15 bucks and a table of six

[kellytree]

Lets pretend t hat I invited 6 people over for dinner and I have 15 bucks to spend.

What would you cook??

there has to be an antipasto- main and dessert.

There are a few things in the fridge: an egg, 2 leeks, carrots, onions,potatos,flour,milk, a very small piece of parmigiano, spelt, lentils, couscous, a tiny piece of ginger, a tablespoon or so of of peanut butter ... along with a few other odds and ends (like 12 different types of pasta - one serving each!)

[kellytree]

2 apples and and an orange and some lemons

[slkinsey]

Buy a dozen eggs. Make a leek, onion and carrott fritata for the antipasto. Total cost, let's say $1.80.

Buy two pounds of De Cecco "orecchiette" ($2.60 total), a pound of hot Italian-style pork sausage ($3.50) and several large heads of broccoli ($3.00). Make orecchiette with sausage and broccoli as the main course.

That's around 11 dollars so far. Dessert for 6 with 4 dollars? Hmmm... 6 bosc pears will probably run you about 4 dollars. Poach them with water and sugar.

[DTBarton]

Buy a couple of cheap whole chickens. Around here, someone always has whole chickens on sale, let's say 10 bucks for two. Cut the breast meat off. Use the carcasses w/dark meat to make a pot of chicken stock. Use 2/3 of the stock with carrots and onions to make lentil soup for first course. Save the dark meat.

Roast the chicken breasts with herbs. Chop up with the dark meat from the stock. Add onions, potatoes, and gravy made from remaining stock and put in greased baking dish. Make some simple pastry with the flour, Chicken pot pie entree.

Use your remaining $5 to buy some more fruit and make pies or cobblers for dessert, could also get some more veggies for pot pie.

[Eden]

My main suggestion is to take a bunch of loose ideas (stew salad etc) with you to the grocery store, and then adapt them to whatever you find on sale/affordable.

for an appetizer, if lettuce is affordable where you are (it varies a lot here) you could just do a simple salad and bruschette - a baguette and a head of garlic shouldn't set you back too far...

For a main you could buy a little beef stew meat (or whatever's on sale!) and make a beef & lentil soup with the carrots and onions, and a potato-leek gratin on the side for your main course (or just a hearty beef stew including the potatos)

Or you could do some kind of tajine-oid/curry-esque spicey stew-type dish to serve over your couscous (incorporating the carrots & onions obviously)

Assuming you have sugar & spices in the house, take that one egg, buy a cube of butter while you're at the store & make a one egg spice cake for dessert - there's nothing like cake fresh from the oven to make people happy no matter how simple it is... If you want to dress it up a little, buy one orange, slice it into 6 slices and broil them with a little cinnamon & sugar - yumm!

you could also cook up the various different pastas (in seperate batches, skip the spaghettis) and make a "mixed pasta salad" with some fresh tomatoes & basil and the last of your parmiggiano

[Jason Perlow]

I'd go with Sam's recommendation -- or I'd do someting latino/spanish style like Arroz con Pollo -- Rice, Chicken, Peas, carrots, onion, thats basically all you need for a good one. That can feed a ton of people. Saffron is kinda expensive unless you have some, so you might want to pick up a packet of the Goya spice mix for the chicken/rice. If you want to get totally crazy to go along with the main dish, use some of those potatoes and make some shoestring french fries/papa frita and buy some some kale/greens and garlic and sautee them up with some salt and pepper to balance out the starch. Start the whole thing off with a nice green salad, I mean basically here your main expense is gonna be the chicken, some rice (dont tell me you dont have any!) and the produce.

Dessert... Flan? Cheap ingredients -- eggs, sugar, dairy, thats it. The labor intensive part is making the custard and the caramel sauce from the sugar.

If latino is not your thing you should check out the Moroccan Tagines thread in Cooking, that would go good with some of your couscous and spare veggies, and your apples and oranges. As it is noted, you don't actually need to own a tagine to make a tagine, its basically just a middle eastern/north african variation on stew.

