Feeding the Graduated Hordes
Regina Murphy
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
One thing I’ve noticed about parties held after the graduation ceremony is that they seem to involve a lot of people.
Not only do you have immediate and extended family, but you have two generation’s worth of friends and up to 12 year’s worth of teachers, principals and perhaps even bus drivers.
You sure don’t want anyone to go hungry, but you don’t want to spend $1,000 on food either.
Many graduation parties end up being open houses, with gangs of youths roaming from site to site. Keep things simple by only offering four to six items. You could do the “bar thing”: taco bar, potato bar, waffles a la mode, banana splits or sundaes, etc. Then you can set out dishes full of toppings and just focus on keeping one or two things stocked. Like a platter of individually wrapped baked potatoes, pre-sliced and covered with a towel to keep warm, or a chafing dish of toasted taco shells alongside a crock pot of taco filling.
Some families go in together to order a large quantity (say, 80 pounds) of meat from Fanestils and get a great price on it. Then each family can grill their 20 to 30 pounds and feed the masses.
A big pan of pulled pork with a gallon of barbecue sauce can go a mile and a half!
How do you know how much to prepare? One rule is to list everyone you have invited and divide them into those you are certain will attend and those you aren’t so sure about. Count all of the first group, and half of the second group to get an idea of how many people to feed.
If you are doing a full meal, count on six to eight ounces of a main course and a half cup each of two sides, in addition to one serving of dessert. And don’t panic! (I always do).
Trust the math and if for some reason you start running low on edibles, set out some snacks like nuts, flavored crackers and candy-coated chocolate (melts in your mouth, not on your new microfiber sofa).
If you have the oven free, pull a couple boxes of emergency mozzarella sticks out of the freezer. If you end up not needing these kinds of “emergency entertainment” food, they’ll store for months.
What about drinks? Believe it or not, people like water! Bottled water is very convenient and easy to ice down, but not very eco-friendly. A couple of pitchers of iced water, with a few citrus slices floating in them will sparkle, be colorful and save money.
Mix fruit juices with club soda to make a light, less sweet alternative to punch. Freeze extra fruit juice into ice cubes for something different. What about cran-raspberry ice cubes in a sparking peach punch? Mmmmm.
If you’re looking for an interesting side dish, this salad is not something you can just run down to the deli and pick up, therefore no one will question whether it was homemade! You can save yourself some time by replacing the vinaigrette with a nice Italian salad dressing and buying a tub of pre-grated fresh parmesan cheese.
This particular recipe makes four main course servings or eight to 10 side servings. You can double, triple or quadruple it, but you might find you need a little extra vinaigrette to keep it moist enough.
RAVIOLI SALAD
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 Tbsp. chopped fresh rosemary
1 large garlic clove, minced
1 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper
1 package (approx. 9-oz.) ravioli
1 1/2 cups diced ham
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 small jar marinated mushrooms,
drained
4 green onions, chopped
Black olives, pitted, lightly
chopped (optional)
Grated Parmesan cheese
Whisk together the first six ingredients in large bowl to make a vinaigrette. Cook the ravioli and rinse under cold water; drain. Add ravioli, ham, bell pepper, mushrooms and green onions to vinaigrette; toss to coat. Season to taste with salt and pepper, cover, and chill at least 30 minutes or up to five hours ahead. Let stand at room temperature 30 minutes before serving.
Arrange the salad on a large platter along with a serving spoon. Garnish with olives and set a bowl of Parmesan cheese with a serving spoon to the side.
THE TACO BAR
3 onions, minced
3 lbs. ground beef
6 cloves garlic, minced
3 Tbsp. chili powder
2 Tbsp. cumin
Salt to taste (about 1 tsp.)
1 (29-oz.) can tomato sauce
30 corn taco shells
Sour cream
Chopped onions and/or
green onions
Shredded sharp cheddar cheese
Shredded iceberg lettuce
Pico de gallo (recipe below)
To make the filling you can either use two pans or cook in two batches. Heat a couple of tablespoons of oil in a large frying pan over medium heat and sauté onions until translucent. Remove. Heat a second large frying pan over medium heat and add half the ground beef to each pan, breaking up the meat and cooking until no longer pink. Drain off any fat.
Add half the garlic, chili powder, cumin and salt to each. Stir together and cook for a minute. Drain off any extra fat and combine into one pan. Lower heat and add tomato sauce, mixing thoroughly. Cook for another 10 minutes.
To keep warm on a buffet line, transfer to a slow cooker set on low. Line the bottom of the cooker with several layers of paper towels to draw off any remaining grease. Serves about 20.
PICO DE GALLO
24 ripe tomatoes, diced
2 cups diced onion
3 or 6 jalapeno chiles
(or more), seeded and diced
1 cups chopped fresh cilantro
Salt to taste
Combine the tomatoes, onion, jalapenos, cilantro and salt.
This can be made up to a day in advance and kept in the refrigerator. Drain off any excess juice from the tomatoes. Makes 16 cups. Leftovers can help make a batch of enchiladas or season some Mexican rice.
VVV
Cupcakes are all the rage right now. They are actually easier to deal with than a cake, since no one has to decide when to start cutting the cake and then stand there and serve for an hour. They make a great centerpiece when arranged vertically. If you don’t have a three-tiered server, you can assemble one out of a series of graduated platters and use a couple of inverted terra cotta pots for stands. Secure everything with some ticky-tack to prevent sliding.
Cupcakes can be decorated with any number of things. One that’s really special, albeit labor intensive, is to cut shapes out of gummy discs or gum drops, making flowers, numbers (“2009”), mortar boards, etc. In today’s era of candy specialization you can get many food items in school colors.
RJ’s Cake and Candy Supply is our locally owned dessert-decorating emporium. Vicki Jackson at RJ’s says they carry all kinds of decor — edible and not — in as many of the area school colors as they can muster, so in addition to the universities, you can get Olpe’s yellow and green or Flint Hills Technical College’s burgundy and blue.
To perk up your cupcakes, you can sprinkle the frosting with edible glitter in the correct color combination and insert a graduation “pick” or even a homemade mint or candy. RJ’s has the molds, the meltables and the colors you need.
CUPCAKES ’09
1 box of cake mix, any flavor
25 to 30 flat-bottomed
ice-cream cones
White, or school color frosting
Toppings
Prepare the cake batter according to the directions. Fill the narrow bottom of each ice-cream cone with the batter, stopping. Set the cones on a baking sheet and transfer them to the oven, being careful not to tip them over. One idea is to wrap the bottoms with a piece of tin foil to help stabilize them.
Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean. Let them cool, then frost the tops.
For EHS, how about a half-black, half-red sprinkling of edible glitter? For ESU, you could make polka dots with yellow and black jelly beans. Spell out KU in red and blue M&Ms, or Florida State University in red and yellow (Go ‘Noles!)
Happy graduation, moms and dads — they never would have made it without you.
VVV
Do you cook when there’s only one of you? It can be really hard to get up the energy to cook for one, and just as hard to control your portions. There’s nothing worse than eating lasagna for a week! Do you have ideas or recipes on Cooking for One? Send them to me at 517 Merchant St. or murphysmenu@yahoo.com. You’ll be famous. Let’s get cooking!