catering a wedding and I'm no pro

[Live It Up]

Soo... one might be correct to assume that I am crazy, but I have decided that in addition to working 7 days a week for no money, I should take on catering a wedding for 60 people. Actually, this was all decided months ago, but the wedding is fast approaching so I am really starting to sweat. I have no professional training in cooking (although I am a certified food handler) but this is not the first wedding I've catered: I did my own last year, which I posted about on the wedding food thread. Anyway, for my wedding everything was made ahead and served room temperature. This one is much more ambitious as there will be hot food, as well as many assembled bite sized items. The menu is:

smaller items:

roasted fingerlings with caviar

gougeres

duck prosciutto

bacon wrapped enoki mushrooms

salads in endive leaves (hazelnut shrimp, eggplant jam, chickpeas with tapenade)

more substantial finger food items:

mini empanadas

beef on palmiers with pesto

wild mushroom puree in frico cups

chickpea fritters

big platter/bowl items:

beets with herbed goat cheese

spiced roasted cauliflower

grilled salad

scallop ceviche with melon

roasted asparagus with shaved parmesan

big platters of heirloom tomatoes with nice olive oil

I realized today that I should have been soliciting advice from this community all along, but I'm already well into the preparation of the empanadas and gougeres. I was having very one-sided conversations with my husband (a non-cook) about what cheeses to use for the gougeres and whether or not you can double a pate a choux recipe. (For future reference can you?) So, now when I have questions like that, I'm going to ask them here. I'll try to remember to take pictures along the way. 15 days and counting....

--Jessica

[chezcherie]

i've doubled, tripled, quadrupled pate a choux quantities many times with no problem. (since you are asking, i assume that the recipe is a small batch quantity...i haven't quadrupled a production volume batch.)

i like comte for my gougeres. trader joe's carries a reasonably priced one.

you catered your own wedding....i seem to remember the thread. wow. my hat's off to ya...this one should be a piece of cake...you aren't making that, are you?

[Live It Up]

Thanks for the encouragment chezcherie. I had already made the gougeres when I posted that. After much debate (with myself) I wound up only making one batch of dough at a time (5 times) and a mixture of aged gouda and comte. I just didn't want to risk ruining 2 or 3 batches of gougeres. I have to say that I loved the flavor the aged gouda gave to the puffs--I think it wil be a regular addition now.

Anyway, I have almost everything worked out for next week except for the chickpea fritters. I can't decide if they would be ok to fry (pan fry) the day before. I have eaten them reheated before, but that wasn't 120 of them. Does anybody have experience with holding starchy pan fried foods overnight?