Showing posts with label food for a crowd. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food for a crowd. Show all posts
4/25/2013
Feeding 11 year old boys
So Caleb had a small gathering for his birthday with 16 of his closest friends. He actually invited 21, but ONLY 16 came. I will say I was pleasantly surprised at how well behaved they all were, they said please and thank you and complimented me on the mint brownies. So anyway, I wanted to write down how much pizza etc, I bought so I could remember. No comments on having Little Caesars, but hey they are 11 and they don't care about gourmet pizza. So I bought 6 pizzas, 3 pepperoni and 3 cheese, 5 crazy bread and 4 liters of soda. There was 1 pizza left and 2 pieces of crazy bread. I bought 2 orange soda, 1 root beer and 1 cream soda. Cream soda was the favorite. The rest of my family was eating too and one of Zach's friends. In case you want a stomachache, they also ate 5 batches of popcorn and who knows how much candy. I also made a cookie sheet sized batch of mint brownies and there was 1/3 of those left.
3/05/2013
Dinner for 200
I was in charge of dinner for our ward Christmas party & need to record my notes on feeding dinner to 200 people in case I ever have to do it again.. Or in case this could be useful to someone else at some point.
The menu:
Roast beef
Mashed potatoes & gravy
Green beans
Salad
Rolls
Jello
Cookies & punch
My notes:
Roast beef: We ordered 4 cases (20lbs each) of precooked roast beef, figuring 1/3 lb of meat per person. This amount was good. We did have one foil pan of meat left, but I felt like we got this amount right. The meat came frozen & we took it out and let it thaw the night before, put it in roaster pans (3 roasts per pan) & let it heat for 2 1/2 - 3 hours, sliced it with an electric knife & served in foil pans.
Mashed potatoes: bought 3 cases of premade mashed potatoes, spread them in foil pans covered with foil & heated in the oven for 1 1/2 to 2 hours & served them from the pans. We had 1 pan left over.
Gravy: bought 2 containers of brown gravy mix from Costco. Each had 99 servings. I only ended up making 1, but should have done both. We came close to running out, but I mixed some of it with the juice from the roast beef so it would go farther. This worked fine and there was enough.
Green beans: bought bags of organic frozen green beans from Costco. According to the package, each bag contained 25 servings. I bought 7 bags. We would have been fine with 5 or 6. We boiled them and served them from foil pans.
Rolls: ordered from the lion house. 18 dozen & we had a few dozen left over. I would stick to this amount.
Salad: the salad was made with spring greens, sliced pears, gorgonzola cheese, toasted pecans & a homemade vinegarette. We plated & served the salads. For 200 salads, we used nine 1 lb boxes of spring greens from Costco, 3 dozen pears ( they were big, so we only used 2 dozen), 2 lbs of pecans, toasted in the oven, and two 1.5 lb containers of crumbled Gorgonzola cheese. The dressing was as follows:
4 cups real maple syrup
2 cups vegetable oil
2 cups fresh lime juice(yes, I squeezed them by hand)
1 T + 1 t salt
1 T + 1 t pepper
Blend together. This was plenty of dressing & we didn't use it all. Just dress the salad right before serving.
Jello: we assigned 10 people to bring their favorite jello. This was enough & was mildly entertaining to see the jello creations.
Cookies: assigned 12 people to bring 2 dozen cookies. This was enough without having tons of excess cookies. Wished there were more homemade cookies, but greatful that people were willing to help.
Punch: 2 parts cranapple juice mixed with 1 part sprite. I bought 12 64 oz bottles of cranapple and 6 bottles of sprite + ice. We were able to dump it directly int the drink dispensers, add ice & serve. This amount was good. We bought 8 bags of ice, which was also about right. We also served water. We had 2 drink dispensers with punch & 3 with water.
The menu:
Roast beef
Mashed potatoes & gravy
Green beans
Salad
Rolls
Jello
Cookies & punch
My notes:
Roast beef: We ordered 4 cases (20lbs each) of precooked roast beef, figuring 1/3 lb of meat per person. This amount was good. We did have one foil pan of meat left, but I felt like we got this amount right. The meat came frozen & we took it out and let it thaw the night before, put it in roaster pans (3 roasts per pan) & let it heat for 2 1/2 - 3 hours, sliced it with an electric knife & served in foil pans.
Mashed potatoes: bought 3 cases of premade mashed potatoes, spread them in foil pans covered with foil & heated in the oven for 1 1/2 to 2 hours & served them from the pans. We had 1 pan left over.
Gravy: bought 2 containers of brown gravy mix from Costco. Each had 99 servings. I only ended up making 1, but should have done both. We came close to running out, but I mixed some of it with the juice from the roast beef so it would go farther. This worked fine and there was enough.
