you are all feeling super lazy you could just buy a course (although that’s obviously not as fun). It should be noted that the host couple will inevitably have to do more work, but they also don’t have to drive anywhere.

On Friday evening I attended my second BYOC and it was so much fun. It feels like you are being treated to a meal out at a restaurant, only the ‘restaurant’ is your friend’s house. Everyone makes a lot of effort because they obvs want their course to be a winner and so you get to eat some really scrummy food.

Courses can be agreed before the dinner so that you can rule out things people don’t like or might be allergic to. It helps to decide on a main first, so that you can try and pick courses that go well together. You can even stick to a particular theme, for example American diner style food, Asian or classic British food. All the food is mostly cooked before the night so there really isn’t much to do at all. Bring copious amounts of wine and get ready for a feast.

The main reason I wanted to write about BYOC is because of the delicious food we have enjoyed. Each time we have one I will share the dishes and ingredients so you can steal ideas for your dinner parties.

Here are the courses that we tucked into at Friday night’s BYOC.

Starter – Roasted red pepper hummus, chorizo bruschetta and baked aubergines

 pic 2 homemade red pepper hummus

Roasted red pepper hummus – chickpeas, tahini, lemon juice, garlic, red peppers, chilli pepper, a splash of Lea and Perrins, a teaspoonful of honey, salt, pepper, paprika and olive oil.

Chorizo bruschetta – cherry tomatoes, red onions, garlic, chorizo, olive oil, lemon juice, paprika, cayenne chilli pepper, salt, pepper.

Baked aubergines – aubergines, tomato puree, chilli, pomodoro tomatoes, cheddar cheese, basil.

Main – Burgers with blue cheese sauce, wedges and side salad

homemade wedges homemade burgers

Burgers – minced beef, red onion, salt, pepper, thyme, burger buns.

Wedges – potatoes, salt, pepper.

Blue cheese sauce – blue cheese, yogurt, mayonnaise.

homemade lemon cheescake

Base – gingerbread and digested biscuits

Sauce – cream cheese, lemon curd and zest, chocolate drizzle.

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