Food on Fridays: Menu for Guests

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Here at the Food on Fridays carnival, any post remotely related to food is welcome—it doesn’t have to be a recipe. If you just want to share a list of favorite salad dressings, that’ll do just fine.When your Food on Fridays contribution is ready, just grab the broccoli button (the big one above or smaller option at the bottom) to paste at the top of your post and join us through Mr. Linky.Here’s a Mr. Linky tutorial:

Write up a post, publish, then return here and click on Mr. Linky below. A screen will pop up where you can type in your blog name and paste in the url to your own Food on Fridays post (give us the exact link to your Food on Fridays page, not just the link to your blog).You can also visit other people’s posts by clicking on Mr. Linky and then clicking participants’ names–you should be taken straight to their posts.Please note: I’ll do my best to update this post by hand. In the meantime, please click on the Mister Linky logo to view the complete list.

Food on Fridays Participants

1. Food from the Good Earth2. What Do Celebrity Chefs Eat for Breakfast? 3. April@ The 21st Century Housewife (My Bran Muffins)4. Beth Stedman (Making Beet Kvass)5. A Busy Mom of Two (Cheese Puffs and Shortbread Cookies)

6. Tara @ Feels Like Home (sausage nachos)7. Kristen (peanut butter bars)8. Rich Alfredo Sauce & Garlic Sticks in a Bucket GIVEAWAY9. Easy To Be Gluten Free – Black Bean Beef and Rice Skillet10. Sara (molten chocolate cakes)

11. Jane@ Frugal Fine Living (healthy broccoli salad)12. Marcia@ Frugalhomekeeping (” Bug Juice” from Pooh Cookbook)13. Oystergirl@A Moderate Life-In search of real butter the right link!14. Recipes for Moms (Pork Chop Scallop)15. frugalcrunchychristy( super easy dinner rolls)16. Justin17. Jane@ Frugal Fine Living (Fruit Smoothie) 18. Kristen (corn fettucine)

Food on Fridays with Ann

My in-laws are here for ten days, but for three days we also hosted my sister-in-law and her family. When they were all here, I housed and fed six extra people. With our family of six, that makes twelve.

Then we invited some family friends over for an impromptu dinner party one night, which added four more for the evening. Total guests: sixteen.

I decided not to experiment with new recipes; I chose some tried and true meals that were easy to prepare.

You’ve seen some of them here before:

Breakfast Sausage Casserole (for a birthday brunch for my nephew): served with fruit salad, juice, coffee, tea and doughnuts that my sister-in-law bought at Dunkin’ Donuts for an all-American experience (they’re from France).

Hoosier Comfort Chicken (for the big dinner with 16 guests): served over egg noodles alongside a salad that my friend brought. We baked French baguettes, and for the vegetable I meant to cook peas—I thought I had some in the freezer—but I didn’t have any on hand. So we cooked corn. The meal wasn’t all that colorful, but it was tasty and well received.

Chili (for dinner the next day with just twelve people): I’ve not written about chili before, but here’s my recipe, if you can call it that:

• 2 lbs ground beef
• 3 or 4 cans of chili beans (one hot; the rest mild)
• 3 or 4 cans of chili-ready tomatoes

Brown and drain ground beef in a big chili-sized pot (if you’re going to cook it on the stove) or skillet (if you’re going to transfer to crock pot). Open all the cans. Dump them in. Warm it all up and eat when ready.

I served the chili with coleslaw (used the pre-shredded coleslaw mix and added mayonnaise, salt, pepper, and celery seed) and homemade cornbread using this recipe (I think I got it from someone participating in Food on Fridays, but I can’t locate the source):

Corn Muffins/Cornbread (adapted from Martha Stewart)

• 1/2 C butter (substitute applesauce for 1/2 butter or even pumpkin)
• 1 1/2 C milk
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 1/2 C yellow cornmeal
• 1 C flour
• 1/3 C sugar
• 1 T powder
• 1 t salt

Melt butter. Combine milk, butter and eggs. Sift the dry ingredients. Add to moist. Don’t overmix. Pour into 9×9″ pan or muffin tin. Bake in preheated 400° oven until done (about 15 minutes for muffins). Use the toothpick method.

The sister-in-law from France left, so it’s just our family with two extra laid back in-laws.

And we’re eating up the leftovers.

But tomorrow, I’m thinking I’ll make another crock pot dish:

Chicken Curry with Sweet Potatoes

How do you cook for a crowd?

Any tips? I’m all ears, because I’m hosting another gathering on Sunday!

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