Cooking for a Crowd: Episode 14 - Rice Krispie Treats

We've had quite the weekend driving all over the state! Instead of going out on Valentine's Day, we decided to skip the rush and the late mid-week night by having our date night on Saturday instead. It was our second ever kid-free date as parents. I thought it was special, and enjoyed the rare chance of having undivided husband time with no responsibilities or interruptions. Our kids are super fun, but it is like pushing the restart button on life and sanity when mom can get out for a minute to breathe.

Because of spending many hours on the road - and all day doing it, I had limited time to create a dessert for the next day's meal. Thankfully I was prepared and had a few things in my pantry that I could pull together.

On my last trip to the "big town", I had a coupon that was good for $1 off any boxed cereal purchase. Boxed cereal is on my "I don't usually buy" list. Maybe 1x/year for a special dessert, like Christmas Chex.

One [of a few] big reasons we don't buy boxed cereal is because it's not worth the money! I personally don't find cereal very filling, and can eat a half a box in one sitting. At an average of $3-4 a box, this is really pricey. Instead, I make my own cereal (either granola or grape-nuts) for the day we need a quick breakfast or snack. 

But back to that coupon. At $1 off, it wasn't worth my time trying to use it unless I was able to get a really good deal. Honey-nut cheerios were on sale, and the cheapest cereal per box, but it's not something we normally eat, and it's not very versatile, so I decided it wasn't a good buy even though the price was decent. The next best buy was Rice Krispie cereal, on sale for $2.50 for an extra large (maybe 18 oz.?) box. This was even cheaper than their standard sized box! With my coupon, this brought the price down to $1.50, which I thought sounded good to me since I could use them in a variety of recipes like Rice Krispie treats or granola bars. I did have crowd dessert in mind when I put them in my cart, and ended up getting a couple bags of marshmallows that day as well so I would have them on hand just in case.  

So, on that day that I was gone until 8pm, Rice Krispie treats it was. My two year old and I had a grand time in the kitchen together that evening. We got to share of bowl full of the leftover Snap, Crackle and Pop cereal while we were melting the marshmallows for the treats. This was the first time I'd ever attempted making Rice Krispie Treats, and I had no idea previously that it was basically just marshmallows and cereal! As a junk-food illiterate chef, I guess I learned something new that probably everybody else knows.

[By the way, another thing I learned this year was that Cool Whip is found in the frozen food section! I've never bought Cool Whip before, and have no plan to ever ever, since it's nasty and I don't even want to eat it, but I had NO idea it was a frozen item and was surprised when I walked through the freezer aisles to see it. This might confirm how unknowledgeable I am in the junk/processed foods department. I really don't mind being uneducated in this area.]

I made 3 recipes of Rice Krispie Treats, which according to the box was enough for three 9x13 pans full. Each recipe took 6 cups of cereal and one 12 oz. bag of marshmallows. Since I don't have three 9x13" baking pans, I used a half sheet pan and a smaller 7x11 pan. My cost into the cereal was $1.50, and the marshmallows were $3.38, so my total dessert cost was $4.88. It made about 52 squares (if I'm remembering correctly), and I was aiming to serve 40 people. Cost per square was 9 cents. 

There weren't as many in attendance as expected, so less than 40 mouths to feed, but people did some snacking after the meal was finished, and we had about 12 pieces leftover. 

Cooking for a Crowd: Episode 13 - Christmas Chex

My Crowd Dessert day just so happened to be the same weekend as their Christmas Party, so we went right along with the festive occasion and served a fancy holiday dish.

Christmas Chex!

I've been working on using up odd ingredients that I have in my pantry, so this is where the idea sprang from. One random item sitting on my shelf was a big block of white vanilla bark. Generally people use this in place of white chocolate chips, for coating candies and such. It was given to me once upon a time, and I figured I'd use it by making truffles or something fun like that. Problem is, truffles are not the cheapest treat out there (hence why you only get three puny ones for a giant price tag at a restaurant), so I decided it was not a good choice for a crowd dessert. Knowing how easy it is to pop three in your mouth... and feeding 40 people... I'd have to make over 100 just to be sure everybody got some. That sounded like a lot of work, and a lot of money, so instead I googled "what to do with vanilla bark". I found all sorts of unhealthy recipes! I needed one that would yield enough dessert to serve everyone with the 24oz. brick I had, so the Christmas Chex mix that seemed to flood Pinterest looked like the recipe that would make the most out of the vanilla coating.

The recipe I used came straight from the Chex cereal website. (You can find it here: https://www.chex.com/recipes/christmas-chex-party-mix/) I adapted it a bit to fit my needs and preferences, like omitting the mini marshmallows (ew!), and skipping out on the sprinkles, since I didn't have any and it wasn't worth my time or money to get some just for the sake of fancy garnishing.

So my version of this recipe used 4 basic components. 

PSA!!! Please note: I did not say ingredients. There are way more than 4 ingredients in this dessert. Things like Cereal, Pillsbury dough, Cool Whip, and Condensed Soup are not ingredients, but food items made up of multiple ingredients. It is my pet peeve when people call processed foods like these ingredients. All too many times I come across recipes advertised as "Easy 4 Ingredient Casserole" or similar, when in reality it is four pre-made, pre-packaged, unhealthy items that you just open, dump, mix together, and bake. Such recipes are falsely named unless it literally is four ingredients such as potatoes, butter, salt, and milk. In which case you can just call it mashed potatoes. Thank you. 

Where was I? Oh yes, the four basic components: chex cereal, pretzels, vanilla bark, and M&Ms. It also has a small amount of powdered sugar for coating. I had to go out and buy the cereal, pretzels, and M&Ms, since I didn't have any on hand (and don't generally). Unfortunately I wasn't able to find chex-like cereal at the store I was hoping to (where cereal is almost reasonably priced), so I had to go elsewhere and pay the price tag. I was able to get the store-brand, which saved me quite a bit over the brand name Chex, though still more than I was anticipating. The box of cereal cost me $3.29, the pretzels were $1, and the M&Ms were on sale for $2.49/bag (I only used half the bag). So my cost (minus the small amount of powdered sugar, which I have no way of calculating) for this dessert is $5.53. 

Total cost: $5.53 divided by 40 = $0.14/serving.

The amount was perfect for the size group I was feeding! There weren't any leftovers because people kept munching while socializing after the meal, but it did take awhile for the bowl full to disappear completely. A note for next time, or for you if you happen to try the recipe, is to add the M&Ms while the candy coating is still soft. The recipe asks you to put the M&Ms on after the mixture has hardened, when you break it up and prepare to serve, but I found that they just wanted to fall through the cracks and hang out on the bottom of the bowl. Had I known this, I'd have skipped the M&Ms entirely, except I still wanted the color pop they offered. So remember: add candies when the vanilla bark is still soft (preferably sprinkle them on right after you've spread your mixture on the sheet pans to dry). This way hopefully they will be able to stick some to the pretzels and cereal.

Cooking for a Crowd - Episode 12: Chili

I'm here to report on our December crowd meal! For once I have zero stories of crazy busyness keeping me from forgetting our meal day. I actually had time to prepare, spend time in the kitchen, run to the grocery store for some last minute fresh items. It was a good weekend.

