Cooking for 20+

Rarely do I ever have to cook for that many people, but when it comes to graduate school, we certainly make the most of some good cooking.  This most recent class, the statistics class, was larger than usual, complete with 3 visitors from other bases in Europe (2 from England and I think 1 from Germany).  Normally 2 people take a night/weekend day, but this time some groups had 3 people, so you can imagine how much food that resulted in.

On the night I was signed up, there was only 1 other person.  I thought some kind of vegetarian type pasta would be good, so the other person decided on spaghetti and meatballs.

Here is what I created to bring along as my contribution to the class dinner:

Yes, I most certainly made sure that broccoli was included.  I love broccoli and will add it just about anywhere I can.

I also thought red pepper would give a nice color and crunch to the past dish.

I thought about a cold pasta salad, but the cold windy weather made me think a hot dish was better.  Even though it was going to be a hot dish, I wanted to make shells still.

I started by sautéing some garlic in olive oil.  Then I tossed in the red pepper.  When it was all done, I tossed in the broccoli, which I steamed in the rice cooker/steamer.  After cooking for about another minute I added this to the cooked pasta, to which I added a little more olive oil just to coat the pasta.  I made 2 boxes, so I didn’t want it to be too dry.

 

The next step was to heat up some black olives and tuna fish (from a foil package, not canned because this is easier to work with in my opinion).

When this was warmed up I layered it in a big pan.  I just made this up at the last minute and I was impressed it went over so well.  I think this would be a good cold pasta salad too.

  

But I couldn’t just stop there.  I was having a craving for something chocolate and I was feeling like a little homemade dessert was called for.  I found this recipe for chocolate cherry brownies online and I was good to go.

 

Oh boy did this call for a lot of butter.  Actually, it seems like more than it is because I doubled the recipe.  I was, after all, cooking for around 23 people.  The butter was heated with water and cherry preserves to create the liquid for this recipe.

I mixed all my dry ingredients.

The fun part was adding the liquid and smelling this delicious concoction.

Those lumpy bits are chocolate chips!  Oh what a heavenly recipe!

I filled my 2 pans and I was ready for the oven, with time closing in.  I wanted to literally pull these out of the oven and head to class so that they were still warm towards the end of the meal.

YUM!!!  These were so good.  I had to cook longer than the recipe called for because I doubled it, and I do think I cooked it a few minutes to long, but they were really good regardless.  I am most definitely making these again.

QUESTIONS:  What is the largest crowd you have prepared food for?  What is your favorite kind of brownie?