Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Mother's Day Brunch for 100


Mother's Day is May 9, 2010 this year. Are you helping your church or organization plan a Mother's Day Brunch? Here are a few Buffet food calculations & recipes that everyone will enjoy & there will be plenty of food for everyone.

Decorate the buffet table with plenty of flowers too.
After your Buffet.... give each mom a
custom Hershey Candy Bar as a great mother's day favor!
Festive Family Brunch for 100... from Ellen's Kitchen Website

MENU PLANNING ..
This is the planned menu, and the actual amount consumed by 78 people, ranging in age for 2 to 82, including a dozen athletic teenagers and young 20-somethings, who ate like locusts. We had a number of pans of various food left over which went into various people's freezers, were made up in to "doggie bags," etc.

Ellen's note: Geri's quantities would be fine for 100 normal eaters.

Appetizers - (served for about 1 1/4 hours)
Meatballs (140 count)
B-B-Q sausage slices (3 pounds)(Geri notes she would increase to 6 pounds- Little smokies or cocktail sausages are another option)
Spirals (slices of lavash, wraps, whatever you call them, purchased from Costco) (60 pieces)
Mini-quiche lorraine (60 pieces)
Sausage balls (75) (Bisquick recipe, made at home)(could have used 150)
Mini muffins (3 dozen)
Fruit tray (small, the type the deli says is for 10-12 people)
Veggie tray (same, less than 4 pounds total)
Cheese cube tray (3 pounds total)
Deviled egg spread (1 gallon) w/ crackers (3 pounds)
Spinach dip (1 gallon) w/ party pumpernickel (2-3 pounds)
(There were also chips, pretzels, nuts, etc. around, virtually untouched)

Main table and entrees
Green beans almondine (1 3/4 # 10 cans, approximately 1 1/2 gallons)
Cold pea salad (4 pounds frozen peas)
Cream cheese date-pecan strata (tripled a 9x13 recipe, baked and served in 2 half-steamer pan- could have used more) Recipe follows!
Chicken tetrazini (3/4 of a half steamer pan) Recipe follows!
Impossible breakfast pie (spinach/cheddar) (a half-steamer pan) Recipe follows!
Impossible breakfast pie (sausage/cheddar) (a half-steamer pan) Recipe follows!
Hash brown Potato casserole (2 half-steamer pans full) Recipe follows!
Platter of various smoked, pepper, honey roasted, etc. turkey (this was virtually untouched)
Rolls and butter (also virtually untouched)

Ellen's note: If this had been a coffee cake or sweet rolls, more might have been eaten.

Beverages
Orange Juice (6 1/2 gallons)
Champagne (1 case, served mostly as mimosas in pitchers to adults, since we had two cases, we could have "pushed" it more)
One 2 liter bottle of each - cola, diet cola, sprite, ginger-ale
1 gallon iced tea (sweet tea)
Coffee (maybe 50 cups?)(1 pound)
Decaf coffee (maybe 15 cups)
(1/2 & 1/2, sugar, 3 varieties artificial sweeteners, shakers of cocoa and cinnamon, and a bottle of Italian flavoring syrup, can't recall the flavor)
Hot Tea (a dozen cups, tops, many varieties offered, English Breakfast, Earl Grey, Amaretto, plain old Lipton's)
Milk (1 1/2 qts)

Dessert
Purchased sheet cakes (less than 1/2 sheet was actually eaten, but they were GREAT cakes, Costco, and we enjoyed them for the next week)
Also, cookies, brownie bites, etc. virtually untouched

This menu may seem redundant, with a lot of sausage, too many nuts, a lot of eggy-cheesy stuff, but the things offered for variety (veggies, fruit, lean meat,) were little used.

The items people would have eaten more of, or asked for the recipes for the most (although literally every recipe was requested by at least two people,) were the cream cheese and date strata, the B-B-Q sausage (embarrassingly easy,) and the sausage balls.


For more set up instructions & some recipes... be sure to go to Ellen's Kitchen site

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Party Food Calculator

Ever wonder just how much food you need for your next party?
Well... here are a few tips from www.candybarwrap.com that may help you.

Party Food Calculator

The question of party food quantities to prepare for your guests is as old as hospitality itself. Party food planning is only a little trickier, though. As you will see, there are several different ways to look at it, but the main answer is:

1 Pound Of Food Per Person For Snacks
1 1/2 Pounds Of Food Per Person For A Meal

Those are averages figured in between the linebackers and the little dainties. We will break them down into averages for particular kinds of parties and party foods.

Appetizers: On average, your guests will consume 5 hors d’oeuvres per person per hour for the first 2 hours and 3 per person per hour for each additional hour. So for a 3-hour long party of 10 people, you will need to prepare about 130 appetizers, a little less if the party is to be followed by a meal.

Dips: Add the total weight of the main ingredients and use the 1 to 1 1/2 pounds per person rule.

Pizza: Adults & Teens… average 3 slices per person. Younger children allow 2

Here is an excellent
large-quantity party food planning site you may want to refer to for company barbecues, weddings, etc.