Like I always do, I asked for my husband's suggestion on what to make. His immediate response was chili! I had just made it earlier that week, so I was like "Again? I just made it!". So I listed a few other ideas and he still wanted chili, and requested leftovers, so guess what I made?

Chili! 

For some reason I felt like it hadn't been long since I made it for the crowd meal, but looking back in my blog posts I discovered it was last December, so a year ago. (You can find that post here.) I was curious to see if I could make it cheaper than last time with only a day to plan. We'll see how I did! 

One of the perks of chili is that it's a very simple, but tasty dish. I can my own tomatoes, so it's not only quick, but also free. Beans are cheap, it doesn't require a huge amount of meat, and how hard is it to whip up a batch of cornbread?! I think this was the first time I've duplicated a meal that I've already blogged, so I was able to look back on last year's post for reference. That was super handy, and very convenient to figure how much of what ingredients I needed. I had originally thought I would need 4 lbs. of ground beef, but after looking back at my notes, realized I had used 6 lbs. last time, so we could've ended up with more of a tomato-bean soup otherwise. Ask [almost] anyone - they like a meaty chili. Still trying to keep within a budget, I strive for the happy medium. 

Here's the rundown on the pot of soup:

I used 10 quarts of chunky tomatoes (free), 2 pounds of dry kidney beans ($2.58), 6 lbs. beef ($12.38), and spices (probably about $1 worth). I put it in my 16-quart stockpot, and it almost filled it, so I'd say we were at around 14 quarts (3 1/2 gallons) of soup. I served sour cream with it (something I'd have forgotten had I not blogged about it previously), and while I spent $5.96 on 4 16oz. containers of sour cream, we only actually used two of them. So counting only the sour cream used, this part of the meal totals in at $18.94, which is a whole $3.02 less than last year! We had 5 quarts left over, which made both Aaron and me very satisfied. He got his leftovers to take to work, I had a few easy lunches for the kids and me, all giving me a few less meals to cook for! I ended up putting half of it in the freezer, so we'll have an easy pre-made supper in the next few weeks, too. 

I made three batches of cornbread, and it filled a 10x15" and a 7x11" oblong baking dish. Combined, the two pans total 6.5 quarts, so I figure it would be about the same as if I had used two 9x13 baking dishes. We were able to get free milk this past week in exchange for taking care of a family member's place while they were on vacation, so that cut cornbread expenses greatly since I needed over 5 cups for the recipe. Part of my goal for this month was to make something that used a substantial amount of milk simply because we had zero cost in a refrigerator full. (Not that I didn't have a dozen other ways to use up milk! We went through 6 gallons easily in a week.) All the rest of the ingredients into the cornbread (cornmeal, flour, eggs, butter, etc.) cost me $3.29. That figure includes the butter and maple syrup used for serving. The maple syrup was free that someone gifted us. I used that rather than stuff we had bought because the gifted syrup was in a glass container and I was curious to know how much would get consumed (it ended up being 1/2 cup). Next time, I would make one more batch of cornbread, because we only ended up with one piece left after the meal was over. We wouldn't have minded bringing more home to go with our leftover chili.

To add some veggies to the meal, I made a salad as well. It seems like I always make salad and I am stuck in a rut of doing it the same way. Well, I switched it up a little bit this time by adding boiled eggs instead of tomatoes, but for next time I might switch up my salad game even further and try something new. We'll see. Anyhow, this month's salad consisted of 2 heads of iceberg lettuce (1.87), 1 cucumber (.88), 1 orange pepper (.41), 6 hard-boiled eggs (.72), and half a bag of croutons (.89). Salad dressing I estimate around $1.00. This makes the salad total in at $5.79. There were enough leftovers to feed 3 servings.

Now let's add up all three parts and see how we compare with last time! $18.94+$3.29+$5.79= $28.02. Wow! I made it under $30! That's only $1.06 more than last December, but I added a salad to the meal this time, and we ended up with more leftovers, so we definitely got a bigger bang for our buck. Dividing our total by the 40 mouths fed, and we come out at 70 cents per serving. (For reference, while we served 40, only half of them were adults.) This month has made the top 3 list for least expense per serving!

Cooking for a Crowd - Episode 11: Tomato Soup

Tomato Soup. Of course.

Actually I didn't originally plan to serve it this soon after making it, but I knew we were going to have a very crazy weekend which in turn would leave me not wanting to spend much time cooking.

I was right. Friday we were up super early and spent the day at my brother-in-law's place making applesauce. (Read about last year's applesauce day here.) It is always a huge production, and this year was certainly no exception. We broke the record and made over 1100 quarts in 8 hours. Some of that applesauce was saved aside for Sunday, when we were planning to turn it into apple butter. So Sunday was another early morning and long day. We were able to get 120 quarts of apple butter! If you've been reading the previous Crowd Cooking posts, you'll remember that Sunday is the day I serve these meals. So on apple butter Sunday, I was in charge of feeding everyone, on top of my husband and I being in charge of the whole apple butter event. But you know, we tend to attract crazy, and the whole lack of sleep and desire to cook didn't matter. I had tomato soup.

Two good things about the fact that we have a basement full of soup is this: it's cheap, and all you have to do is heat and serve. To go along with the meal, we made the classic grilled cheese sandwich, and a salad for the side. Here's the rundown on what we used, along with the expenses.

Tomato Soup -  I opened 12 quart jars, and we ended up with 2 quarts left over. Cost per quart was 50 cents x 12 = $6.00.

Grilled Cheese - The bread came from Aunt Millie's Bakery Thrift Store, where I got two giant (1.75 lb!) loaves of Italian bread for $0.89 each. I also got two regular sized loaves of wheat bread at $0.50/each. Total cost on bread was $2.78. The cheese was a large block of mozzarella that I got at our food service store for $2.19/lb. They can slice it on the spot, so I had them do that for me. The block of cheese was just over 6 pounds, and cost 13.40. I estimate I got around 80 slices out of it. We used about 3.5 pounds and had 2.5 pounds leftover. The butter was some I had in the freezer that I purchased this summer at $2.50/lb. We used 1.5 pounds of it, so the total butter cost was $3.75.
With bread, butter, and cheese, our total cost into the sandwiches equals $19.93, but if I subtract the leftover cheese ($5.40 worth), our sandwich expense is at $14.53. I had brought a loaf of homemade bread in case we needed more, but we ended up with enough of the bought bread leftover that we could've made a few more sandwiches.

Salad - 2 heads of lettuce @.97 each = $1.94, 1 cucumber @.50, 1 orange pepper @ 1.67, 1 bag croutons @$1.79, and several tomatoes that I had a free coupon for. For the salad dressing I had two jars of my homemade french and ranch, and also had 2 partially used store bought bottles of Italian and Thousand Island. We went through less than $1 worth of dressing total, but I'll call it a dollar for our figures. We ended up using only 1.5 heads of lettuce, and had a couple servings of salad leftover. Cost into the whole salad was $6.90.

Cost between all three parts total up to $27.43. This is an incredible number for the amount of people we were feeding (40). Our cost per person is at a low 68 cents! This is the lowest cost crowd meal since last December (which was .67 per serving)! I am rather pleased that the cost was this far under a dollar a serving. It helps make up for some of my higher months this summer.



