I was a tad clumsy in the kitchen, so I look like I was a little too near a good fight. But the food itself came out good. Our (small number of vaccinated) guests enjoyed their meals thoroughly. This made me feel pretty cool because we were doing a few things that we don’t normally do. Hell...the only dishes that were COMMON in our repertoire were the potato & egg salad and the apple blitz dessert.
Originally, we were going to be doing a rib roast (in the oven) with grilled chicken thighs & breasts as the two main entrees. And we were going to serve ciabatta rolls. Well, the rib roast in my freezer had been there longer than I realized. A LOT longer. Didn’t want to chance it, so I put it on the list and went to the grocery...
...where someone had bought the last 40 ciabatta rolls 30 min prior, they had NO rib roasts at all, and no chicken thighs either. The breasts I found were HUGE! I bought the 3 smallest packs I could find, each containing 2. The smallest was @$4, but the others were $7. The BIG packs were $9+, the equivalent of adding one small breast to a $7 packet. I’d have bought those, but I couldn’t see a way to serve them to single attendees. Each could potentially have fed 2 people.
And to replace the rib roast? Well, that’s how we wound up doing the Creole roast beef sandwiches. Because of time pressure, I couldn’t cook the beef from scratch, so I picked up 2lbs of Boar’s Head London Broil, sandwich sliced. That meat was then slowed to soak in a nice warm bath of brown gravy, then served on some mini French rolls, toasted & buttered, topped with with your choice of cheeses (Swiss, dill havarti, smoked gruyere, or smoked Gouda), sautéed onions, and condiments like Mayo, garlic aioli, or creamy horseradish.
Said sandwiches were tasty as hell, but definitely lacked structural stability. (The rolls had slightly rounded bottoms, so the sandwiches had a slight tendency to roll over and have their contents slide off.)
Also did a garlic cole slaw based on a recipe from a local restaurant. I’m not a fan of cole slaw in general, but THIS stuff is so crunch and garlicky that I’d drive across a county line to get it. (Not exaggerating.) So I learned to make it after they shuttered after almost 90 years.
I may post pix later...
Originally, we were going to be doing a rib roast (in the oven) with grilled chicken thighs & breasts as the two main entrees. And we were going to serve ciabatta rolls. Well, the rib roast in my freezer had been there longer than I realized. A LOT longer. Didn’t want to chance it, so I put it on the list and went to the grocery...
...where someone had bought the last 40 ciabatta rolls 30 min prior, they had NO rib roasts at all, and no chicken thighs either. The breasts I found were HUGE! I bought the 3 smallest packs I could find, each containing 2. The smallest was @$4, but the others were $7. The BIG packs were $9+, the equivalent of adding one small breast to a $7 packet. I’d have bought those, but I couldn’t see a way to serve them to single attendees. Each could potentially have fed 2 people.
And to replace the rib roast? Well, that’s how we wound up doing the Creole roast beef sandwiches. Because of time pressure, I couldn’t cook the beef from scratch, so I picked up 2lbs of Boar’s Head London Broil, sandwich sliced. That meat was then slowed to soak in a nice warm bath of brown gravy, then served on some mini French rolls, toasted & buttered, topped with with your choice of cheeses (Swiss, dill havarti, smoked gruyere, or smoked Gouda), sautéed onions, and condiments like Mayo, garlic aioli, or creamy horseradish.
Said sandwiches were tasty as hell, but definitely lacked structural stability. (The rolls had slightly rounded bottoms, so the sandwiches had a slight tendency to roll over and have their contents slide off.)
Also did a garlic cole slaw based on a recipe from a local restaurant. I’m not a fan of cole slaw in general, but THIS stuff is so crunch and garlicky that I’d drive across a county line to get it. (Not exaggerating.) So I learned to make it after they shuttered after almost 90 years.
I may post pix later...
