Well... once again it has been too long. I think of all sorts of things to blog about but then I take too much time worrying about not having pictures or making sure it's interesting and then I just end up writing nothing. Plus I feel so far behind on everything my post would be way to long if I blogged about it all! So I'll just start with answering a few questions from my friend Mandii about our January experience of cooking for 100 that I thought were perfect to answer on here:
1. "I can't imagine cooking for 100 people. How do you ever know how much stuff to make?"
We've pretty much learned how much to make from trial and error. We start with a recipe, convert it to the right amount based on what is given and then take note if that was too much or not enough for next time. For example, we make the Mac n' Cheese recipe for 50, but it really ends up to be enough for 100! So we've always just used the extra pan to make chicken casserole later that week. When we had the large group here we knew we'd have the perfect amount just by making the recipe as we normally did. I also have a good idea based on our serving dishes how much we need - ex. one buffet pan of meat and one of rice for a group of 50. That helps me a lot but wouldn't be much help if I was cooking elsewhere with different pans. I've also Googled for things like "how much rice to make per person" to learn our original amounts for 50 and then I can just double that. There's a lot of helpful information out there!
2. "I cant imagine knowing the right amount of stuff to get."
Thankfully we don't usually have to figure out how much stuff to get. We have shelves, a freezer and a refrigeration stocked with our basic supplies to pull from. So when it looks like we don't have enough we can just go and grab more. But we do need to know how much meat to defrost a day or two before we plan to use it. For that we've learned how many bags of chicken legs we need for 50 or how many bags of beef based originally on the weight or just a wild guess. Professional, right? ;)
3."What kind of stuff do you make?"
The kinds of stuff we makes can be found in my last blog where I listed almost every meal we made last semester. Along with that we always offer a salad and sometimes a hot vegetable and a starch if there isn't one in the entree (noodles, rice, pita, garlic bread etc). We try a new dish here and there or other new things to go with our meals - making ranch dressing for example. Friday night we always make dessert. The other nights fresh fruit is put out for the after dinner sweet.
4. "Do you feel like you've refined your cooking skills?"
I suppose cooking for hours every day does refine my skills in ways I probably don't even know right now. We chop so much I must be faster at it by now! I've also learned to make things I never did before - like a roux base for the Mac N' Cheese or other cream sauces. I've also really noticed what ingredients I care about having fresh and the ones that I don't notice as much if I have them canned/bottled/dried. Like lemons - they are so much better squeezed fresh than what you get in the bottle. But this country has good citrus, so maybe the grocery store ones back home in the midwest wouldn't be as superb in comparison as they are here. It will be interesting to get home and see what things I make more often or how my cooking has changed after this experience. Dan and I have definitely learned a lot about sharing the kitchen tasks and being more efficient in working together. I think that will always be a beneficial thing for us.
Thanks for your questions, Mandii