Note: You can read more about the home-canned tomato soup here.

Cooking for a Crowd: Episode 10 - Sloppy Joes

It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon. I stepped outside to enjoy a breath of fresh air and a leisurely walk to check on the garden. Feeling the soft green grass beneath my feet, everything in me is set to ease in the calm, quiet outdoors. Walking past the rope swing hanging down from a tall but weathered tree, I remember. Crowd meal tomorrow.

Oh yeah.

Oops. Somehow even though it was written on my calendar in black letters, which I had seen previously in the week, it had slipped my mind, and I had the rest of my Saturday to throw something together. 

I'm such a wing-it person. It seems like these last-minute things are attracted to me. I try to plan ahead, but somehow ... it just doesn't work for me. I'd love tips and tricks, if you all wouldn't mind filling the comment box below to help me out. I need help.

My original plan (from months ago), has been to make a certain yummy summery casserole for my next crowd meal, but that plan kept getting shoved off month after month due to either lack of time, or lack of desire to use the oven for cooking. Well, this particular weekend we had record-breaking, sweltering hot temperatures. In fact we - north-central Michigan - went on record as the second warmest place in the United States that weekend, at 91*. This being said, it was no time to be slaving away in a hot kitchen. Thus our decision to put off that casserole yet another month, and find something more friendly to warmer weather. 

I wasn't prepared, so my meal had to be fast enough to throw together in an evening (or the next morning), and I had to be able to find everything locally for a half-decent price, regardless of sales. We decided on sloppy joes, since that was something I could heat in the crock-pot, and also went well with cold sides. Aaron really wanted potato salad, so the sloppy joe meal idea was kind of formed around that. :) 

Main Dish

I was hoping to find meat for around $2.00/lb, so I went to the "cheap store" in town. It just opened this summer, and I have been there twice to get meat on sale, both times around $1.79/lb. So while I was hoping for a sale, I figured their non-sale price couldn't be too much more than that. Unfortunately it was not ground beef sale week, so I paid full price, which I believe was $2.39/lb. My goal was to get 10 lbs and spend $20 on meat, but I ended up getting closer to 9lbs and spending $20.82. I had a few pounds of cheap ground beef in the freezer at home, but I wasn't sure exactly how much and didn't want to have to wait for it to thaw before I could get started cooking. I need to gather all those random containers and compile them for my next beefy crowd meal. If I can remember to plan ahead. Anyhow. The worst thing about buying cheap meat at a non-sale price, is that this stuff was 73/27 beef-fat ratio, which means over 1/4 of it disappeared when I cooked the meat. I really, really dislike buying meat at this ratio, even if it is a half okay price, because I feel like whatever money I'm trying to save all drains out in grease. By the time I added my filler ingredients to actually turn the meat into the meal, my cost into the sloppy joe was around $23.50. I was able to find hamburger buns at retail for a nice low price of $1.09/package, which isn't much higher than the Aunt Millie's Bakery Thrift Store, but I get an extra week shelf life! I bought 6 packages of 8, totalling $6.54.

Sides

For sides, we went simple. Aaron got his potato salad, and we decided on baked beans as the second option. Looking back, I wish I would've gone with something of lighter fare, like watermelon or a veggie tray, just to give the meal more variety. This actually really bugged me. A well-rounded meal should not consist of only heavy foods. At least not on a super hot day. My cost into sides was around $12.05 between the salad and beans. I used 4 28-ounce cans of beans, in case ya'll are trying to calculate numbers for your own event. 

Leftovers

There was quite a bit of food leftover, due to less people eating than originally anticipated. I'd say there were 25 mouths to feed. We brought home half of the sloppy joe meat, two packs of buns, and several servings of potato salad. It was at least $14 worth of leftovers, and was enough to feed us for two suppers with both salad and sloppy joe and a couple more lunches of sloppy joe. 

In conclusion, my total bill for the meal was $42.09, which is a couple dollars over what I try to spend when cooking for 40. I'm not really sure how to calculate the per serving cost here. Do I divide the total expense by 40 [$1.05/person], or by the 25 [$1.68/person] I actually served? Do I subtract the cost of leftovers, and divide the remainder [$28.09] by 25 mouths [$1.12/person]?

Cooking for a Crowd: Episode 9 - Applesauce Cake

I always ask Aaron's opinion when I'm planning a crowd meal. He is so good at giving me ideas and suggestions, and helps me not to stress over it all, even though the popular answer I seem to get from him is "Baby, I don't know! You're so much better at figuring out food than I am." Other times, he pops out with whatever is the first thing that comes to mind, and often it's a delicious, fairly easy meal to make. I don't think he realizes what a help he is when it comes to meal planning.

Maybe dessert is a little easier for him to come up with ideas though, because this was one of the times that he had an immediate suggestion: 

Applesauce cake.

Now I've never made applesauce cake before, so this was a completely random idea. Maybe by now you've gathered that I'm the kind of person who likes making new foods, so this suggestion seemed like good advice to me. I asked how he likes his applesauce cake, and he proceeded to tell me that it's simple to make and - just like how he eats every spice cake/bread- it has to be served with applesauce. I didn't have a recipe for the cake from his [growing up] farm days, so I began doing some research. It didn't take me a minute and I had a recipe to try! 

The day I was scheduled to serve dessert, we were expecting to serve around half the usual number. Normally I would need to make several pans (or at least a half-sheet pan) in order to provide enough to go around, but since we estimated 20 guests, a 9x13" pan would be sufficient. Of course, I can't make a new recipe without testing it first, so I doubled it and ended up putting 1+1/2x in the 9x13 pan, and put the other 1/2 recipe in a bread pan so we could sample it. 

***Pause typing*** Husband just called and asked if I could make some more this afternoon.

Okay, I'm back. Maybe that will get the point across on how seriously addicting this stuff is!

The day the meal was being served we had other obligations, so we didn't stick around long for dessert. When we left, around half of the pan had been consumed. I had cut it in 18 pieces, and from what I observed, it seemed to be just right for the smaller crowd that day. I did serve it with applesauce as well, but am unsure of how many quarts were eaten. We took over either 2 or 3 quarts.

This recipe is another one I hope to share with you one day, but I have some tweaking to do before that happens. Somehow one recipe isn't enough to fill the pan size it says, and also the baking time seems to be off. I need to make another batch (which clearly shouldn't be a problem) and try to work it out for you all.

My cost into ingredients I figured out at $2.08. The recipe called for walnuts, but I omitted them partially because I didn't have any, but also because it would be a huge added expense. Tack on two quarts of applesauce at .50/jar, and the dessert cost comes to $3.08. Divide by 18 pieces, and that leaves us with a cost of $0.17 per serving. I use fresh farms eggs that I get here locally, which are a considerable amount more than grocery store prices. Had I bought cheap store eggs, I could've reduced my total cost by 51 cents, bringing our cost per serving down to $0.14/piece. 

