Help Me Plan a Brunch for 50 People! Good Food

Q: Each member of the law journal I am on is charged with bringing breakfast and lunch for the entire staff once a quarter - a responsibility un-affectionately and euphemistically referred to as "snack."

I would like to make something delicious, unique (i.e. something that people aren't tired of eating yet) and vegetarian, but won't require a Herculean effort or huge budget to pull together. Chafing dishes are a potential option, but I've never actually used those before.

Any suggestions for working within these crazy limitations?

Sent by Sofia (More details on Sofia's challenge below!)

More from Sofia: "The entire ordeal is like a ridiculous cooking competition challenge: provide breakfast and lunch for 50 people (more like 60 because there are some guys on staff who can eat and don't understand the concept of portion control) with no on site access to a stove or oven and only two crockpots, a toaster, a microwave and a George Foreman grill. Your time begins ... now!

Almost all of the meals so far this quarter have involved soup, salad and/or sandwiches, often without much consideration for the vegetarians."

Editor: Wow! Just...wow! We can see how this event (breakfast and lunch?!) could cause quite a bit of stress and anxiety.

We can only imagine that with this many people and so few cooking appliances, your best options are foods that are entirely made ahead and can be served easily. A few ideas:

• Crust-less Mini Quiches - You can make these ahead and use a variety of different fillings to keep it interesting.
• Frittata Squares - Similar to the quiche, but slightly easier to do
• Cheddar and Leek Muffins - Not your average breakfast muffin!
• Vegan Tofu and Vegetable Pot Pies - You could make these like little hand-pies in a muffin tin
• Wild Mushroom Ragout with Ziti - This could be kept warm in one of the crock-pots and will feed a crowd.
• Big Grain Salads - You could make several different salads for people to choose from. Our favorites are Winter Wheat Berry Salad with Figs and Red Onion, Roasted Beet Salad with Barley and Feta, and Quinoa and Avocado Salad.

Readers, what other recipes do you suggest?

Next question?

(Images: Liz Vidyarthi)

Comments (11)

This sounds not unlike my wedding. We rocked the salads, grain salads and a beet salad, as well as a watermelon and feta one.

Instead of doing mini-quiches, I'd recommend making the quiche in a glass baking dish and cutting it into squares.

For lunch, I'd suggest either Viatnamese spring rolls or perhaps make-your-own soft tacos with a mix of black beans and other legumes for the vegetarians/vegans. I know you mentioned salads, but you could also (if you're short on prep time) do a salad bar, with containers of all sorts of different fixings, including some unexpected (nuts if there are no allergies, but also cheeses, different fruit and even legumes as well).

Good luck!!!

Stratas are a great option to make ahead and bake in an electric bake pan. I have posted a yummy sausage sun dried tomato strata and you can use the rival electric skillet. Works great for feeding a crowd something hot! Here is a link to a post about the skillet. http://www.urbandomesticdiva.com/2009/04/cooking-rival-skillet-has-saved-my.html

Cooking with my Kid has a great (and easy and cheap since it involves a whole chicken) crock-pot chicken fajita recipe - you could do that for the carnivores and do a mixture of beans and veggies for the vegetarians and have a fajita/soft-taco bar. If you wanted it to be breakfast-y, you could add a big batch of scrambled eggs and hashbrowns and let people make breakfast burritos.

What about baked potatoes? Easy to prep ahead of time, lots of options for vegetarians... The only thing that might be difficult is keeping them warm. You could bake them ahead of time, wrap them in tinfoil and keep them in a nesco roaster type thing. A crock pot might work the same way.

I also recommend vegan crustless mini-quiches
http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2006/12/mini-crustless-tofu-quiches.html

a make-your-own burrito/taco bar sounds great-> you only have to warm up the beans (and/or meat if you even provide any)

hopefully they give you the day before to cook and not also do work in the office.

also, making a big pot of chili and putting that in a crockpot is yummy too.

good luck!

Do you have a decent bagel place nearby? Buy 5 dozen bagels (most places do day-olds really cheaply if that seems too pricy), and have make-your-own bagel sandwiches. You can offer a variety of spreads and toppings (including eggs if you want to keep it brunch-y).

Have a yogurt parfait bar. Make your own yogurt and make your own granola...always a hit.

If you have a crockpot, what about oatmeal, with various toppings?

We did a breakfast burrito bar a few years ago for a New Year's Day brunch and friends are still talking about it. A regular burrito bar for lunch could be pretty easy (with storebought ingredients) and still fairly inexpensive.

Free food is the highlight of law school (I would know), but this is kind of insane. I thought this was what journal budgets were for. Anyway, going cold or room temperature is obviously optimal, but I think a sprucing up of the salad/sandwich/soup thing can do wonders. Consider:

Asian noodle salads
Bruschetta
Tabbouleh (with pita & hummos on the side)
Couscous salad
Wraps
Spring rolls
Pot stickers (easy to make, can set on open George Foreman to reheat & then place in crock pot to keep warm)
Chili--take the crockpot home to cook it (Can be veggie, and can have add ins on the side, and make corn bread on the side which can be warmed in microwave)

i wouldn't suggest anything different than the great ideas above (especially big sauces for pasta in the crockpot), but i'm shocked at the law journal for requiring this of the students. i would not have appreciate that if my journal had done the same thing.