Lisa Shock

One thought about the adult meal, depending on how 'gourmet' or adventurous they might be as eaters, terrines make an easy appetizer course. You can make them 3 days in advance. They are simply sliced and served cold on a bed of greens, maybe with a slice of baguette. One loaf should give you 10-12 slices, and you can cut the slice in half diagonally to make a triangle for visual interest. (so, you'll get 20+ portions per loaf) It's just a super-compact item to serve and transport. If your guests would consider a cold main, a fish terrine could be part of a good plate for the pescatarians -some salad with lots of veggies (include some chilled baby potatoes which have been salt-boiled) and croutons alongside. If you have access to electricity, you may wish to consider getting a couple of electric chafing dishes with temperature controls for your meat items like sloppy joes. I have a couple of them which hold a full size hotel pan, or two halves, three thirds, etc. They are much better than the ones which use sterno. I got this, and then realized I could have gotten a professional one... but both work well. Another easy main dish for lunch is pulled pork. You can cook it low and slow overnight, then shred and serve with some sauce and buns. It's MUCH easier than burgers. (with burgers, you'll spend several hours just shaping patties) Beef brisket could also work. An easy snack is strawberries, if you can get them. They can be rinsed and placed in a big bowl on ice -very little prep time. Small plums or apricots, if you can find them, also make good nibbles. Do you have access to a restaurant supply place like Restaurant Depot or Chef'Store? They sell some convenience items that may help you, like pre-cut veggies in large quantities and washed lettuce in larger bags (for less) than Costco or the supermarket. They also have great prices on cheese and meats. In terms of planning, do you have a vehicle or two that can hold all the stuff needed? Renting a van might be useful here. Are you prepared for the trash and general waste disposal? Get good quality trash bags, bring extra trash cans (clean rubber ones can double as containers for bags of ice at the beginning), and supplies like a broom, mop, dish soap, sanitizer, cloth towels, paper towels, etc. It also might be useful to rent the venue the day before the event as well as the day of -if it's ok with them to let you store items there. This way, you can get all sorts of things transported over and mostly worry about cooking on the big day. (and have those 190° pork butts going all night on site) You could even do a last-minute shopping trip the morning before and just deliver directly to the venue. I like the idea of hired helpers. Give people defined tasks and areas of responsibility, and things will go smoothly.

No one said the salads had to be served at room temperature. It's easy enough to place a bowl inside of a larger bowl or tub filled with ice.

Also, FYI, the catering company I worked for never did fish in anything except a cold salad, summer rolls, or soup. Cooking/grilling 40-50 portions and holding them for service, or attempting to serve immediately, can be difficult, time consuming, and smelly. -And we had a team of cooks and cater-waiters.

I'd avoid the dips, they are difficult to manage, unless you can have waiters policing the tables constantly and cleaning up the spills. IMO, you're better off with more salad varieties like: potato salad, pasta salad w/veggies and Italian dressing, slaw with a citrus dressing*, etc. -All things which can be easily spooned out to serve, and which won't clog up the serving line with people fussing and nibbling at the table. Remember, the speed with which people can go through the buffet line is important. If you have a one-sided serving table and it takes 5 min to pass through, 60 people will need 5 hours to just get a plate. So, try to make the serving table double-sided, and every dish quick to serve. If you MUST have nibbles, get them off the buffet line and onto their own separate tables. Still, I'd avoid anything with dips just to avoid the bother and the double-dippers. I'd make a separate drink station, so that people grabbing water don't slow the line down, either. IMO, the burger bar is going to be difficult to manage because the burgers will need to be made one by one. Plus, people will fiddle with all the condiments. I'd offer sloppy joes as one option, and chicken salad (on a bun or on greens) as an alternative. (I recently saw that Costco is selling 4lb sealed packs of the white meat from the rotisserie chickens. Looks like an easy way to make a lot of chicken salad quickly.) I'd avoid the angel hair pasta. IMO, there is a fleeting moment when it is properly cooked and by holding and serving on a buffet, you are likely to get overcooked mush. Holding pasta in general is tricky. Also, rather than making time-intensive mains that are generally cooked to order in a restaurant, I think you'd be better off making something that can be assembled and baked in quantity, like a vegetable lasagna with some chicken in it. Or Chicken Diavlo. Overall, if you can roast anything, do it. Also, anything which can be prepped in advance is great. (fish pie in individual ramekins?) How big are the ovens at the venue? Use them to their fullest potential. The nice thing about many baked dishes is they can be assembled the night before, and, can be held in the oven until you are ready to serve. *I use a recipe for boiled dressing with juice from my early 1950's Joy of Cooking. (boiled dressing #3) It's great with orange, lemon, or lime juice -just different each way. The lime is my fave.)