Cooking for a Crowd: Episode 8 - Taco Salad

For this weeks crowd meal, I needed it to be two things:

1. Something that could transport well with minimal refrigeration.

2. Something I could easily prepare Sunday morning in someone else's kitchen.

So I chose one of the quickest, easiest crowd meals ever: taco salad. I have served this many times before the days of blogging my meals, because it's so simple! 

Growing up, taco salad was one of my favorite meals. So much yummy in the combination of lettuce, seasoned beef, tomatoes, cheese, tortilla chips, and the most delicious homemade taco salad dressing ever (or catalina if you prefer that name). To this day, that's our staple salad dressing, and my husband loves it just as much as I do. We always mixed the ingredients together and served it as a single dish.

When I got married, I was once served a build-your-own salad bar, which the host called taco salad. Sure, I had seen an in-home salad bar before, but calling it taco salad? What? But they did, and it was much different than the taco salad I knew. Comparing it to said salad, I'd say this version is more more like tacos without the shell. I'm still kind of partial to my precious childhood version, but this build-your-own style works well when you're trying to make an entire meal out of it to serve a bunch of people! 

When serving 40, there are a few pros and cons to doing it this way. 

Pros. 

- Picky people will love you. Not that I support or cater to picky eaters. I do not.

- Anyone with sensitivities to common foods like dairy or corn can still get the same meal as everyone else without any extra effort on your part. 

- You don't have to attempt mixing together giant bowls of pre-dressed salad (which often compresses a fair amount and doesn't go as far, so you'd have to make extra. This adds extra cost and work).

Cons.

- Some people will tend to load up on the meat and go easy on the veggies.

- There are a lot of individual bowls you have to set out with toppings. 

- You need a decent amount of counter/table space to serve the meal.

Every year my husband and I (and now our two kids), head over to the beaches of Lake Michigan for a day trip. This year we decided it would be fun to throw our little green army tent in the trunk and make it a weekend deal and spend Saturday night at a campground. Our plan was to leave from the campground Sunday morning in time to stop by a grocery store to get the ingredients I needed for the crowd meal, and then go straight to church from there. Well, we've been trying to liquidate some of the extra stuff we'd collected over the years from my husband's part-time resale business, and a guy was planning to come by Saturday evening to pick up a lawnmower we had listed for sale. So we scratched the camping idea last minute (I mean, the idea to camp was last minute, too...), and planned to come home in time to meet the guy that evening. We stopped by a grocery store on our way home Saturday, instead, so we would have everything ready to go Sunday morning. 

I had bought the ground beef, tortilla chips, and sour cream earlier in the week so I could control my prices a little better. Beef cost can vary by such a big margin, I wasn't going to chance being able to find it at some remote grocery store for any less than $4/lb. I tried getting the tomatoes locally too, but the selection was very slim and the tomatoes were hardly even ripe, so I saved that for last minute, too. 

Here are the toppings that went into the meal, along with what it cost me:

5 lbs. Ground Beef @1.79/lb - $12.21

5x 16 oz. Sour Cream @ 1.49 - $7.45

4 bags Tortilla Chips @1.69 - 6.76

Garden Lettuce - $0.00

2 heads Iceberg Lettuce - $3.48

Tomatoes @ 1.89/lb - ??

3 lbs. Shredded Cheese - $12.00 

2 pints homemade Salsa - $0.00

3 pints Pinto Beans - $0.60

Somehow I lost my receipt to the store we stopped at on our way home, so I don't have any idea how much I spent on the tomatoes. I got 3-4 large tomatoes, and maybe 6-8 romas? Also I'm guessing on the price of the lettuce and cheese, but am pretty positive I remember correctly.

Besides the prices being unpredictable due to not even knowing what town we were going to stop in for groceries, the meal choice was very convenient and even quicker to prepare than I anticipated. I was able to cook my meat the night before so it was one less thing to do Sunday morning. I also had been meaning to can dry beans all week both in preparation for this meal, and also because I've been wanting to can some for my pantry for a couple years now. It took me just as long to do up a canner full (18 pints) as it would've to cook just enough for this one meal. Because I had bought a 5-lb. bag of pinto beans last month, I already had the beans, and it was so much cheaper than trying to buy them pre-canned at the store. I calculated my cost at 20 cents per pint of home-canned beans! This is an incredible savings. Not that I ever buy canned beans, but in case you're someone that does and is looking for a new way to slash your grocery spending, you may want to consider switching to dry beans.

Leftovers:
In planning for the meal, I was preparing to feed quite a few extra mouths, but when the day came, I only ended up having to serve around 25 people (compared to the usual 40). I had plenty of lettuce in my garden, but didn't have time to pick a lot of extra and wash it that busy weekend, so I bought two heads at the store for backup in case I didn't have enough of our homegrown lettuce. Turned out we didn't need it, due to fewer people than expected. I mixed the ground beef and beans together this time so the beef would stretch some, and I thought I had plenty. Turns out my amounts were just right there. I had a few extra cans of pinto beans with me that I could've added to the meat to stretch it even further, had more people shown up. We also had 2-1/2 containers of sour cream, two bags of tortilla chips, maybe 1/3 or more (can't remember) of the tomatoes I had bought, and just over one pound of cheese left, as well. I feel confident that had we served the anticipated amount, we would've still have enough food for everyone. All in all, I spent much more than I "needed", since I was preparing for a crowd. The leftovers came in handy though, because the next day I needed a last minute, quick meal to take somewhere, and I already had all the ingredients ready to whip together a taco salad, so I am very grateful I had bought extra of everything!

I like to add up my total cost and also figure a per serving rate so I can have notes for reference in the future as I plan and prepare more crowd meals. It helps me knowing what I paid for certain ingredients so I can watch sales easier. It also helps create a challenge where next time I make a certain recipe for my crowd meal, I can try to cut cost even further. I know these numbers probably don't mean as much to you, especially since prices vary greatly depending on where you live. Be aware of that if you're using my reference numbers to compare with your own local stores, in case you live in an area where food prices might be a bit higher. My cost for all the ingredients this month (including the stuff "left over"), I estimate around $48.50. I sure wish I had that missing receipt to know for sure!!! This would put our per serving cost at $0.97. If I calculate the numbers using only the ingredients used divided by actual number of people served, we still would come out just over a dollar per person.

Ways I could've should've cut cost further:
Had I been blessed with more time, my plan was to go to the big town to do most of my shopping. I could've used a coupon I had for a free head of lettuce, plus bought a second one for only $1. That would've saved me $2.48 there. I also planned to stop at the restaurant supply store, since that is the best way for me to save money on cheese. There I can get a 5-lb. bag of cheddar for $12.99, which would've been a savings of $1.41 per pound (a total of $2.82 on the cheese). And tomatoes are usually only $.99/lb there, so that would've brought the price down a few dollars, since I ended up paying twice that at the out-of-town rural store. I figure I could've saved a good $8.00. I guess that was just an added cost to our deciding to take a quick vacation. :)

Cooking for a Crowd: Episode 7 - Ice Cream Sundaes

This last weekend has brought more than just extra cooking for our monthly crowd meal. Each year we host a big party at our house and that just so happened to be this past Saturday. There's always a lot of work going into hosting an event of that size (we were planning for 100), but we enjoy hosting everybody, being able to catch up with friends, and watching them all have a good time. Plus, we get the added bonus of a cleaned-up homeplace and some leftover food!

