Dinner for 30

Yesterday we hosted a Hail & Farewell at our house. All of Pat's fellow officers came to "hail" the new members just arriving on the ship and to say "farewell" to those who are leaving. We figured that attendance would be around 30...in reality it was probably a little more. It's one thing to think about the amount of food that is required to 30 people...it's a whole other thing to actually see 30 people standing in your house. The food doesn't take up quite as much space as 30 people, three-quarters of them men.

But think about the food I did, for about a week straight. I started cooking on Sunday and making lists and thinking about lists and cleaning and thinking about where I should place all the food. I thought a pasta bar would be a fairy easy way to feed a large amount of people. I thought that until half an hour before everyone arrived and it seemed that none of the water would boil. Eventually it did, and no one went hungry. In fact, I had way too much food.

Pat really had me stressed out about how much food 30 people could eat. He mentioned the enormous amounts of food necessary for spaghetti feeds for his hockey team in college. He encouraged me to get 6 lb of spaghetti and 6 lb of penne at Sam's Club. I doubled the meat sauce recipe. I quadrupled a roasted red pepper cream sauce recipe, sending Pat to the store at the last minute for more red peppers so I could do the second double batch. I tripled a batch of grilled veggies...half of which I had to roast because when I went to turn the grill on, an hour-long downpour started.

Currently residing in my fridge/freezer and pantry are:

1 batch of meat sauce

A double batch of roasted red pepper sauce

About 2/3 of the vegetables

Assorted leftover desserts

A whole jar of Sam's Club bruschetta mix (already made about 60 slices of bruschetta with the first jar)

6 lb of penne

3 lb of spaghetti

I guess I should have another large group of people over here soon. Pat informed me that pasta doesn't go bad. After the pasta extravaganza of last night, Jack decided he would like pasta for dinner tonight. Well lucky him...we just had a little bit on hand. I turned some grilled peppers into a pepper & goat cheese quesadilla because I couldn't quite cope with more pasta. However, I will do my best to take care of all these pesky desserts lying around.