I have seventeen people coming over this afternoon for a family do! What are your go to recipes and ready made choices for hosting/ feeding a crowd?
After trusting my nana to pass on the details in anticipation of a small family gathering, this has turned into something else! I'm currently smoking a bunch of chicken drumsticks over maple wood chips but some of my lower effort choices going into battle today are:
Chocolate sorbet. I love this one because it's stupidly easy to make, can be made way in advance and is a naturally vegan/ dairy free option. Blending the mixture at the end is an essential, unskippable step. I used 80% cocoa solids and this time I've replaced the Grand Marnier with some 42% chocolate rum.
Ready made dolmedes from a tin. Another easy vegan/ veggie option, assuming you just get the ones stuffed with rice and herbs.
Caprese skewers. Easy veggie canapé with only some assembly required! Baby plum tomato, fresh basil leaf and mini mozzarella pearl on a skewer. Maybe drizzle over some pesto. Looks fancy arranged on a slate serving tray.
Boiled potatoes with really, really good butter. Cultured, unpasteurised stuff. It helps that these are potatoes from my garden too, instantly made fancier with the addition of fresh herbs.
I’m guessing this is too late but Spanish potato omelette is great for these occasions, basically need potatoes, eggs and onions. Then just cut it into a grid and put some teeth pickers (or whatever they’re called) so people can grab it from there rather than having to use forks or hands
Thank you, douchebag, very helpful. That was indeed the word I was looking for. Brain fart moment.
The combination of the niceness of your comment and the use of the other user's username is hilarious and makes it seem sarcastic
Had this at a wedding in Spain one time, agreed it's delicious and convenient. :)
Guacamole and chips.
3 avocados, ripe
½ small (white or red) onion, finely diced
2 Roma tomatoes, diced
3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh cilantro
1 jalapeno pepper, seeds removed and finely diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 lime, juiced
½ teaspoon sea salt
Enjoy!
My recipe is identical minus the garlic. Does it really add to the guac? It just doesn't seem to me to be something that belongs in guacamole.
First of all, garlic belongs in all things, amen.
Second, I like some garlic in my guac, especially if you let it rest in the lime juice to take off some of the spice.
Thanks for the feedback. I'll give it a try with a smaller batch and see how I like it!
Super easy pork loin.
Buy pork loins. Use rub down with a bunch of Montreal steak seasoning and soy sauce. Cool at 350 for 50 minutes in a 9x13 glass dish. Let rest 10 minutes (important - cutting it while it's still boiling inside means all the juices run out of the meat and it ends up being dry). Cut to serve.
It takes like 3 minutes to prep, and people swear it's the best they've ever had.
I'm not going to lie I spent way to long figuring out cool only to realize cook. I thought this was some new technique!
These sound good, my challenge with pork loin has always been dryness after baking. Do you find these stay moist? Do you cover them with tin foil?
If you’re having issues with dryness, try dropping the cook temp down to 275-300 and using a meat thermometer to make sure you don’t over cook. 145 to 150 is prime for pork loin. Pull that sucker out and wait at least 10 mins before cutting it
Uncovered. The most important part is to let it rest (out of the oven) after cooking, and only cut to serve. If you start cutting into it without letting it rest 10 minutes, you'll end up with a very wet cutting board and very dry meat.
And if you pre-cut everything for the table, the air will dry it out.
what weight of loin to buy per person do you suggest? (I'll cool mine carefully ;-)
By the way, how's life in the volcano?
Just hosted a party for 22 last weekend and did a burrito buffet. I cooked up 4lbs of ground beef with a homemade taco seasoning, and made a big pot of fried black beans to go along with it. I forgot to make rice but you can add that too. Set out some wraps, grated cheese, lettuce, salsa, and sour cream. Everyone can go veggie/vegan if they want, dairy free or not, and you can offer a few different wrap options for people who are gluten free or something. It's my go to for feeding a crowd because it covers so many preferences/restrictions and it's so easy to customize, and can be made ahead. I also served some easy 4 ingredient salads that took maybe a combined 10 minutes to make in two big bowls. A chicken caesar salad (Marie's dressing from the store, romaine lettuce, croutons, pre-cooked chicken strips) and a fruity spring mix salad (spring mix lettuce, mango dressing, cut strawberries and blueberries). No need to overthink it.
