Good menu idea for birthday party?

[Jemma2]

We're celebrating my DD's 2nd birthday. Usually I just invite everyone for cake and ice cream, but felt like this is sort of tacky considering everyone drives 1.5 hours to get to our house. I thought of just ordering pizza, but that could get expensive. My only other thought was sloppy joes. Keep in mind that I'm not a very good hostess. Serving lunch to 14 people is not a real strong suit for me.

[snlmama]

The sound of it, this is a "family party," so adults and kids, right? I'm going to make suggestions based on that.

-- cookout fajitas or hot dogs - both are cheap and easy. Serve fajitas w/ corn chips and salsa, guacamole and beans; hot dogs w/ chips or potato salad.

-- If you want pizza, make your own - much cheaper than ordering out and people are always impressed you made it yourself. You can buy a mix of the dough or premade crusts if you don't want to make it yourself.

-- make a couple of "giant subs" using french bread loaves. Cut in 1/2, fill w/ meat and cheese, lettuce, tomato, mustard. Bake for about 10 min. or serve cold. Serve w/ chips and dips or potato salad

-- baked chicken strips (dipped in batter or not) with pasta salad (pasta, whatever fresh veggies are on sale and italian dresssing :)).

-- make your own burritos - kind of like fajitas, but have cooked ground beef or chopped chicken instead. Set out tortillas and bowls of beans, rice, lettuce, tomato, guacamole, sour cream and salsa and let everyone fix their own.

I have done all of those for one casual family party or another and they went over well. :)

[Heather Micaela]

Ok I feel like a triator to my employer (Pizza Hut) But dominos sells 3 1 topping mediums for $5 each. Since kids eat very little and usually only cheese, this may be a good way to go. IF you need 6 pizzas it is still only $30.

You can get a coulpe of 2 liters and some juice and one of those bags of salad - voila a no-effort meal

[mamatogands]

I just served a big family gathering fried chicken from the grocery store deli -- it was remarkably reasonably priced and everyone liked it. I made some easy salads to go with.
I think its great to not work too hard on the meal, more time to enjoy the fun!