'Cowboy' Style catering for 90 people

djtonyb

Hi Guys

Having a Cowboy/indian themed 4oth birthday party in September..

Was thinking of having small jacket spuds with chilli/cheese/coleslaw/baked beans for the party food.

I will of course need 90 smallish jackets, but how much chilli/cheese/coleslaw/beans would you think I'd need?

Whats the best way to bulk out the chilli too as I don't want to spend tonnes on mince

rachbc

I'd allow 70g of mince p/p and add loads of onions, peppers, toms and kidney beans to the chilli so you'd need around 6- 6.5kg of mince

No idea on other fillings though - I guess maybe grate enough cheese for 1, weigh it and multiple up...

Another cheapish ideas might be pulled pork sarnies with coleslaw...yummy and a bit different too

SallyForth_2

djtonyb wrote: »

Hi Guys

Having a Cowboy/indian themed 4oth birthday party in September..

Was thinking of having small jacket spuds with chilli/cheese/coleslaw/baked beans for the party food.

I will of course need 90 smallish jackets, but how much chilli/cheese/coleslaw/beans would you think I'd need?

Whats the best way to bulk out the chilli too as I don't want to spend tonnes on mince

You might want to trial this before September, but I have done a couple of typical recipes with mince where you use half mince and half green lentils to pad it out, and while I was sceptical, it's was actually rather good.

So for the chilli, by the time you have added all the other possible extras; onions, peppers, mushrooms, sweetcorn, celery, ockra, diced corgette even. You should have a massive big pot of chilli.

jollymummy

You could do a veggie chiili and a meat one to cut costs. Use beans and courgette etc. I sometimes use grated carrot in my chilli or chopped mushrooms to bulk it out a bit. We catered for 20 friends a few years ago, my Hubby made a jam pan full of veggie chilli using veggie mince form Holland and Barratt then made a smaller much hotter mince one in the wok Your party sounds a great idea. Have fun !!!

kirstyreanne

I'm sure there is a recipe on here somewhere for Cowboy Baked Beans. May be worth having alook for that.

HTH

greenval

I read the title and until I then read your post I thought you meant you had a really dodgy cowboy caterer.Phew, glad that's not the case.

waddy80

I would have loads of crusty bread available aswell. People will take a piece of bread and it will fill them up, and they will eat less!

ubamother

An vegetarian American Indian style dish (honest I researched and everything!) I made on a campfire at an American Indian themed camp last year: You need sweetcorn (fresh, frozen, shucked, whatever), chopped onion and garlic, butternut squash, sweet potato - basically fry onion and garlic in some oil with a little spice (I used coriander, cumin and a wee bit of cinnamon), peel and chop up squash and sweet potato and add to the pan and cook a bit, when softened add sweetcorn. Cook until, well, cooked really - sometimes a bit of water or veg stock is needed. Don't do measuring much, but I think I used one butternut squash, one onion, two sweet potatoes and the corn from 2 or 3 cobs. It was lush and fed about eight people with cornbread (cornbread is a must have cowboy food - I just google a simple recipe - it is lush and so so easy)

SallyForth_2

Sorry to be picky, and I know it's one of those 'in' expressions, but I really hate it when people decribe things as 'lush'. How can Cornbread be lush - eeewh! Thick leafy plants are lush.

Sorry, I will go away now.

ubamother

..can't let that one go!!

Cornbread is actually moist and succulent and slightly boingy - which is probably how I might define some cacti with thick succulent lush leaves!

Lush is a wonderful word and evokes goodness, abundance, succulence and all round loveliness (but am happy to accept that may just be me, obviously!)

Stephen_Leak

Ubamother may also be Bristolian. Where we have always had not only "lush" but also "gert lush".

This should also fill them up for not a lot, but it will need to be scaled up a bit.

Pinto beans are the authentic Mexican "cowboy" bean. Beans with corn bread contains the same amino acids as meat.

THREE BEAN SALAD

Serves 2 - 4

INGREDIENTS

200g (½ of a 400g tin) of borlotti/rose coco beans
200g (½ of a 400g tin) of cannellini/white kidney beans
200g (½ of a 400g tin) of red kidney beans
½ a tablespoon of lemon juice
1 tablespoon of olive oil
½ a tablespoon of parsley

METHOD

Open the tins and drain off any liquid, Put the beans into a sieve or colander and rinse them thoroughly under running cold water.

Put the beans into a bowl. Add the lemon juice, olive oil and parsley. Mix thoroughly.

Cover and put in the fridge for at least half an hour.

ADDITIONS & ALTERNATIVES

Use dried beans, but these will need to be soaked and boiled first.

Use other beans, including sliced green beans or broad beans. If you use baked beans, wash the tomato sauce off.

Use black-eyed peas, which are really black-eyed beans, and chickpeas, which are also known as garbanzo beans.

Try to use three different looking beans.

Use fresh lemon juice for preference, but bottled lemon juice will do.

Use extra virgin olive oil for preference, but normal olive oil will do.

Use chopped fresh parsley for preference, but dried parsley will do.

Add a clove of garlic. Peel the garlic and chop it into tiny pieces.

Add 2 spring onions. Wash the spring onions, cut off the root ends and leaves, peel off and discard any dried up or slimy outer leaves, then chop them into thin rings.

TIPS

Parsley is reputed to reduce the wind generating capacity of beans.

PS. Do you want to borrow a DVD of "Blazing Saddles"?