I've also found guests generally offer to bring something so I'll say bring chips/appetizers, drinks or desserts. Hard to have too many of those and people are happy to share.
I'm very excited to do a Mexican spread for a crowd sometime, I tried making ArnieTex's restaurant style salsa and it has been an absolute game changer. I will never buy salsa again; I'm astonished at how much greater than the sum of its parts it is!
A burrito bar, chips and salsa, some big jugs of ice cold watermelon agua fresca, and a tres leches cake for dessert. You've got my mind racing, I already can't wait to have people back over.
Here is one of our default crowd pleasers.
I gather from the term "family do" that you are not in the US, so this may not make sense culturally, but we love it. Also, you'll need to convert the units. Anyway:
Sausage Mac and Cheese
Ingredients
Directions
Variations
For vegetarian option, use vegetarian sausage or omit the sausage altogether.
Hey, OP, any updates? What else did you end up making? I hope things went well!
Oh hey, thanks for the interest! Honestly it went pretty great, my partner was the real MVP - he made sure everything was running smoothly while I manned the grill. I ended up also doing:
Burgers
Sausages
Corn on the cob
Vegetable and halloumi skewers
Veggie burgers/ sausages
Roasted beetroot and goat's cheese salad with walnut vinaigrette
Lemon and courgette cake (this is one of the flavours I'm planning on doing for our wedding so it was helpful to have a trial run)
We also had two big builder's buckets full of alcoholic/ soft drinks and ice sitting under the tree for guests to help themselves.
The useful thing about having so many people over is that they all want to catch up with each other and end up entertaining themselves and take some of the hosting pressure off. The downside is it was a bit overwhelming for my poor puppy though. We already had a plan of action for the day to tire him out before people arrived and put him in his crate with one of his favourite treats to settle down/ nap for a few hours, but it was still hard for him to have lots of strange people walking past him to get to the bathroom.
We let him out and had him at the other end of the garden to observe/ approach at his own pace later on, but one of my great uncles fancies himself a Dr. Dolittle and really didn't help by lumbering up with an outstretched hand! He seems to have recovered though and was back to his usual perky self at the park this afternoon (pic).
Oh, that sounds delicious! Your poor puppy, though!
Congratulations on your upcoming wedding - I hope it goes well, and that you have a wonderful life together!
I very rarely host, meaning I am absolutely clueless when it comes to these things. Keeping an eye on this thread for my own sake.
One thing that is usually a go-to is a big pot of some kind of stew or soup, or a big thing of something roasted or baked.
Also making things ahead of time and only reheating in the oven right before serving.
Asking people to bring food with them, particularly if they have a paricular dish that people love is also an option if you had more time before the event.
Top tip for hosting large numbers: use disposable plates, bowls, cups and cutlery. I went through a huge stack of paper plates, wooden forks, biodegradable cups, etc. and the cleanup afterwards was SO much easier than if I'd given everyone a china plate and proper knives and forks. Just sweep it all up into a refuse bag, job done.
We only used proper plates for serving things buffet style so it really minimised the amount of washing up. Everyone left at about 6:30pm today, we had the house and garden back to normal within the hour going at a very leisurely pace. Whole thing went great!
Mediterranean dressing for the potatoes (per 1kg)
Blend everything and mix with the unpeeled potatoes. Potatoes should be the size of a ping pong ball, so depending on that you need to cut them.
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Mexican style sausages:
Pressure cooker pulled pork or carnitas depending on what you put into it, easy as can be and takes less than 2 hours.
Helpful tips! Commenting to hopefully save for the future!
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