Chop a mix of vegetables finely in a blender or food processor, and make vegetable cream cheese spread. Good additions include: radish, bell pepper (sparingly), celery, carrots, onion, parsley, chives, roasted garlic. My favorite omelette is 1cm cubes of cream cheese along with a tablespoon or so of minced parsley. Mix the parsley when beating the eggs, add a dash of salt, pour into a heated pan, wait a few seconds, then place cubes of cream cheese evenly on top. Cook until barely done, fold, serve. Cheese will become saucy.

I'd reduce the amount of egg as well as ditching the almond flour (almond flour isn't traditionally in brownies, it's in flourless cake which has a different texture). I'd eliminate at least one if not two yolks, as they act as conditioners, softeners, to the crumb.

Just a quick update, my DeLonghi branded 7qt Kenwood, purchased in 2005 is still going strong. I make bread at least once a week with it and have no issues. One formula I use fills the bowl to the very top, and I have to watch it to make sure there's no spill-over. But, I have never seen it get bogged down. I am a bit envious of the newer machines that have induction heat in the base...

Tuesday Morning still has lots of Staub in red, rust, and a few pieces of dark blue. I don't keep up on pricing, so I don't know how good the deals are. But, it seemed worthwhile if someone was interested. They also have more Dansk cookware as well.

Just got 8 Duralex Picardies, 4 of the 8+ oz, 4 of the 4+ oz, for $.69 each. They appear to be new, no scratches, very shiny surfaces.

I saw it in the theater. IMO, it needed a fuller story or more side plots or something. Kind of simplistic in some ways.

I recommend grain alcohol for better infusions. That said, fats can be a problem. Some may fall out of suspension when you dilute, some things are just so oily/fatty (bacon) that pools of oil/fat form on top of the bottle naturally. This can be dangerous, as the fat can sustain foodborne illness causing nasties. IMO, just guessing here, a tablespoon of freshly toasted seeds should be enough to flavor a liter of finished product. They are pretty strong.

Very sharp is the correct answer..... That said, I prefer a blunt nosed slicing knife -the sort used for cakes as well as large roasts or hams.

I have found that visiting $1 stores or the equivalent (100 yen shop) can be very useful.

I think it's half of THIS quenelle mold.

However, this is precisely where lightbulb efficiency would be important... (in my current fridge the original bulb was just a bit smaller than a regular old lightbulb and used 20 watts of electricity, I put in an LED to improve performance)

I had an incredibly lucky day at the local Goodwill! For the sum of one dollar, I got one of the finest cookbooks ever created, Les diners de Gala by Salvador Dali. Yes, there's a recently published reprint, but, no, no, this is the 1973 hardbound first edition, complete with dustjacket! (and worth at least 115 times what I paid for it!) Yes, there's some edge wear on the dustjacket, but, the book is clean and the pages are bright. It's also an amazing book overall. There are plenty of illustrations, photographs, and the recipes appear to fine dining classics.

Yes, it looks like the cracks are happening because the oven is too hot. The top and sides are firming up while the center is still cold, then as the center heats up and rises, it pushes upwards causing doming and cracks. There's also a chance that there is too much batter in the pans. It's difficult to tell from the photo.

