well, for my first post it'll be a doozy!!!
well, the wife and i did a dinner for the jeep club we're in on a trip last year. we planned the max estimate: 35 people, eh bout 22 showed. noone went hungry for the entire weekend,lol. the menu: bbq babyback ribs, roasted baby spuds, smokey baked beans n' bacon, a good sharp coleslaw, and dinner rolls with butter.(sorry no marg for this guy!!)
now i have to admit, we cheated!!!
we are both chefs, lol.
that also means we can get some sweet foods at even sweeter pricing. the protein was an already cooked/sauced bbq ribs that are sooo good they fall off the bone. that was 4 cases=40 lbs of cooked ribs n' sauce!! they come to us frozen 2 bags/box. each bag was put into tinfoil pans and covered with tinfoil. put back in the freezer. so, 8 pans.
the starch was baby roasted spuds. the cheat, 25 lb box. we boiled them at home the day before the trip, put them into 6 tinfoil pans with garlic butter and seasoning, cover with tinfoil. chill in freezer overnight.
the side was home made baked beans n' bacon. no cheat. put into 4 tinfoil pans, covered with tinfoil. chill in fridge twonight for a full flavour balance.
the veg was homemade coleslaw with homemade vinegar based dressing. no cheat. boiled vinegar base dressing will keep coleslaw good in the fridge for six weeks. DO NOT USE A MAYONAISSE BASED DRESSING for anything where you even might be concerned that the holding temp is not cold enough. the coleslaw was put into 2 - 2 gallon buckets and chilled for 3 nights in the fridge.
now, all of our "hot pans" were doubled up initially. so we used 36 tinfoil pans from the local grocer, the rectangle ones about 9 x 12. tinfoil tops were also doubled. on trip day (day before the meal) we layered everything in 3 coolers, noting to ensure it went frozen fresh frozen in the stacks if ya know what i mean. when mealtime came, all the prep was already done at home, the ribs were still nice and frosty, keeping the spuds and beans perfectly refrigerated as well. the coleslaw made home in the coolers as well as 3 pounds of butter(from the freezer) for the dinner rolls too.
cook time!!!! got back to basecamp from a trailride about 4 pm. the night before, i built up a pit from rocks in the camp area, that was large enough to house all of the hot pans 2 wide by 9 long. poured three 20 lb bags of charcoal into the pit(piled as much as i could) started them up, used a shovel to spread em once they got goin good. layed all the hot food on. see, it was all cooked already, it just needed a good flash of heat, and grilling for the spuds. so the timing on all 3 items was identical!!! ya don't get much better than that!! by 6 pm dinner was served buffet style off a picnic table, as pans were emptied, a new one was grabbed off the fire.
now we practice strict pack it in pack it out guidelines, so all the topfoil and tinfoil pans came home and were then discarded. keep in mind not to store these things anywhere near your tent as bear bait!!!
our workload:
day 1 unpack and repack ribs, keep frozen. about 30 minutes
day 2 make coleslaw. pack and chill. about 15 minutes
day 3 make beans. pack and chill. 10 min prep 8 hours bake 15 min pack
day 4 boil, season and pack spuds. freeze. about 1 hour
day 6 heat and serve buffet style ie; COME N' GET IT!!!"
so, for about 2 hours and 10 minutes of oh so hard work, everyone had one heck of a meal that they still talk about to this day!!!
long winded, but to the point, step by step how it's done for any size of large group.
darryl