Dinner for 60?

Although I'm a bit unsure if we were supposed to be done with our posting by last Friday, I really needed to post about a food excursion (one might call it) that I went on this past weekend. My friend Skylar and I volunteered to cook a buffet meal for the entirety of Outdoor Education, meaning around 50 students and 8 adults, for our annual holiday party. I've never cooked for almost 60 people before and I'm not sure if I will ever do it again. We came up with a number of smaller side dishes including roasted brussels sprouts, a spinach salad with pear, almonds, tomatoes and feta, a veggie platter, hummus (which I decided to make myself and it was a bit of a disaster), pigs in a blanket, and sweet potato salad. Here are some of the recipes below for our side dishes:

Tortellini (aka food of the gods) recipe that we just threw in a bowl (no skewers necessary): http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/mustard-dill-tortellini-salad-skewers

Sprouts:
http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/roasted_brussels_sprouts/


It was more difficult to come up with main dishes to serve, Skylar decided to make these cool spanakopita-like quesadillas (recipe here: http://www.closetcooking.com/2010/02/spinach-and-feta-quesadillas.html) and I was very worried we weren't going to have enough food. So, in sticking to basics, I decided to make pizza. Slices sells pizza dough for $1 a pie so we made four large pizzas with various toppings, some with veggies & some with hot italian sausage that comes in a clump at Price Chopper. We also made hella mac and cheese and a few apple pies.

It was such a fun and stressful and sweaty experience, and I was terrified that we weren't going to pull it off but somehow we did. I love experiences that are stressful and hurried only because those are the moments when you really get to know yourself. When you are stressed and have to coordinate efforts with someone else to finish a task, the way you handle that is really telling of what type of person you are. This was one of those moments. Anyway, enough philosophizing for now. Enjoy the holiday foods coming your way soon, and if you find yourself in the position where you have to cook dinner for 60 hit me up and I'll throw you some tips on how to pull it off successfully.