A Breville toaster oven will take days to provide the 400 portions he needs to serve... From his other posts, it doesn't sound like they have much if any oven space. The big issue with serving hash browns as opposed to other types of potato (where the potato is thicker) is that they brown best when spread out very thinly -which means a really large griddle surface. The setup recommended to you in another thread, to find a setup like 'mongolian barbeques' use here in the US, a large round griddle surface, might be very useful for making these, if you decide to continue to serve them to your guests. The big trick to getting them to stick together is to mix salt in with the shredded potatoes, place them in a thin layer in the hot, oiled pan, and allow them to just cook for a while, undisturbed. If a cook keeps turning them, they will take longer to brown and will not cling together as well as potatoes left on the griddle for 5+ minutes and flipped just once, then left alone again. Still, I am not certain this is the potato dish I would choose to serve for a Sunday evening dinner. Are the guests eating with silverware, or scooping the food up with their bread? How they eat their food will obviously affect what types of recipes you make, whether that is oven roasted potatoes, deep fried french fries, or boiled potatoes with butter and herbs.

I prefer to make hash browns with potatoes which have been previously boiled, cooled, then grated. You don't lose as much volume this way. Generally the deep fryer is a bad idea. The commercial patties one sees fats food places deep frying are specially made, and compressed in a special pan to mold the shape, to work in a deep fryer. The only way to deep fry them is to mold grated potato under pressure, cook to form a brown crust, then deep fry. (generally not worth it)

Living in Arizona, I know a bit about warm weather, and my advice is to serve glasses of water with your drink. Maybe with a twist of lime, but still, simply water. Dehydration can be life threatening more quickly than people realize.

I think what she is saying that, whether in soup or any other dish, many children simply do not like asparagus. For transport and handling food, the basic rule is that food should not be in the 'danger zone', which is 4° - 60°C or 39 -140°F, for more than 4 hours. -Less time if possible. If a soup is to be reheated, places I have worked at have chilled it as quickly as possible, and transported it cold. To chill, we place pots of hot liquid inside of larger pots with ice in them. We also use ice wands, HERE is a large wand. The guideline we use is the FDA food code. It is huge, but searchable. Most answers about food handling can be found there. I have found that cream type soups can be difficult for some people to re-heat. The soup needs to be gently heated and some people try to put it on high heat and burn it. Soups made with a vegetable stock, or tomato, base seem to work better for me if they will be reheated. I also avoid noodles. I hope this helps!

Well, that depends on how you feel about additives in your baked goods. Back in the day, cans were lined with compound which contained pork lard to prevent rusting through. Then, in the 1980s, there was a worldwide push to make cans suitable for everyone to eat from. (lard being a no-no for vegetarians, and pork being off limits for several religions) Nowadays, cans have a plastic lining, components of which can leach out and affect foods -most notably BPA leaching into acidic foods. Cans vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, but, almost all nowadays use some sort of plastic on the insides. I don't think anyone has done extensive tests on what happens to these linings if the cans are used as baking pans.

Thank you for posting the videos, they were very helpful. The bread does appear to be very tasty. I think you could save time by making larger amounts of dough, and doing the folding with oil as if you were making croissants. That is, make ten pounds of dough instead of one serving at a time. Croissants use butter, and yeast dough, so it's a lot more difficult to handle. Since you use oil, you will not have to chill between folding the 'turns. You could cut the thick layered dough into small squares, then roll out with a rolling pin to the final shape. HERE is a video showing one type of 'lock-in' don't worry about the language, just watch his hands. HERE is a video of the traditional French method which makes more dough. Don't worry so much about keeping the dough cold and stiff, they only do that because they work with butter. Essentially, each person needs to make 134 per hour. That's a lot. Is the dough alright if you make it a day in advance (with or without folding)? Can you invite students from a local culinary school to come help for free as some sort of job training event, or as a way for them to contribute to your charity?

Can you tell us in detail what is wrong or lacking in taste with the machine that can make tens of thousands of units? There is a chance that you could change the formula so that the product tastes better when made in that machine. (adding malt, using a preferment, etc.) And, welcome to the forums!

Could be: overbeaten egg whites, resting too long, oven temp too high. Do you have an oven thermometer inside the oven?