Menu crisis nearly solved

[cjsmith]

There's a lot of easy stuff I can do, which is a relief.

- Cheese and dried meats platters w/crackers
- Dawn's Famous Hot Dogs In Crock Pot
- Rolled up lavosh sandwiches
- Chopped veggies w/dip
- Fancy olives
- Hummus (on crackers or veggies)
- Cookies, chocolate, etc
- Soft drinks, water, wine, beer

I must apologize to the person who suggested Whole Foods, because I think I'll have to pass up that idea; I took a look at their prices and... well, I didn't faint. (This is expensive already, and I'm not even buying wine -- we'll just wipe out my existing collection.) I am totally happy to chop and arrange a lot of cheese and veggies myself. Sadly, this means the platters won't look anywhere near as pretty.

Two questions left.

1) How do I know how much food I need? (Drinks I'm OK on.) One thing I'm giving up by not using a caterer is that I have to guess at this answer. Assume my menu is just what's written above, and I've got 35 or 40 people. How many pounds of cheese and dried meats are people going to stack onto how many crackers? How many tubs of hummus? How many double-handfuls of chopped celery/jicama/carrots? How many crock pots full of hot dog bits? Rob thinks I'm going overboard and is now threatening to invite more people and not tell me. :)

2) I now own more than one crock pot. If I want to offer an alternative to Hot Dogs In Tangy Sauce:
2a) where do I find and what do I do with party meatballs?
2b) what do I do with those Lil Smokies sausages if I'm too lazy to turn them into Pigs In Blankets? BBQ sauce?

I am keeping records. NEXT time, I will HAVE these answers, darnit. I won't panic. I'll know exactly how much money I should expect to spend if I am inviting "thirty plus spouses". I'll have the crock pots and I'll have the wine glasses and I'll have the serving trays. This could get to be a hobby. In fact, with this kind of initial outlay, it had better become a hobby!

Comments

[dawnd.livejournal.com]

Dizzdvl has some great advice. Big/Lots is the right place for the cheap Holiday Trays. Walgreens is probably a good alternative for those, too. One Holiday party I went to years back, the folks setting it up put chips, crackers, and cut bread into holiday *gift bags*. I thought it was festive and quite brilliant. Choose the ones that are more horizontal than vertical.

I recommend only one crock pot of hot dogs in sauce (which are *Akien's* famous recipe, BTW, not mine. :^D ). If you want another crock pot, Dizzdvl's Lil Smokies recipe sounds yummy. (Might have to try that with the ancient package of Lil Smokies in the freezer!).

Your platters will look fine, I'm sure. Just arrange the veggies in groups, the way you've seen on the "professional" trays. Alternate your colors and shapes for a fancier look, e.g., you might have a round plate filled with pie shaped wedges of different veggies, maybe carrot sticks, next to broccoli florets, next to zucchini sticks (these show up more as white than green), next to cherry tomatoes, next to celery sticks, next to cauliflower florets. You can "lift" the dip by setting it on an upturned empty container of the same shape in the center of the plate, which will avoid the difficult center of the pie wedges and keep the dip from getting buried in the middle of the veggies, or separated from the veggie tray itself.

I have some saved party trays (mostly black or silver) kicking about if you'd be interested and if we could figure out how to get them down to you. klrmn works on the other side of the Bay every day, somewhere in the San Mateo area.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I have a couple of cheapo holiday trays (for the veggies) from Target. If I can't get cheese and crackers onto something else I've got, I'll check out Big Lots!

Yep, best I can do is arrange veggies by color. :-)

Thanks!