Speaking of food (since Cooking for a Crowd is all about finding budget-worthy meals for high guest count), I made sloppy joe using 25 lbs. of ground beef, which I found locally for 1.59/lb, and the hamburger buns were bought from a bakery "thrift store" at $0.75/package. We had a good 5 lbs. of sloppy joe leftover, and lots of buns, which I have been cutting up and freezing as crumbs for meatloaf or hamburgers, and cubes for egg casseroles. I normally have homemade bread around that I  canuse for those recipes, but since these burger buns were left over and otherwise would've gone in the trash (which essentially is throwing money away), I figure I might as well try and use 'em, since I make things requiring bread crumbs/cubes fairly regularly. I'll see how convenient it actually is having them in the freezer, since I know it can take a little while for bread to thaw. I did put them in pre-measured portions, which I recommend! Last winter I froze extra cornbread in crumbs for the same purpose, but dumped them all in one bag. When it came time that I needed to use them, it was one giant, frozen bread chunk, and it was no easy chore breaking apart as much as I needed while still frozen. I'm hoping the smaller portions will help solve that problem. 

Knowing I had a party to host Saturday and Crowd Dessert on Sunday, I didn't have time to make anything over the weekend for the dessert. So, since we also had ice cream at the party, I got an extra pail for the Sunday meal. The ice cream toppings that were leftover went with it on Sunday, as well. It was not the most inexpensive dessert I could've come up with, but it was easy, and I was willing to pay a little extra for the convenience.  

When Sunday rolled around, I ended up staying home due to not feeling well, so Aaron took the ice cream over. He didn't come back with any, so I assume it all got eaten. It was a one gallon container, which I found on sale for $5.99. The toppings were sprinkles (around 1 1/2 cups worth), and homemade chocolate magic shell. I'm not sure if the magic shell must've hardened, if he stuck it in the fridge while over there, or if people didn't consume as much as I expected, because a decent portion of what I sent with him came back. I'm not sure the exact cost of the toppings, but all in all, it was an $8+ dessert. Divide that by 40, and you get around 21c/serving. That's twice the Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars, and three times the cost of last month's Snickerdoodle Cookies. 

Cooking for a Crowd: Episode 6 - Burrito Bowls

We're back with another edition of Crowd Cooking! This time we decided to go a little different route with our meal. With as warm as this summer has been, nobody wants to be slaving away in a hot kitchen, so I went for a meal that didn't require baking or extensive stove-top cooking during the heat of the day. The meal? Burrito Bowls!

One of the great features of this dish is ... lots of meat. Everybody loves meat! Another nice twist to this meal, is that it features some great popping flavors by using lime and cilantro. I find myself all too often sticking with plain old american tasting dishes, as much as I love the flare of other cuisine. I received some extra-positive compliments on the meal, and even my husband was wowed at how it all came together. He was also more than happy that we had leftovers to bring home.

While there are a lot of little parts to the meal (since it's a build-your-own style), it really was quite simple to make, especially considering the number of people I expected to serve.

Most of the prep was done the day of, since the veggies needed to stay as fresh as possible, but I was able to prepare a couple other things the day before:

The recipe I used as a guideline said to grill the chicken before chopping, but I don't have a grill, so I improvised. I marinated the chicken breasts for an hour in a delicious homemade concoction before cooking. Instead of using the recommended grill, I laid the chicken breasts out on a sheet pan and baked them. I fully intended to sear it in a cast-iron skillet beforehand, but I forgot about that detail until after I pulled the finished product out of the oven. I believe that would've been an unnecessary step, since the meat I pulled out from baking was nice and juicy, and nicely seasoned from the marinade. I let it cool enough to work with, and then chopped it into small cubes, which got dumped into an 8-quart crock-pot and placed in the fridge overnight.

The other thing I was able to prepare ahead was the beans. I always use dry beans rather than canned. It is very cost effective, and as long as you plan ahead a little, isn't much extra work. (I do not soak dry beans before cooking. I have read a number of conflicting articles on soaking or not soaking and have not found a difference in either method, either in cooking time or quality of product, so I opt for the simpler, quicker method.) Because it takes awhile to cook before beans are done, I used our outdoor propane stove. This helped keep the heat outside. When done, I put them in our 4-quart crock-pot and placed in the refrigerator. My original plan was to use the beans as filler to stretch the meat, but the chicken filled the crockpot all the way, so I decided to keep the beans separate. Besides, Aaron isn't fond of dry beans, so I knew he'd be happier with this choice.

In the morning, I turned the crockpot of chicken on high for 3-3.5 hours, and the beans on low. The beans were just right, and the chicken was just warm enough (I ended up having to stir it after 2 hours to help it heat through. I know you're not supposed to open a crockpot while cooking....). I also should've put some water on the bottom of the crockpot before adding the chicken, as it dried out quite a bit while heating up in the morning. Because it wasn't being served plain it wasn't a huge deal, but just a note for next time.

Day-of prep included chopping cilantro, lettuce, and tomatoes, and cooking the rice. For the rice, I juiced two limes and toasted the dry rice in the lime juice and some cooking oil. I then poured in the water and salt and cooked as normal. After cooking, I added the chopped cilantro and fluffed the rice with a fork. The flavor was pretty good on the rice, but I could've easily used one more lime. I'm not a huge lime person, but still thought it was a little weak in that area.  

As far as amounts and totals,
here are the final figures:

Rice- 12c. dry @$0.57/lb ...  3.07
Limes- x2 .........................      .98
Cilantro- 1 bunch .............    1.29

Chicken- 10lbs + breasts .. 17.24
Marinating ingredients ....       .30

Pinto Beans- 1lb. ............     1.75

Lettuce- 1 head ...............      .99

Tomatoes- 2.21 lbs. ........     2.17

Cheese- 1.5 lbs ...............     3.89

Sour Cream- 3, 24 oz. ....     8.07  

Spices and other misc ....       .30

Total: $40.05


I also had a jar of salsa and served 3 quarts of corn as a vegetable. Both of these were free from our garden.

Ways I could've cut cost further:
I went to the "big town" to do all my shopping, since they were having a sale on chicken and that alone cut my cost by dollars. I decided to buy the sour cream and lettuce there so I wouldn't have to go to yet another store (my local grocer) where they were on sale cheaper. It is an 18 mile drive from the "big town" store, and I didn't want to chance baby needing fed about the time I would've arrived back home at our local store. So, I paid $0.74 more for that convenience. I should've used lettuce from my garden, but I barely had enough (it has been a rough garden year!), and figured I'd save it for personal use.

