Menu
I'm cooking for 18 again tomorrow.
Don't worry, I bought paper plates this time (well... styrofoam).
What's on the menu you ask? Well, I would be delighted to share that with you.
I'm providing two meals - lunch and dinner. So for lunch we'll go Indian food. For dinner, it'll be the 'reuniting your palate with American food' buffet.
LUNCH
Chicken 65 (see previous blog entries for recipe)
Plain parathas
Fried Masala Potatoes
Cucumber Sticks
Rawa Halwa with cashews (something sweet)
DINNER
Chicken burgers
Potato Salad
Chips
Brocolli/Tomato/Mozzarella Salad (see next post for recipe)
Baked Beans
Corn
Brownies
Pumpkin Pie
Ice Cream
I realized yesterday that preparing all of these things was going to take more time than I wanted to give to it on the actual day of feasting. Therefore, I did up as much stuff today ahead of time... pumpkin pie, brownies, chicken burgers (will reheat), the salads... and the rest is all basically heat-up-able stuff so that will be easy. Of course the Indian food must be done from scratch. Thankfully Pamela should be here to help me with that.
Interesting to note:
1. I had to grind my own chicken for the burgers. First of all, we don't have good quality beef, so we always have chicken burgers instead of hamburgers. I've found that the quality of the ground chicken is also only about 85% up to par, so ever since Kevin brought home the fabulous Kitchenaide Mixer, I buy boneless, skinless breast of chicken and grind it in the Mixer for my own ground chicken.
2. Pumpkin pie had to be made entirely from scratch... that means at Thanksgiving we bought a whole bunch of pumpkins, baked them, scraped out the flesh, pureed the flesh and then froze it. One pumpkin pie takes 2 cups of pumpkin puree. I have about 10 cups of pumpkin puree in my freezer. Apparently we're going to be having a lot of pumpkin desserts/breads over the next year. But that's OK 'cause I love, love, love pumpkin pie.
3. Brownies had to be made from scratch... there are brownie mixes here, but I choose to make from scratch for some reason. Pride I guess. Probably not a good reason. There are at least two things in life that I cannot do: 1) Use yeast in any way; and 2) Melt chocolate properly. My brownie recipe calls for blocks of unsweetened chocolate to be melted in a saucepan together with butter. Instead of doing that, I use cocoa powder and a little extra butter... and melt it together in the microwave 'til I have a nice melted chocolate/butter mix. Works perfectly every time. I also put chocolate chips in my brownies. YUM. Today I ate too many of them. But it was definitely worth it.
4. I love cooking. I want to do more of it. I love feeding people. I love to eat.
Hopefully this day of feasting will not require the hours and hours of clean up the previous foray into the world of feeding 18 people at a time required. Better planning; paper plates. Definitely the way to go.
~lk
Don't worry, I bought paper plates this time (well... styrofoam).
What's on the menu you ask? Well, I would be delighted to share that with you.
I'm providing two meals - lunch and dinner. So for lunch we'll go Indian food. For dinner, it'll be the 'reuniting your palate with American food' buffet.
LUNCH
Chicken 65 (see previous blog entries for recipe)
Plain parathas
Fried Masala Potatoes
Cucumber Sticks
Rawa Halwa with cashews (something sweet)
DINNER
Chicken burgers
Potato Salad
Chips
Brocolli/Tomato/Mozzarella Salad (see next post for recipe)
Baked Beans
Corn
Brownies
Pumpkin Pie
Ice Cream
I realized yesterday that preparing all of these things was going to take more time than I wanted to give to it on the actual day of feasting. Therefore, I did up as much stuff today ahead of time... pumpkin pie, brownies, chicken burgers (will reheat), the salads... and the rest is all basically heat-up-able stuff so that will be easy. Of course the Indian food must be done from scratch. Thankfully Pamela should be here to help me with that.
Interesting to note:
1. I had to grind my own chicken for the burgers. First of all, we don't have good quality beef, so we always have chicken burgers instead of hamburgers. I've found that the quality of the ground chicken is also only about 85% up to par, so ever since Kevin brought home the fabulous Kitchenaide Mixer, I buy boneless, skinless breast of chicken and grind it in the Mixer for my own ground chicken.
2. Pumpkin pie had to be made entirely from scratch... that means at Thanksgiving we bought a whole bunch of pumpkins, baked them, scraped out the flesh, pureed the flesh and then froze it. One pumpkin pie takes 2 cups of pumpkin puree. I have about 10 cups of pumpkin puree in my freezer. Apparently we're going to be having a lot of pumpkin desserts/breads over the next year. But that's OK 'cause I love, love, love pumpkin pie.
3. Brownies had to be made from scratch... there are brownie mixes here, but I choose to make from scratch for some reason. Pride I guess. Probably not a good reason. There are at least two things in life that I cannot do: 1) Use yeast in any way; and 2) Melt chocolate properly. My brownie recipe calls for blocks of unsweetened chocolate to be melted in a saucepan together with butter. Instead of doing that, I use cocoa powder and a little extra butter... and melt it together in the microwave 'til I have a nice melted chocolate/butter mix. Works perfectly every time. I also put chocolate chips in my brownies. YUM. Today I ate too many of them. But it was definitely worth it.
4. I love cooking. I want to do more of it. I love feeding people. I love to eat.
Hopefully this day of feasting will not require the hours and hours of clean up the previous foray into the world of feeding 18 people at a time required. Better planning; paper plates. Definitely the way to go.
~lk
Comments
Using Yeast in baking - not something I am up to trying yet. But getting ready to try making my own pizza dough.
I made pumpkin pie today - from the box :) Yours will taste much better, I'm sure!
It is always good to check in on you and see how you're doing. I'll have to try the broccoli salad. Sounds yummy!