Cooking for a Crowd: Episode 3

After a several month hiatus on the crowd meals, Free Time Mom is at it again! Due to the birth of our baby girl (born January 29), we were removed from the monthly responsibility of lunch for 40 so that we could rest up, find our new normal, and enjoy our new bundle without the added stress of extra cooking. In a blog post the end of January I wrote that I'd be back later this spring with more, and here I am!

For those of you who are new here, every week two ladies from our church group pair up and take on the lunchtime meal. One is in charge of providing the main course (including side dishes), and the other provides dessert. Currently there are four moms on full-time rotation, and two as part-time or fill-ins. This works out that I do the main meal or dessert about once per month.

Now that it's springtime and the weather is warming up, I don't consider soup a good option for a main dish anymore. While there are people who consider it a year-round dish, plenty of others view it as something to serve only on a cool day, which is the category I fall under. So with soup being out, something like a casserole makes a great second choice. I opted for one of my go-to quick meals, which is also one of my husband's favorites, a Cheesy Beef and Macaroni Casserole. It's sort-of like a goulash, or homemade hamburger helper. But since I don't like goulash and hamburger helper is boxed food and full of a bunch of added ingredients which I stay away from, lets pretend I didn't compare it to those. This recipe is one that I plan to share with you all sometime, because it doesn't take long to prepare at all, tastes amazing, and leaves few dishes for you to clean up afterwards. When I made it this weekend, I served a pot of our homegrown sweet corn, french bread, salad, and applesauce as sides.

This week there were a few extra mouths to feed, so instead of cooking for the usual 40, I was serving 50. Here's the run down of my ingredients and expenses:


Main dish:

5.5 lbs Ground Beef         $11.00
3 lbs. Macaroni                  $3.00
2 lbs. Mozzerella               $7.00
Beef Broth                         $4.76
Tomato Sauce                          -
Milk                                           -
Spices                                      -

Total:                               $25.76


Sides:

3 heads Lettuce                 $5.34
3 Peppers                          $1.43
4 Tomatoes                        $1.61
Cucumber                          $0.78
3 loaves French Bread      $5.97
4 qts. Applesauce                    -
4 qts. frozen Corn                    -
1 stick Butter                     $0.75

Total:                               $15.88

Expenses Grand Total: $41.64


When I'm cooking for 40 people, I try to keep my budget at $30 or below. Knowing I had an extra 10 mouths to feed, I decided $40 would be a reasonable number. Not bad being only $1.64 over! The foods with a dash in the cost column are ingredients that I either had already home canned from last summer, didn't have any cost into, or have no way of figuring (such as spices which I didn't measure).

At the end of the day, this is what was left: One loaf plus a few slices of bread, one head of lettuce, one red pepper, a container of salad (enough for a lunch for me), and a container of the casserole, which Aaron took with him for lunch today.

Ways I Could've Cut Cost Further:
I could've made my own bread. Normally I do, but I didn't have time. I figure I'd have saved around $3 if I did. Also I should've done my own beef broth. I don't have a whole lot of my homemade stuff left in the pantry, so I bought what I needed for this meal. I should've planned ahead and checked with my local butcher and made my own. That would've saved me a few dollars there as well. Apparently there is a shortage on lettuce, so prices have been increased by 50% at my grocery store, so that was more than I was expecting there. But as I said, I had aimed for a $40 meal, and only barely missed the mark. Cost per person ended up at 83 cents each. Success.