I was on my way home from "big town" store when I realized I completely forgot the limes and cilantro even though it was on my list which I scanned numerous times before checking out. So I went back to our local store anyway. So much for paying for the convenience of getting the lettuce and sour cream at one store, because I could have just waited and gotten them cheaper had I known I needed to stop anyway. Thankfully baby was still content as ever as I shopped our local store for the two forgotten ingredients. We made it home and in the house before she let out even the smallest whimper. :)

I had one pound of beans already on my pantry shelf (@1.75/lb), but found a 5-lb bag much cheaper (@$1.00/lb) at a restaurant supply store, so I bought that not knowing how many beans I was actually going to use. I calculated my cost at the more expensive price, since I ended up only using that pound of beans I already had. Next time though, I will be able to use the smaller figure. :)

Leftovers: 
We had a lot of rice and chicken leftover! My goal is to get better at having food leftover so I'm confident everyone is getting enough, plus having extra in the event more guests arrive. Anything leftover makes a great Monday night supper, or lunch for Aaron at work, which he took today and thoroughly enjoyed. We had a good 12-15 cups of [fluffed] cooked rice left, and about 6 cups of chicken. All of the veggies got eaten, as well as the salsa, corn, and beans. I had bought the cheese in a 5lb. bag, so I had lots to take home still. Also there was between 8-12 oz. of sour cream left.

Looking back: 
I should've made twice as many beans. Because I was planning to mix it in with the chicken to stretch it, I didn't do a whole lot in order to keep it from being too beany. That one pound of beans were finished off right away and half the guests didn't have them as an option for their burritos. I guess they were more well liked as a topping than I anticipated! (I know I love beans, but didn't think everybody did!) I should've had another lime for the rice, and I also should've provided a little more lettuce and tomatoes. I think we had just enough.

This was one of my more expensive crowd meals, but I was aiming to try to serve more than usual, since I was aware of a few extra guests coming, and also because I wanted to try and plan for leftovers. Still, in planning on cooking for 40, I was able to get in at exactly $1 per serving. And the leftovers (enough for a couple meals), I will call free dinners for my family. This is a bit more than I hope to spend for a Crowd Meal, but considering the leftovers, we're alright. As long as I don't go over a dollar per person, I'll still call it a fairly inexpensive meal overall.

Cooking For a Crowd: Episode 5 - Snickerdoodle Cookies

For this month's Crowd Dessert, I decided to make Snickerdoodle Cookies. There were a couple reasons why I chose these; one, because they didn't require any extra high-cost ingredients (like chocolate or peanut butter), and secondly because I wanted to test the part-oil theory on an actual cookie versus bars, which we tried successfully last month.

We made snickerdoodles quite a bit growing up. It's the cookie I would call my brother John's signature. I have six brothers, and almost all of them are as good or better in the kitchen than most of us sisters. Or at least, me. I love to cook but I'm being serious, my brothers know how. Somehow every time I managed to be in charge of baking I had at least one of them over my shoulder. Now I'm not sure if it's because they doubted my expertise, if it was because I was the little sister, or because ... cookie dough. I know my dad came by because of the cookie dough.

My recipe said it made 48 servings, so I doubled it. For some reason the projected yield is never accurate for me, so of course I doubted I would get 96 cookies in the end. The double recipe ended up making 62 cookies, and I know we didn't eat 34 cookies-worth of dough. I was rather proud of myself actually. I limited myself greatly by only taking a sampling of the raw dough! I wanted to get an accurate figure on how much it would yield, wanted to make sure I had enough to serve the next day (making another batch meant that much more cost into ingredients), and I also wasn't really in the mood for sweets. I'm sure this goes down as a record as I didn't eat one. single. cookie. Not even freshly baked. Not even knowing we had milk in the refrigerator. I'm amazed. Someone needs to mark this date in history. As I was plating them though I let Aaron sample a cookie, so we ended up taking 61 to serve. Ideally I would've liked to have saved out about 10 cookies for hubby, but my numbers were cut a little too close.

I did try using oil in place of half the butter. If it worked so well in sheet pan bar cookies, then it should be fine in a regular cookie recipe, right? That's what I wanted to know. Using part oil does make a more greasy dough, but you really can't tell the difference when baked. After mixing up my dough it was a bit too soft to roll into balls, so I stuck it in the fridge to cool for an hour. This is one thing I never took into account when using a oil as a substitute. Butter hardens when cool, but oil remains in a liquid state. I really wasn't sure how well it would take to chilling, since I used half butter, half oil. It ended up just fine! The dough wasn't so hard you couldn't work with it, but was still soft and moldable. I formed about half the dough into balls and rolled it in the cinnamon/sugar mixture and put the rest of it back in the refrigerator so it wouldn't soften too much before I was ready to shape the rest of it.

Since the last cooking episode, I have been able to get a few ingredients at a lower cost than before. I paid 50c less per pound of butter, saved 12c/lb on sugar, and also stocked up on oil while it was on sale, which lowered my cost to $0.41/cup rather than the $0.64/cup I had paid previously. I had bought the other oil over the winter and couldn't remember what price I paid, so I had been calculating using the full price. Now that I know what I bought it for this time, I marked it on the bottle so I can look back for quick reference. I saved 64 cents just by finding cheaper prices on a few of my ingredients.

After baking, the cookies were about 3" in diameter, so they were a nice size. We took 61 cookies, and there were about a half dozen on the plate when I wrapped them up to head home, so the numbers ended up being just right. My final cost into the entire batch was $4.32, which gives us a figure of $0.07 per cookie. Comparing prices, it cost me almost a dollar less to make these versus the chocolate chip bars I made last month. And I saved 4 cents a serving compared to last time as well! I'm excited to have made it under my $5 goal budget. So far, $5 to feed dessert to 40 people seems like a fair number, but we've only tested two recipes, so stay tuned for our next dessert episode so we can compare again!

Cooking for a Crowd: Episode 4 - Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars {Recipe Included}

Here is it! My first dessert-themed Cooking for a Crowd episode. It has been a few months since I've been on the dessert rotation, but I'm back at it full time again. I realized as my turn approached that I have never calculated the actual cost going into my crowd desserts before. Baking often uses expensive ingredients such as butter, peanut butter, chocolate, nuts, fruit, or molasses, so it can be challenging finding a recipe for something sweet that doesn't make your budgeting attempts turn sour. Not knowing where to start, I figured a $5 budget sounded like a great goal. I had barely began running figures before I realized what kind of challenge I was up for. Both Aaron and my tastebuds agreed on cookies, and for you blog readers I wanted to stay in the realm of more traditional desserts, so you're not left feeling like you have to turn to something exotic in order to bake within your budget. 

Well what's more traditional than a chocolate chip cookie? I looked up a bunch of different recipes, but none of them were quite what I was looking for. I did find some great ideas though, and finally made my own recipe by comparing notes and adding some of my own touch.

Technically for a pan this size, I needed to use a 3 sticks of butter, which would've meant a cost of $2.25 for one ingredient! That would take up half of my budget. I needed to cut costs somewhere, so I decided to substitute half the butter for oil. But wait -- before you raise your eyebrows at the thought of oil in cookies, let me remind you of every other mouth-watering baked good that calls for oil. Cakes, muffins, brownies.... I hesitated at the idea at first (mainly because I knew I'd have to tell you all what I did), but recalling that most baked goods use oil instead of butter eased my mind enough to go ahead with it. By substituting 1.5 sticks of butter, I saved 64 cents. That may not seem like very much, but it's equal to the cost of a stick of butter. Plus, when you're working on a recipe with a final cost estimated between $5-$7, that's a 10% savings, which is pretty significant.