Moroccan Tagine Cooking

[Sony]

Everyone's suggestions sound great! Here are some ideas that popped into my head:

Starter: Julia Child's potato leek soup. Desn't require broth, only leeks, potatoes, water, salt. You'll need to buy some fresh herbs (i.e. parsely or thyme) and butter, but they can be used in other parts of the dinner. This soup can be served warm or chilled. Finely diced carrot might be a colorful addition to this dish.

Main dish: Warm lentil and couscous salad topped with a poached or fried egg. Toss the cooked, still warm lentils and couscous in a lemon juice/olive oil vinaigrette, add in sauteed onions, diced carrots, lemon zest, and fresh herbs used in the soup. A small grating of parmigiano might go well on top.

This dish would, of course, require more eggs. A nice, simple side of sauteed dark greens or broccoli might fit in well.

For dessert: I echo others' ideas in suggesting poached fruit with a lemon custard sauce. Would require the purchase of dairy, additonal fruit, perhaps fresh mint to go on top, but would also use eggs that you had purchased for the main dish. If fruit is too expensive or doesn't look good, I think the rice pudding or baked custard would be nice with the addition of a little grated lemon zest.

The dishes for this menu might run too light for your tastes, in which case the stews and heartier dishes might suit your guests better. Good luck entertaining!

[Luckylies]

Everyone's suggestions sound great! Here are some ideas that popped into my head:

Starter: Julia Child's potato leek soup. Desn't require broth, only leeks, potatoes, water, salt. You'll need to buy some fresh herbs (i.e. parsely or thyme) and butter, but they can be used in other parts of the dinner. This soup can be served warm or chilled. Finely diced carrot might be a colorful addition to this dish.

Main dish: Warm lentil and couscous salad topped with a poached or fried egg. Toss the cooked, still warm lentils and couscous in a lemon juice/olive oil vinaigrette, add in sauteed onions, diced carrots, lemon zest, and fresh herbs used in the soup. A small grating of parmigiano might go well on top.

This dish would, of course, require more eggs. A nice, simple side of sauteed dark greens or broccoli might fit in well.

For dessert: I echo others' ideas in suggesting poached fruit with a lemon custard sauce. Would require the purchase of dairy, additonal fruit, perhaps fresh mint to go on top, but would also use eggs that you had purchased for the main dish. If fruit is too expensive or doesn't look good, I think the rice pudding or baked custard would be nice with the addition of a little grated lemon zest.

The dishes for this menu might run too light for your tastes, in which case the stews and heartier dishes might suit your guests better.  Good luck entertaining!

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I love Sony's idea for the poached eggs.

Here's what I think would be nice. Buy 1/2 lb bacon and garlic and a dozen eggs. also one bag of frisee (it can be on the small side). 9 bucks (nyc prices) some chicken thighs (yum) thats your 15.

A poached egg atop frisee with roasted garlic over a bed off cous cous.

next a big hearty leek vegetable soup use the leftover bacon in this for depth (also the garlic) roast chicken thighs. all you need is salt and pepper

make creme caramel or pot du creme (no vanilla? coffee, chocolate, lemon etc will do nicely...)

or

buy 1/4 lb bacon and hangar steak and baguette. garlic too, 1/2 dozen eggs.

make:

vegtable bruschetta with bacon. use the leeks and onions and carmelise, mix in some bread crumbs (from the elbows of the bread) top with a bit of bacon.

hangar steak is cheap, marinate it in salt pepper, lemon juice, garlic. reduce this marinade and adjust it to make it a sauce for the steak. make a potato gratin (gratin daphinois) use that cheese! or garlic mashed potatoes (use the bacon fat insted of butter)

make lemon soufffle, or souffle with grand marnier (airline bottles?) or make citrus granita and garnish it with orange supremes.

or wait until people start saying "can I bring anything?"

hmmmm..." a tart"

hmmmm "perhaps some cheese"

hmmm "a loaf of bread"

dinner in no time and you can keep your 15 bucks. good luck! tell us how it turns out.

[kellytree]

Thanks all.

I ended up making a potato crusted leek+cheese quiche type situation for an anitpasto

I was going to make a pasta with a cream and sausage sauce but then my friend sent me an sms "got shrimpand scampis" so I made a pasta sauce with those.

green salad

and for dessert apple crisp .