Green beans: bought bags of organic frozen green beans from Costco. According to the package, each bag contained 25 servings. I bought 7 bags. We would have been fine with 5 or 6. We boiled them and served them from foil pans.
Rolls: ordered from the lion house. 18 dozen & we had a few dozen left over. I would stick to this amount.
Salad: the salad was made with spring greens, sliced pears, gorgonzola cheese, toasted pecans & a homemade vinegarette. We plated & served the salads. For 200 salads, we used nine 1 lb boxes of spring greens from Costco, 3 dozen pears ( they were big, so we only used 2 dozen), 2 lbs of pecans, toasted in the oven, and two 1.5 lb containers of crumbled Gorgonzola cheese. The dressing was as follows:
4 cups real maple syrup
2 cups vegetable oil
2 cups fresh lime juice(yes, I squeezed them by hand)
1 T + 1 t salt
1 T + 1 t pepper
Blend together. This was plenty of dressing & we didn't use it all. Just dress the salad right before serving.
Jello: we assigned 10 people to bring their favorite jello. This was enough & was mildly entertaining to see the jello creations.
Cookies: assigned 12 people to bring 2 dozen cookies. This was enough without having tons of excess cookies. Wished there were more homemade cookies, but greatful that people were willing to help.
Punch: 2 parts cranapple juice mixed with 1 part sprite. I bought 12 64 oz bottles of cranapple and 6 bottles of sprite + ice. We were able to dump it directly int the drink dispensers, add ice & serve. This amount was good. We bought 8 bags of ice, which was also about right. We also served water. We had 2 drink dispensers with punch & 3 with water.
11/25/2011
Make Ahead Mashed Potatoes
Just wanted to record the details of the potato preparation yesterday since you never know when you'll need to make mashed potatoes for 20+ people again.. This is adapted from The Pioneer Woman recipe for make ahead mashed potatoes.
10 lbs potatoes, peeled and sliced into uniform size chunks
8 oz cream cheese, softened
2 sticks butter
1 to 1 1/2 cups half & half or milk
salt & pepper to taste
Boil the potatoes in salted water until tender. Mash the potatoes (I put them in my mixer). Mix in the cream cheese, butter, half & half and salt and pepper until creamy. Spread the potatoes in a buttered baking dish. You can refrigerate for a couple of days. Let sit at room temp. for a couple of hours if they are refrigerated. Dot the top with little pieces of butter. Cover with foil and bake in a 350 degree oven for 30-40 minuntes until heated through. This was plenty for our extended family of 23.. and even had some leftovers.
10 lbs potatoes, peeled and sliced into uniform size chunks
8 oz cream cheese, softened
2 sticks butter
1 to 1 1/2 cups half & half or milk
salt & pepper to taste
Boil the potatoes in salted water until tender. Mash the potatoes (I put them in my mixer). Mix in the cream cheese, butter, half & half and salt and pepper until creamy. Spread the potatoes in a buttered baking dish. You can refrigerate for a couple of days. Let sit at room temp. for a couple of hours if they are refrigerated. Dot the top with little pieces of butter. Cover with foil and bake in a 350 degree oven for 30-40 minuntes until heated through. This was plenty for our extended family of 23.. and even had some leftovers.
6/09/2010
Roasted Potatoes for 50
I'm trying to make a point of recording recipes and amounts when I cook things in large quantities. Just in case anyone needs to serve roasted potatoes for a crowd, here's what I did for Grandma's 90th.
• 15 lbs red potatoes, washed & cut in bite size pieces
• olive oil
• salt & pepper
• rosemary
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Wash potatoes and cut in bite size pieces. Lay out as many as will fit in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Drizzle with olive oil (just eyeball it on the amount.. enough to lightly coat the potatoes). Sprinkle with salt & pepper and dried or fresh rosemary (again, eyeball the amount) and toss with your hands until its evenly coated. Bake at 400 for about 20 minutes, turn potatoes with a spatula and bake for another 15-20 minutes until browned to desired doneness.
For the party, I made them a day in advance, let them cool, and put them in containers in the fridge. Party day, I spread them on cookie sheets and reheated at 350 for about 30 minutes until heated through. We ended up moving them to foil pans and keeping them in the oven until it was time to eat and serving them in the foil pans. I suppose we could have just reheated them in the foil pans, but I thought they would be more crispy if we re-heated them in a single layer on the cookie sheets.
For the party, I made them a day in advance, let them cool, and put them in containers in the fridge. Party day, I spread them on cookie sheets and reheated at 350 for about 30 minutes until heated through. We ended up moving them to foil pans and keeping them in the oven until it was time to eat and serving them in the foil pans. I suppose we could have just reheated them in the foil pans, but I thought they would be more crispy if we re-heated them in a single layer on the cookie sheets.
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