Q: I'm renting a house for a long weekend with six friends. We'll have a nice big stocked kitchen and a grocery store nearby. Some of us are foodies, others will help but are more eaters than cookers.
What are some good things to cook as a group, together?
Sent by Juniper
Editor: Juniper, we'd suggest meals that give everyone something to do, obviously — but these don't have to be limited to cooking. Have someone set (and decorate) the table; someone else can make mixed drinks or open wine. For meals, we'd suggest things like tacos, fajitas, or tossed salads that go faster with many hands chopping and prepping. There are some other good ideas for inexpensive group meals in this post, too:
• Ten Ways to Feed Ten People for Less Than $20
Readers, what are your suggestions for amicable weekend getaway cooking?
Related: Cooking for Friends by Alison Attenborough and Jamie Kimm
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How about make your own pizza or sandwich or tacos? You provide the toppings, everyone arranges their own creations?
Or brushetta? and have people cut up different ingredients?
We recently were at the beach with 6 people as well, but we were about 30 miles from the nearest grocery store so I did some serious menu and grocery planning. We were there for a week and only one day went to the store, the rest we brought to the best of our abilities.
My favorite night be had Salmon cakes, made a peach salsa to go with it. Spinach Salad, a Corn Salad (with raw corn, feta, walnuts, jalapeno, it was great!), and grilled ciabatta with herbed oil. oh and a rum passion pineapple punch This gave everyone something to do (even my 16 year old brother!)
The non-foodies can help with the table, cleaning up, chopping/peeling things, making drinks.
Excellent question. The meals already suggested are so great because it's easy to delegate the preparation of items that need chopping, slicing, and dicing.
Prepare something in advance that you can bring with you to be dinner on your first night.
For family vacations, my mom always toted along a frozen lasagna, a baguette, romaine, and her homemade vinaigrette. It's a homey, comforting meal that takes about 10 minutes of preparation; no one has to cook or navigate an alien grocery store on the first night after a long day of traveling.
I recently spent the weekend at a friend's gorgeous house in the Hudson Valley. We made a big dinner of pasta, salad, and grilled steak, which not only gave everyone something to do, but also got some people out of the kitchen while I (a little bit of a control freak) made sure the details of the meal turned out right. Here's an account of the weekend, right down to breakfast the next morning: http://www.biggirlssmallkitchen.com/2009/07/cooking-for-others-at-kates.html
What about making summer rolls or egg rolls? the fillings are easy to assemble, then everyone makes their own!
You could make nachos. It's fun. Can have delicious fresh ingredients and can have varieties you may not have thought of. Everyone likes nachos.
the other one i love is sushi roll night. it can be hard to get sushi grade fish, but we usually do cooked shrimp, smoked salmon, apples (for granny smith and shrimp rolls), and lots of veggies. everyone helps chop ingredients, rolls their own maki, and shares their combo with everyone else. used to do this all the time in college for dinner parties and it was always a hit!
I love the make your own pizza idea.
I love making tempura with a group. Some cut veggies, some make sauce. You can do an assembly line of sorts with the dipping and frying. It can be messy, but that's part of the fun.
Crawfish boil! Cornbread needs mixin', potatoes needs cuttin', pot needs seasonin', beer needs drinkin', and the crawdads needs EATIN'. It's the best group eat I've ever done, and I've done several on the beach now...everyone can help and it's almost impossible to screw up.
Just going through the exercise of teaching newbies to eat a crawdad is fun enough for hours...
i love making dumplings together as a group. everyone sits around the table 2 or 3 different fillings and chatting thru it all. =)
I did something very similar with a group of friends in the spring. My favorite meal from that trip was tamales - the day before we made them, I braised some pork in the oven. The day of, two people pulled the pork apart while I made the dough (both things are pretty quick). We just used the sauce from the braise instead of making another one to go in the tamales, but depending on your group of friends someone could make that or some alternate fillings. Ours were all filled with pork.
Then all of us sat around the dining room table and made the tamales themselves. It was super fun - we each developed our own style and ratio of fillings. We were able to steam them in the spaghetti pot that came with our rental house, and we had enough for leftovers the next day, too.
Yes, I often do a make-your-own pizza night which works out wonderful. Everyone is involved and had fun creating and then sampling the pizzas. Leftover toppings are great for omelets the next day!
kebabs, definitely. everyone gets to cut something, vegetarian/vegan options, outdoor or indoor, and no plates required. save your skewers for marshmallow toasting after. mm.