Another area I saved money was with the eggs. I found lots of recipes that had you divide them and only use the yolks, which I think is a waste of a perfectly good whole egg. If you're like me, whenever you have to divide an egg, you stick the other half in the refrigerator to use somewhere else only to end up forgetting about it. So in this recipe I only used whole eggs, which saved me another 18c. 

And finally, the other area where I cut my expenses was in chocolate chips. This might be a huge no-no for some of you chocolate lovers out there, but for those who are truly trying to reduce their grocery spending, you could save yourself quite a bit of cash by using less chocolate.

I bought the chocolate chips at our local bulk food store the day I did my baking, so I didn't have time to search for the best deal in town. They had regular-sized chips for $2.91/lb or mini chips for $2.62/lb. I chose the mini chocolate chips for two reasons: first, because they were obviously cheaper per pound than the regular size, but also because they would spread better throughout the pan, making it look like there are more chocolate chips than there really are. 

Comparing recipes again, I was "supposed to" use 4 cups of regular sized chocolate chips. The bag of mini chips that I had bought cost me $3 for 1.15 pounds, or 2 1/2 cups. There again, if I used the whole bag it would've been a huge cost for just one ingredient, so I decided to only use half, putting my chocolate chip expense at $1.50 for this recipe. Looking back, I feel like that was a good amount, but I would be hesitant to go any less than that. By using 1 1/4 cups of mini chocolate chips, there was just enough in each bite, but it didn't give you that extra gooey, loaded chocolatey center. So in my recipe below, I upped the amount to 2 cups to keep everybody happy. In being frugal, you don't want people to feel like you're ultra stingy or that they're being gypped. 

For serving, I cut them into 2" squares, making 48 pieces total. The one sheet pan was enough dessert for everybody (I was serving 40 people, for those of you who didn't catch that). They're such a great grab-and-go snack that we didn't bring home any leftovers. This amount would be perfect for a potluck, but if you're planning on serving them individually on plates, like as the main dessert for an event, I might recommend cutting them a little bit bigger. You'll have to decide what fits your needs best.

My total cost into the dessert was about $5.24. My original total would've been $9.36 if I hadn't cut expenses in butter, eggs, and chocolate chips. By looking for ways to reduce cost, I ended up saving a total of $4.12. That's 44% saved! What an exciting amount! 

For cost per serving, the total equaled 11c per square (and would have been 19c before savings). 

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.

Taking a Break from Crowd Cooking

If you've been following my posts on how I cook to feed 40 people on a budget, you may have noticed I haven't written a new one in awhile. I was scheduled to have another crowd meal a couple weeks ago, and had it all planned out, only to find that most of the group wouldn't be showing up that day, toddler wasn't feeling well, and my sister-in-law had already made a huge pot of soup that needed eaten. So I didn't end up doing a crowd meal this month. I'm going to be on break from the meals for a couple months while I recover and enjoy my new baby (yet to arrive. I'm not due for another week). I have enjoyed keeping track of the meals and sharing what I've done with you all! Just hold tight. I'll be back this spring with more.

Cooking for a Crowd: Episode 2

Well this month's Crowd Meal didn't go as planned. I had everything all figured out, shopping done over a week ago, and turkey thawing in the refrigerator since Monday. I was going to make Turkey Noodle Soup with a turkey I had bought at .55/lb. the week of Thanksgiving. We're getting half a beef this month and I've been working on clearing out my deep freezer so we have plenty of room for it, so it worked out perfectly that I was in charge of the crowd meal in time to get the 20 lb. tom out of the way. I had the most brilliant idea to get a large one and use some of the meat for the crowd meal and still have a few pounds for Aaron's lunches. Cost for his lunches have been much higher than I prefer, so I was pretty excited to have meat for sandwiches at such a low price.

But plans changed.

As I said, I had pulled the turkey out of the freezer on Monday so it would be thawed in time to roast Friday. I figured that would be easier than trying to cook a turkey and take care of all the rest of the food prep as well on Saturday, leaving me no extra time to work with in case of something else coming up on Aaron's day home. So Friday morning I pulled out my electric roaster and got to work! I didn't even think of a turkey being too big for it for some reason. I knew the bird wouldn't fit in my in-oven roasting pan, so the electric one was my only option. Thankfully it was just the right size. After reading up on the directions (this was my first time cooking a turkey), I found great reviews on how the roaster makes the meat even more moist and takes less cooking time than an oven-cooked turkey. Schweet!

When the clock reached the "should be almost done" time, I checked on it, but the temperature wasn't up where it needed to be yet. I started getting hungry for moist turkey dipped in homemade barbecue sauce. Yum. But it needed more time. Later that afternoon, it still wasn't quite there! Everything looked good, juices were starting to run clear, but it still wasn't at 180*. We had plans to be out of town for the evening, so I figured I'd have just enough time to de-bone it before we had to leave. Fast forward a good hour, and I was ready to dig in! The meat had fallen off the legs by now and it was so nice and moist, so I pulled it out and started carving. It had been in there since 11am, making for a good 5 hours of cooking time, which was twice what directions said it should take. Once I cut into some of the darker meat on the back the juices weren't quite as pretty as I had been finding elsewhere. It still was barely done, so I put it back in and turned the temperature down so it wouldn't be way overdone when we got back later that evening. We were going to be gone a few hours, which would just about double the time it had already been cooking. When we got back, the first thing Aaron did when he got in the door was check on it. It wasn't hot. Sometime while we were gone the roaster had shut off! So, Tom still wasn't really done. After analyzing it (keeping in mind how fragile meat is), we decided it was still salvageable at this point. It was late though and I was tired and honestly didn't feel like shredding a turkey at that hour, so we turned the heat back up and went to bed. 

I checked it once in the middle of the night and things were looking good. But in the morning, Aaron was up and lifted the lid ... to find an almost cold turkey. It no longer smelled like Thanksgiving. It looked yucky. It was officially trash. (sigh) There goes my eleven and some dollar deal. There goes Aaron's lunch meat. And there goes my plan for the big meal. What a way to wake up in the morning! Now I had to come up with a plan B and I only had that day to do it! The only thing we could come up with was chili and cornbread, so that's what we ended up making. 

I already had the beef, and just needed a few extra ingredients to supplement what I already had in order to pull off a meal to feed 40. I bought more dry beans, cornmeal, and some sour cream. Here's what everything ended up costing:

$21.96 for the pot of chili. Tomatoes were canned from the garden, so besides some spices and salt, the only expense I had into it was 6 lbs. of beef ($11.88), 2 lbs. dry beans (3.50), and 48oz. sour cream for serving (6.58). It made for a nice meaty chili, and my husband raved about it all day. He couldn't stop telling me that my chili is his favorite. Lots of meat. Not too much hot spice. Not too many beans. So I guess it was just right. I trust his opinion.

$9.00 for the cornbread. I had planned on making two oblong pans full and made some mix for easy prep when I got there, since cornbread tastes so much better warm. 1/3 of the people didn't end up showing, so we really only needed half the cornbread mix I had prepared. So technically, the expense was more like $5.00, since I still have half of the mix leftover. This dollar amount covers the butter and maple syrup to go with it as well. I like serving maple syrup with cornbread especially when feeding others because it makes so much less mess than honey and is easier to transport. It does cost a bit less as well, and tastes at least as good! 

