It's Party Time

After catering for New Haven's family weekends and a couple of weddings, I now think in terms of FOOD when it comes to parties. I quite enjoy coming up with party menus now that my entire life doesn't revolve around food.

Yesterday after church I over heard a woman telling the R.S. President she didn't know what she was going to do about food for her daughter's wedding. It's her first child to get married, they're converts so they've never been to a Mormon wedding reception, and her husband (the mom's, not the daughter who's getting married) could possibly be deployed to Iraq close to the time of the wedding. She sounded pretty stressed out and I piped in that I'd help her if she needed help. Since I'm not cooking all the time, I don't mind doing a little charity catering if someone really needs me.

The R.S. Pres. called me today and asked if I could meet with the woman tomorrow to go over possible menu ideas. Naturally I spent the majority of my day today coming up with different ideas. It's quite fun to put ideas on paper. We're keeping it really simple because of the budget and I thought I'd share my ideas with you all. These are easy things to do for any get-together so if you have a party coming up, by all means cheat and use my menu! If you need recipes to go along, just tell me and I'll post those later or email them to you.

Bon Appetite!

Italian:

• Meatballs (In red sauce or in other marinade)
• Rolls
• Caesar Salad
• Pasta salad (or plain pasta to go with the meatballs…probably penne)

Mexican: (mind you, the family is Mexican so I have more options in this one)

Menu 1

• Taco Salad (Lettuce, tomatoes, diced onions, seasoned ground or shredded beef –could do chicken if really wanted—, sour cream, guacamole, shredded cheese)
• Chips
• Black bean salsa
• 7-layer dip

Menu 2

• Shredded beef barbacoa
• Flour tortillas
• Rice (Mexican or Spanish)
• Shredded lettuce
  
• Pico de gallo and other toppings
  

Menu 3

• Chili con frijoles
• Chips (Fritos are good, but a little pricey comparatively speaking..)
• Sour Cream, shredded cheese
  

Sandwiches and Salads:
Sandwich options

• Chicken Salad on croissants, white or wheat (I’d suggest croissants because they don’t get dried out as quickly.)
• Egg Salad Sandwiches (I would only do these as a supplemental sandwich. To do all egg salad would be too time consuming. However, if you’d want some for a vegetarian option, I could do a few.)
• Shredded Beef on dinner rolls or ciabatta rolls (I’d suggest dinner rolls unless you want to do French dip. In that case, I’d use ciabatta). Can have BBQ sauce on the side or mixed in.
• Spiral sandwich rollups (deli meat, flavored soft cheese spread, lettuce rolled up on a tortilla wrap and cut into sections)
• “Party Sub”—this is the most informal.

Salad options:

• Caesar Salad: Romaine lettuce, Parmesan cheese, croutons, Caesar dressing, (can have chicken, but this would obviously make it a little more expensive.)
• Vinaigrette Salad: Romaine lettuce, craisens, feta, red onions, cashews with a vinaigrette dressing.
• Spinach Lemon Poppy Seed Salad: Fresh spinach, sliced strawberries, craisens, cashews or candied nut with a sweet lemon poppy seed dressing
• Ranch and Bacon salad: Spinach or Romaine lettuce, sliced mushrooms, bacon pieces, sliced red onions, olives, with a homemade ranch dressing.
• Tortellini Salad: Tortellini with mixed fresh vegetables and a balsamic dressing served cold
• Tomato & Cucumber Salad: Sliced tomatoes and cucumbers with either a balsamic dressing or a white vinegar dressing. I’d suggest adding fresh mozzarella if the balsamic dressing is used.
• Fruit Salad
• Frog-eye Salad

Optional Sides and Desserts:

• Veggie pizza: Croissant dough as the base, dill cream cheese spread, assorted chopped fresh veggies
• Fruit pizza: sugar cookie bottom with a cream cheese frosting and assorted sliced fruits placed in an appealing pattern
• Shrimp Cocktail
• Cream puffs: I could make these, but in all honesty I’d just buy them from Costco.
• Chocolate covered strawberries
• Fruit Kabobs and fruit dip

Drink Options: (Since we don't drink, all non-alcohol beverages...)

• Non-alcoholic frozen strawberry margaritas
• Party punch made with: ginger ale, orange juice, and fruit punch (or pineapple juice)
• Party punch made with: pink lemonade, pineapple juice, cranberry juice, ginger ale
• Wedding punch made with: frozen orange juice concentrate, frozen lemonade concentrate, sprite, and raspberry sherbet
• Plus I’d serve lemon water in addition to any of these…