Menu ideas?

Ina Garten's Cider Roasted Pork Tenderloin. This is a delicious recipe and easy to prep ahead and cook when guests arrive. Add her Parmesan Chive Smashed Potatoes, a green vegatable such as green beans and a green salad.
Now I am hungry, I think I should host a dinner.

Are you looking to do something plated? Honestly I’d probably make lasagna and salad or do a taco bar.

I’d do lasagna with a salad and garlic bread. Easy and serves a ton of people. You don’t even have to make it from scratch for it to be good.

Chicken enchiladas made with rotisserie chicken. Easy to make ahead, throw in the oven and serve with tomatoes, guac, olives, sour cream, hot sauce and chips and salsa.

Taco bar. Baked potato bar. Big pot of chili or soup, plus salad and bread (with cheese if you want bulk it up a bit). Pot roast or brisket (or pork roast, turkey breast, any big hunk o’ meat of your choice) which you can make in advance and warm up when you’re ready to serve, along with gravy, potatoes, veggies.

Pork chops! Something apple-y for the season!

Burning Father's Italian beef. You can cook it in the crock pot the day before and warm it in the oven with the juices. It b is so much better the next day.

You can serve it as a casual meal with sub rolls or make it fancier with a side like twice baked potatoes (which can also be made/prepped the day before and then heated before the guests get there).

We have BF's Italian beef as our Christmas Eve meal. My family likes roasted peppers and onions with it. Some make a sandwich with the beef, peppers and onions, and provolone cheese. Yummy.

BTW, if you use crock pot liners it saves clean up as well.

some kind of pasta bake. chicken and wild rice casserole. easy
chicken pot pie. not hard but a little more involved.

I’d also lean towards making my dad’s favorite meal.

I do a large pan of enchiladas only I layer the corn tortillas, seasoned cooked meat (chicken, pork or hamburger), cheese and sauce. Two layers of each thing with a final layer of corn tortillas and sauce and cheese on top. I use cheddar, mozzarella and pepperjack. Then after it is baked I cut it in squares like you would a pan of lasagna. Make a big pot of Mexican rice and one of refried or black beans, add a big salad and lots of warm flour and corn tortillas.

For enchiladas use the canned Las Palmas Red chili sauce, NOT enchilada sauce. The red chili sauce comes in mild, medium and maybe hot but it is MUCH better than that enchilada sauce.

You can make all of that the day before and heat it up the day of. It actually is better reheated. The left overs freeze really well too. I always make a giant pan so I can freeze the leftovers for no cook nights.

If you really want to do it easy buy a big bag of really good real corn tortilla chips (definitely not Doritos). Get a huge bowl and dump the chips, meat, cheeses and sauce in it. Then mix it all up with your hands and dump it into a big baking pan. So good and so easy.

I also echo the thoughts on pork tenderloin. I like doing mine with sautéed apples and onions and thyme. You’d want to make at least 2, probably 3 tenderloins (with some leftover), for 8 people.

You could also do a braised beef daube — it’s pretty hands off once you sear the meat and cut up the veg. Serve with egg noodles, mashed potatoes, or polenta.

You could also do baked salmon fillets with a soy sauce-orange marmalade glaze. This is ridiculously easy and quick, but it will be slightly more expensive. The salmon itself will probably be $25-35, even if you buy it at a less expensive place like Costco. But it’s nice for a special occasion/family!

Seafood scampi pasta — this would be super easy and fast. And you can make just a little seafood go a LONG way. Butter, garlic, wine, parsley, plus mussels, clams, shrimp, and bay scallops. Serve with bread and salad. Would be a “step up” from an everyday pasta dish.

Baked stuffed chicken breasts. This could be pretty easy. Just stuff, stick a toothpick in, and bake. Stuff with goat cheese or Boursin and your choice of other ingredients — a lot of people like chives, roasted red peppers/tomatoes, sundried tomatoes (not my thing), olives (kalamata or picholine), prosciutto or ham, etc.

If it’s still warm in your area, you could also fire up the grill if your husband enjoys grilling. Racks of ribs or marinated chicken drumsticks. Or pork tenderloin with a dry rub.

That was my first thought as well. I would rather make the guest of honor's favourite dishes than make something simple. But of course having had foot surgery is a complication. For Father's Day a few weeks ago, I had my family over (dad and stepmom, brother and his family) and I made at least one favourite dish for each of the men. That meant lamb for DSO, lemon meringue pie for my dad, butter chicken and chocolate pudding for my brother. 

It it were me and I had had foot surgery, I would cook a roast dinner - everything gets chucked in the oven and you don't have to stand over the stove for hours. I usually do a roast lamb in the slow cooker, a roast chicken in the oven, and a ton of roast veggies. My SIL or DSO will usually do the gravy and white/cheese sauce. 

It’s my mom’s longtime recipe so I don’t have something specific written down:

Set oven to 400
Spray a casserole dish
Add 1.5 cups rice (I have easily doubled or increased recipe to 2 cups rice - I have also used 1/2 white 1/2 brown rice but adjust water content )
Drain and reserve liquid from 1 tin sliced mushrooms
Add sliced mushrooms
Add 3 cups liquid starting with the reserved mushroom liquid
Add 1 package onion soup mix
Add 4 tbsp soy sauce
Add 1/4 c veg oil
Cover with foil and bake 1 hr.

It isn’t necessarily like Asian fried rice but it is very tasty and I always get rave reviews on it.