It is often hard to find just the right large quantity recipe for the theme of your party or for the “culinary experience” you are aspiring to offer your guests. Here are a few tips and suggestions on how to modify your favorite 4-6 serving recipes when you find yourself cooking for a crowd of 20 or more.

What constitutes a crowd? Of course it’s all relative (your relatives, not mine). Seriously, if you are accustomed to cooking for one to three, cooking for 20-50 people may seem overwhelming. When cooking for a crowd, there are three important considerations; adequate cookware, sufficient refrigerator space and recipe selection.

Obviously you should seek out recipes geared towards feeding a crowd. It is often easy to find large quantity recipes for basic dishes such as lasagna and mashed potatoes. But what do you do if you have your heart set on using your favorite 4-serving recipe for Corn and Black Bean Polenta for a party of 25?

Even for expert cooks, modifying a recipe for large quantity cooking is not just a matter of endless multiplications. If you expand a recipe too much–you are bound to run into trouble and end up with an off tasting or a poorly flavored dish.

For a basic dish like mashed potatoes, it would be acceptable to multiply all of the ingredients in a 4-serving recipe by two, thus doubling the recipe to serve 8. However, recipes are not indefinitely expandable (or shrinkable for that matter) and enlarging a recipe any more then 2-4 times is not
recommended.

You may also use recipe converters which are easily found online. The converters however, simply “do the math”, multiplying each ingredient amount by the increased number of servings you enter into the converter. It does not take into account, for example, the pungency or texture of the ingredients. If a 4-serving recipe calls for 1 tablespoon of finely chopped rosemary and you want to triple the recipe to serve 12; 3 tablespoons of rosemary will probably overwhelm all the other flavors and seasonings in the dish.

It is a good idea to be cautious when multiplying ingredients like salt, flour, cornstarch, eggs, seafood, meats, robust herbs, oils, onions, garlic, celery and peppers. Some ingredients will impart enough flavor, texture or body when only increased a fraction. In addition some of these ingredients can be added a little at a time as you continually check for taste.

What if you want to serve 25 people with a not-so-simple, 4-serving recipe with numerous ingredients? Doubling or tripling more complex recipes could get complicated. One trick is to batch cook. Batch cooking requires planning ahead and cooking in advance. It may also mean freezing prepared dishes. It is also a matter of “doing the math”.

To serve 25 with a 4-serving recipe, you can cook 5-6 individual batches of that recipe or, you can expand the recipe (no more then 2-4 times) and cook in batches accordingly. For example, to serve 25 from a 4-serving recipe, double the recipe to 8 and cook three batches or, triple it and cook two batches. To serve 18 with a 6-serving recipe, cook it three times or cook one 6-serving batch and one batch that has been doubled to serve 12. You get the idea.

It is almost impossible to double or triple recipe ingredients for cakes, cookies, pie dough, or breads, without meeting with utter disaster. It’s a chemistry thing. Instead, prepare a single batch repeatedly until you have enough food to feed your guests. Again, cooking in advance is the key.

Chances are you can successfully double or triple the ingredients of recipes for individual appetizers, such as stuffed mushrooms or crostini; and for snack mixes, dips, salsas, punches, one serving-size pieces of meat, poultry or fish, tossed salads, pasta salads and vegetables dishes.

If you are cooking for a crowd of 25 or more you will most likely serve buffet style. It is the best way to serve larger crowds. On a buffet of numerous dishes, people will take smaller portions of each in order to sample everything. Also, not everyone will sample every dish. This means that every dish
you prepare need not serve 25. You need only prepare a few large quantity dishes. Look for recipes that serve 8-12 and double them (or not).

With a calculator and a little ingredient know-how you can comfortably convert most of your party food recipes and present a tantalizing menu to your
guests.

Have fun!

Debra Haydel

By: Debra Haydel

About the Author:

Is there any drink more fun and refreshing than an ice cold milkshake? I don’t think so. Milkshakes are a part of American food culture and have spread all over the world. Here’s my list of the best milkshake recipe you can find anywhere.

Classic Vanilla Milkshake – Made with vanilla ice cream and vanilla extract. The original “plain” milkshake is still a crowd pleasing favorite. Adding a maraschino cherry on top makes it a little more special.