Leftovers included 1/2 container sour cream, which was something I had chopped from our personal grocery list this month in order to cut costs. I have enchiladas on the menu sometime in the next week so with the sour cream leftover, now we'll be able to have some with that meal! Also, we had a bit of soup left. Aaron took some this morning for his lunch, and we have enough still in the refrigerator for a supper and one more lunch. And there's the other half of the cornbread mix.

All in all, my expense was $30.96 (or $26.96 if I'm only counting what cornbread I actually made). I'm pretty happy with that number considering I didn't have time to plan for sales or any extra cost cutting. Generally I aim for a $30 budget when I'm doing a crowd meal, so I was hovering right around that line. (Let's just forget about that $11 turkey I had to throw out, okay?) 

Cooking for a Crowd

Once a month I'm in charge of providing a meal for 40 people. It's something I've been doing for about a year and a half now, and I'd like to share with you how I make it work on a budget.

Back in the beginning it was rather stressful when my weekend came up. I didn't have a big variety of recipes in my kitchen yet so I was always at a loss for what to make and lacked in creativity. As a married woman I had grown accustomed to cooking for two. It sure didn't take long to get out of the habit of big-family cooking that I had done so much of back home with 12 siblings! Not only that, but each time I decided on my meal plan for crowd-cooking I had to have prep in mind because I couldn't rope a sibling or two into helping peel potatoes or anything. Thankfully I have a very helpful husband and he always jumped in to save the day. But boy was it rough! We both rejoice at how far we've come in this area since then.

In those early days I did a lot of internet research trying to find ideas on how to cook for larger numbers, but I never seemed to come up with much. Especially in the department of recipes. It seemed like everyone was always suggesting things like pulled pork barbecue, sloppy joes, build-your-own pizzas, tacos, or for the extreme budgeter, hotdogs. All typical american meals. And if you try to add up the expenses for any of those it really does add up. Tell me why they suggest a meal that features almost just meat? Or something with lots of cheese? Have you ever priced all that? I know some of those suggestions are rather delicious, and some are certainly on my list of favorites, but it just wouldn't work for me feeding so many on a regular basis. If you highlight meat in a meal such as in pulled pork or sloppy joe, you should plan on 1/4lb. per person. Multiply that by 40 mouths to feed, and figure on regular store prices of somewhere close to $3 per pound for a pork roast or $4/lb for ground beef, and you've spent up to $40 on meat alone! Then you have to figure in your other ingredients, condiments, buns, and side dishes on top of that. If you're lucky or plan ahead, you might be able to catch a sale and cut the numbers down greatly, but it still leaves you with a pretty hefty receipt. All this to say I did make meatloaf once or twice and was able to do it quite cheaply. But it was the day I decided on the "easy deli sandwiches" that so many had been suggesting that I knew I needed to rethink how I planned crowd meals. It was a lesson that cost me at least $50 even while choosing sale options, and there wasn't very much food leftover that day at all.

Before I go on I must stress this point. Growing up I remember my dad always reminding us not to worry about cost when it comes to hosting or giving to other people. He encouraged us to do what it takes to make sure it's done right and nice. He was always more than willing to cut expenses in other areas in order to deliver a quality meal (and in plenty sufficient quantity!) to whatever event we were cooking for. My husband echoes the same advice, and I wholeheartedly agree. I can't say enough how important it is to be sure your guests are happy and don't feel like you've shorted them a well-rounded, nutritious, and delicious meal. You must do your part in making it as nice as possible. This does not mean you need to make it gourmet or spend an entire day slaving away over the stove. All it means is that in the end your goal is to deliver a meal or dish that makes your guests satisfied that you have put some thought and effort into whatever you're serving.

This is something that you can take to the budget book though. Just be cautious and plan well. You can still be frugal (not stingy; there is a difference) and make it work! Shop sales, and certainly feel free to cut cost whenever possible, as long as you're not sacrificing quality in the end product.

So, yesterday was my Sunday to feed everyone at church. The problem was, due to our extremely busy schedule since the beginning of the month, I forgot all about it until Saturday afternoon, even though I had it written on our calendar. That didn't give me much time to pull things together, so the meal was a bit more simple than I normally do.

The menu? Sausage and potato soup. It was what I had ingredients for and it could be put together pretty fast. My brother-in-law was out of town for a week, so we took over milking their cow while they were away, and as pay we got to bring home the milk! I had several gallons in my fridge still so this is what brought the decision for a milk-based soup. I needed a way to use it up anyhow, so it was a pretty easy decision. Often I hear people saying soup is a cheap way to feed people, but it really depends on what you're making. I don't find it to be all that much different in price than a casserole or something else. A good hearty, meaty, soup can break the bank just as well as a barbecue sandwich. Yeah, sure you can cut way down on meat in chili, but unless you're trying to go almost-vegetarian, anyone's favorite chili doesn't involve hide-and-seek-hamburger. And where vegetable soups might taste good, they are generally not very filling, which doesn't make for a good match when you're in charge of feeding a group of people and plan that for your main dish.

The ingredients that went into my potato soup were as follows: Smoked sausage (conveniently there was a truckload sale going on, and I was able to get a family pack [2.63 lbs] for $4.99...same price as 14 oz normally!), Carrots ($2 worth; I had them already), potatoes (homegrown), onions (homegrown), milk, and any spices and cornstarch. Having a garden sure cuts on cost, even though potatoes an onions are considered inexpensive. In all I spent less than $8 on the pot of soup, but if I would've had to buy the milk ($6) and veggies ($? haven't bought potatoes or onions in years), it would've more than doubled my cost. But even if you'd roughly guess the pot at just under $20, you've done well considering the fact that you are serving 40 people. But ... don't forget the sides! A simple pot of soup isn't quite enough to call it a decent meal. I made two double batches of hearty rustic bread to go along with the soup, and served it with some fresh, yellow grass-fed butter. Normally I try to aim for two side dishes with a meal when I'm cooking for others, but for some reason this week it didn't cross my mind. There was enough food though that I brought home enough leftover soup for two suppers and one of the loaves of bread didn't even get touched, so we brought that home, too.

I think I officially broke the record on least amount of expense going into my crowd meals. With the bread at less than $2.40 for both loaves, and the soup being under $8, my grand total was somewhere around $10.40 even with the butter. Looking back, I would add a few more potatoes to the soup. There were plenty of carrots, and every ladle-full was loaded with meat (extra points for that on my part!), but I could've used some more bulk with the potatoes. I did most of my prep Saturday night by cutting the vegetables and sausage and cooking until just tender, but didn't actually make it into soup until Sunday morning in my sister-in-laws kitchen. It's always more of a challenge cooking away from home. All in all though, it was very tasty. Sis-in-law made a dessert to go with the meal and she had plenty of leftovers too, so everybody must've gotten their fill.



Note: Generally I'm promoting nutrition, made-from-scratch, and healthy homegrown ingredients when I cook. I just want to clarify that I even though I used smoked sausage in this soup, I do not consider it a healthy food choice.