I got married a week ago. Instead of the usual fears -commitment, weather, stepkids' sabotage - I spent the weeks leading up to the event wondering if I was capable of cooking a meal for 50 hungry people. Just days before the Sunday afternoon wedding, friends were still trying to dissuade me from going through with it....
Living the DIY Wedding: The Food
No, I'd never cooked food for that many people. No, I had never been asked to cook an entire meal 36 hours in advance.
As an added challenge, the meal had be to prepared to the highest kosher standards (for the rabbis and their wives) using primarily sustainable ingredients (for me).
So, two weeks before the wedding, I had my kitchen kashered (another post in the making...) and set to work creating a menu.
The goal was to find yummy food that could be prepared ahead of time, would keep well, taste good and not be too time consuming.
Roasted Gold and Red Beets Haricots Verts sprinkled with Lavender Sel de Mer Orzo with Shell Peas, Capers and Smoked Salt Lentil Salad Rocket and Parmesan Salad Labneh, Zatar and Pita Berries and CreamSmoked White Fish, Sable, Salmon, Peppered Bluefish
served with 7-grain, rye, and pumpernickel
capers, caper berries, pickled red onions, cornichon, crème-fraiche, fresh dill
with Creamy Pear-Horseradish Vinaigrette
Seasoned Almonds
Cheddar and Gouda Cheeses
Cake
The hardest and biggest time-suck were the roasted blanched almonds. Prior to taking this on, I had no idea one was even capable of removing the skin from an almond. Now that I have, I can understand why store bought blanched almonds are worth their weight in gold. I first submerged the almonds in boiling water inside a strainer that I then submerged in cold water for 2 minutes each. I was then able to easily remove the skin from a third of the almonds (the rest were too stubborn to part with their skin), setting them aside in the freezer. I repeated these steps a number of times until I had a about 3 pounds of skinless almonds. The next step was to toss them with salt and herbs (I chose sage and thyme but the sky's the limit) and roast them for about 10 minutes. When they were hot out of the oven, I tossed them with wonderful young Sicilian olive oil. While doing each of these steps, I wondered how it is that I could spend so much time on a nut. A nut that a guest might grab from a bowl and munch on without giving it a moment's thought. In the end, though, these almonds caught people mid-munch and made them stop and wonder what it is they were eating and what made it taste so good. I decided my obsessive compulsive 3-day almonds were worth every late night minute of toil.
The biggest impact with the least effort, on the other hand, was surely the pickled onions. This was also a first for me. They took less than 5 minutes and made everyone so happy! For those, just slice a red onion and simmer it in a pot with red wine vinegar, a bit of salt, pepper and sugar for a few minutes.
Much to my too tired to worry about it state of mind, the meal was a success! The people looked satiated, they looked happy and most of the serving platters were left with very little.
Thank goodness!
Tags
Entertaining, Vegetable, Side Dish, Vegetarianism, Sustainable, Frugality, GREEN IDEAS, Menu, DIY Wedding, Blanched Almonds, Pickled Onions, Roasted Almonds, WeddingRelated Links
- Entertaining Tip: Individual-Sized Desserts
- Slate Cheese Boards
- Holiday Food Hack #1: Use Your Crockpot
- Entertaining: Garden Entertaining Tips
- Food Served in Itself: Pretty or Kitschy?
Share
Comments (11)
The Kitchn Weekly Email
Top Posts
Top Recipes
Top Kitchen Tours
- Smallest Coolest Kitchen 2007 Entry #1: Manolo's Shiny Bachelor Kitchen
- Kitchen Spotlight: San Francisco Sleek Yet Vintage Re-Do
- Kitchen Spotlight: Keith and Brent's Vintage Makeover
- Kitchen Organization Tour: A Visit With Bento Expert Biggie of Lunch In a Box
- Tiniest Kitchen Ever? Jack's Micro Home
Links
- A Chicken In Every Granny Cart
- iron stef
- greengelato
- Habeas Brulee
- Pip in the city
- Birdseye Chili
- Erin Cooks
- Gourmet Project
- Last Night’s Dinner
- The Kitchen Designer - Journal
- Cookbook Catchall
- Eating the Garden
- Sara Hohn - Food… Brooklyn & Beyond
- iron stef
- Food Noob
- ...my burning kitchen...
- Janet Is Hungry
- Project Me!
- erin's kitchen
- Kitchen Adventures - Vox
- My Vegetable Blog
- Home Sweet Homewrecker
- Urban Girl's Almanac
- Cooked Books
- Superspark
- cucina nicolina
- Brownie Points
- Confabulation in the Kitchen
- My Husband Hates Veggies
- American Madness
- nylon diner
- how to eat like a bird
- 64 sq ft kitchen
- A Question of Taste
- NY Times Dining & Wine
- Epicurious
- Slow Food USA
- The Cook's Thesaurus
- The Groovy Mind
Copyright © 2008 Apartment Therapy
Wow, huge kudos! What a daunting task, but it sounds like everything went awesomely! Congratulations! =)
view OneWallKitchen's profile
Amazing!!!
view faith's profile
Congrats! And I'm truly in awe of all the work you did, I can barely muster the energy to cook for three somedays!
For an added kick and great flavor throw a sliced jalapeno into your pickled onions when simmering. I love those!
Those nuts look tasty, but I won't be peeling my own almonds anytime soon!
I'm surprised your fridge still works!
view bobcatsteph3's profile
Wow, amazing indeed. Shouldn't you be on your honeymoon - you sure need the relaxation after all that work.
view bipolarbear's profile
Every time I think about getting married, I think about awful wedding food and decide I'll just live in sin a little longer. Maybe if I got a professional kitchen as an engagement ring ...
view cakekick's profile
WOW, you are warrior woman!! i am beyond impressed. and that's a very sophisticated menu! and kosher, too??!? double wow.
you really deserve a big breather!
view kdkaboom's profile
Jill, I know we don't know each other at all but I just have to say: You are completely insane! And brilliant at the same time. What an amazing and unique event to have as part of your wedding experience, you will really treasure the memories of preparing all of this food for your loved ones.
view angelfunk's profile
Congratulations! :) Perfect timing for this post - me an my boyfriend (soon to be husband) is in the middle of the same project: Making tapas for 50 people for our wedding reception next Saturday. Glad to read that you made it, it makes me believe we can too! :)
view Marianne (Norway)'s profile
I've been to two weddings in the past year and one commitment ceremony. The two weddings were traditionally catered ones that cost in which the reception cost about $15,000. The food was decent , but not memorable.
The commitment ceremony reception cost about $1,500. The couple, along with friends, spent the night before the ceremony cooking up a storm - things that could be made ahead and quickly reheated in an oven the next day, like vietnamese spring rolls - and had neighbors store the food. That reception, which was held in a backyard, along with the food, was the most memorable and enjoyable of the three.
view david's profile
That is truly amazing. But what did your husband do? Hah!
view notjess's profile
I partially catered the food for my wedding too.. uh, with a lot of help.
I got a few big rice dishes from Rice, a pan-Asian restaurant that happened to be across the street from the loft where we had the reception. I roasted a big ham with soy-sesame glaze (about 10 minutes work, and an hour in the oven), grilled a bunch of chicken wings (my stepfather took over the grill the morning of the wedding); and my dad and his wife made a massive platter of tekka makis. Oh, and my sister in law got a platter of summer rolls from a Vietnamese restaurant. I had some kind of Asian slaw, also, which I made.
It was so good and super cheap.
view laribrooklyn's profile