What did we eat?
After 10 hours of cooking we had a table filled with:
16 pounds of pork carnitas – it took 3 crockpots to do it – using this Crockpot Carnitas recipe, a garnish of onions, cilantro, jalapeño and lime juice, and buckets of salsa and guacamole.
5 gallons of charro beans (made with bacon, chorizo, ham hocks, peppers, onions, and garlic). I used my grandfather’s original recipe instead of the bean-free charro chile version posted earlier this year.
10 pounds of Spanish rice, a last-minute addition, made by browning the dry white rice and sauteing it with onions and garlic before adding in chopped tomatoes, water and a pinch of saffron. Peas were added in to one batch, but not the other.
A mountain of Mexican coleslaw using Heidi from 101 Cookbook’s recipe. Slivered almonds are a great substitute for the peanuts, and adding in purple cabbage and carrots make it all the more festive!
The meal was topped off with some delicious salad and dessert additions brought by friends and family, as well as margaritas and some pineapple vanilla bean cocktails (they were AMAZING, and very dangerous). The trick is to add 2-3 vanilla bean pods (sliced lengthwise) and a tablespoon of maple syrup to a liter of white tequila two weeks before you need it. Add a shot of the tequila to a glass of pineapple juice and ice, and voila!
5 Tips for Feeding Groups of Eaters with Different Food Needs and Tastes
- Learn about your guests and put together a menu that appeals to the broadest number of people. Overly-exotic, too-spicy foods or foods that are not recognizable to the average person can be a hit with adventurous eaters, but a more familiar menu will likely be appreciated by your guests. And, if you can also accommodate their dietary constraints, you’ll be loved to death.
- Work with trusted recipes that can be increased successfully. Big parties and special events are not the time for experiments or overly-complex recipes. They can be a turn off to taste buds or create stress in the kitchen. Turn to recipes that you are comfortable preparing, have stood the test of time taste-wise, and which can be pulled off easily in larger quantities.
- Create a list of what you are preparing in the order that you need to prepare it. Being organized can keep you from getting frazzled. Write down all of the dishes that you are making and when you need to start them so they’ll be done in time for the meal. If a dish requires steps that are spaced apart, add them as separate items on the list. For example, the carnitas have to be cut and coated in a dry rub at least 24 hours before they are cooked. Then just go down the list and check things off as you go.
- Anticipate the recurring need for certain ingredients. I went through a dozen onions, 4 heads of garlic, several cans of chopped tomatoes, and large quantities of certain spices over the course of the 2 days I did prep work and cooking. Rather than cut an onion here and there, I chopped them all at once and used the amount I needed for each dish. Peeling all of the garlic, opening all of the cans, and keeping the spices on hand helped me keep my dirty dishes and movements across the kitchen to a minimum.
- Take people up on their offers to bring food. One of our dear neighbors heard that we were holding a wedding at our home and generously offered to make a potato salad and a cottage cheese jello mold. The sister of the groom wanted to prepare the dessert, a gorgeous brownie, pudding, strawberry and whipped cream delight that I couldn’t even conceive of making. Even though they were not Mexican in flavor, all were hits with a number of guests and it allowed me to focus on the core meal.