Old Fashioned Chocolate Milkshake – Made with chocolate or vanilla ice cream (depends on how intense you want the chocolate flavor), milk and chocolate syrup. This is always the second most favorite milkshake flavor. It’s so easy to make and delicious to drink!

I Love Strawberries Milkshake – Made with strawberry ice cream, milk, fresh strawberries and whipped cream. Yum! Makes me ravenous for one just thinking about it.

Purple Cow Milkshake – Made with grape juice, banana and milk. Purple cows are cool (and very rare). This milkshake is a real treat for kids and kids at heart.

Chunky Monkey Milkshake – Made with vanilla ice cream, chocolate chips, banana and instant coffee. This milkshake may cause you to spontaneously get up and do the chunky monkey dance.

Cherry Vanilla Milkshake – Made with vanilla ice cream, maraschino cherries, milk and chocolate syrup. A chocolate covered cherry in your glass.

Shamrock Milkshake – Made with vanilla ice cream, low fat milk, mint extract and green food coloring. Pretty simple milkshake that you can enjoy at home, even though a certain well-known burger place doesn’t make them any more.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Milkshake – Made with creamy peanut butter, milk and chocolate syrup. A nice alternative to a peanut butter sandwich.

Caramel Latte Milkshake – Made with coffee ice cream, milk and caramel syrup. Just as good or better than any drink at your local coffee or donut shop, plus, you can make this at home anytime you’re in the mood to treat yourself with something extra special.

Whoppers Malt Milkshake – Made with vanilla ice cream, chocolate malt syrup and whipped topping. This is the easiest way to make a milkshake that has that old fashioned malt taste.

Isn’t it a wonderful idea to make a homemade DIY solar cooker, then cooking under the sun? Don’t give me a picture of picnics or outdoor activities just during leisure hours. I’m giving you a different idea. It’s not the same with having barbecue grills with the use of charcoal or portable stove. Let’s try to use things that are purely nature friendly and never tries to sneak big amounts of money from our pockets. Don’t give me that blank look because I know you have the idea of what I’m talking about. Try to have some guess. Clues are: it’s energy source is free, environment friendly, comparable to latest cooker but with great discount, pocket friendly and absolutely can’t operate without the help from the mother sun. That’s already a long list of clues. Hope you’ll get some insights now. Try to wake up early during a sunny day. Then, look above and see the sun. Can you see some delicious cuisine and money up there? Now, you’re giving me that blank affect. Take it easy fellow, I’ll let you see for a while. Don’t think that I’m hallucinating. I’m still in my right disposition as of now. I’m talking of having a solar cooker, cooking under the sun project.

Having a solar cooker in our homes is a great property that we should be proud of. You could buy it over a store but the do-it-yourself motto is still the best. It is because you know the mechanism of the unit and it would be easy for you to handle troubleshooting issues. Let me promote you this amazing project for the whole family. If you were to choose what would you prefer, a 0% cost to operate unit or the expensive one? Will you spend some bucks or rather choose the pocket friendly unit? I guess all of us prefer money saving units. Common question would be would it stand the test of time since it’s a conventional type? I’ll set back the answer, thus the power and energy of the sun withstand the time? Absolutely it could, the sun continuously gives us the heat and solar energy more than we ever need. So, the solar cooker, cooking under the sun project is definitely durable when we speak of operational source of energy.

Let’s try to make use of readily available sources within the vicinity for our solar cooker.

Things needed:

- Foils or mirrors as reflectors

- Conductive Materials

- Stand ( for the food)

The construction of a solar cooker is very easy. It is easy to assemble and doesn’t require superb engineering skills. This project will cost us nothing since will be using our main solution and free energy, that’s the solar energy. A solar cooker is usually a box style that’s made with conductive supplies. This will saturate up and saves the heat of the sun. It operates on a complete passive process; it only absorbs the heat it is exposed with. The time will determine the hotness of the unit. The longer it is exposed to the sun the hotter the unit gets. The reflectors help centralize the solar heat on the food that will be cooked.

Trivia for everyone! The solar cooker could reach as high as 300 degrees temperature. The stand will be the carrier of the food wherein you could use of grills. Knowing on how to make a homemade DIY solar cooker project is another fun project for everyone. Enjoy the heat and let’s eat!

By: Dinna Bonevi

About the Author: