Hi,
I have been asked to make salads for a dinner party my parents in law are hosting. Not a problem, I'm making toadfish's rice salad, raw broccoli salad and roast vege salad.
But, I always get the quantities wrong and we end up eating leftovers for a month! There are going to be 30 people. Would double the quantity of toadfish's rice salad be enough? I have 2 huge heads of broccoli...that would be plenty made up with cranberries, bacon, nuts and seeds wouldn't it? I have enough kumera (3 kinds), pumpkin, beetroot, carrots, parsnips and asparagus to sink a battleship, but I thought 2 roasting pans single layers would be plenty?
There will be ham, chicken, new potatoes and a lettuce salad as well.
Thank you all for any advice!
Edited to fix spelling mistakes :-)

Edited by shepa1 at 9:51 pm, Thu 7 Nov

shepa1 - 2019-11-07 21:50:00

Just wing it, I'd not quite fill three 3 litre bowls for salads, sounds like you have it sussed, better to have too much than not enough.

rainrain1 - 2019-11-08 09:04:00

Offer remaining food to the guests?

amasser - 2019-11-08 11:02:00

I have found when I do mass catering that no matter what the occasion the guests eat very small amounts of salads and vegetable dishes (and lots of meat). If there is going to be an abundance of potatoes and green salad you probably won't need a rice salad at all (it is a doubling up of carbs), one piece of kumara/pumpkin and half a carrot per person, three spears of asparagus per person, two florets of broccoli per person.

davidt4 - 2019-11-08 11:32:00

I deliberately overcook of hosting at home, but almost agree with davidt4, other than some hot vegetables seem to disappear, especially cauliflower cheese, as most people can't be bothered cooking it at home!

Personally, I don't care for mixing hot foods with salads anyway so never serve salads!

If it is a hot day, people may eat more salad than potatoes, but if you have done it in the past and had too much in the way of left overs, just halve what you have done before.

Many who eat a lot of the mains, don't bother with dessert - and there are always those who eat piles of dessert, only if they have room.

socram - 2019-11-08 12:19:00