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Chili beans and cornbread for 75 people

Yesterday was an adventure in cooking. Adam volunteered to make dinner for the group he goes to church with on Thursday evening, called "Four 14". Adam actually volunteered his mother to make chili beans, following his grandmother's recipe.

Now the beans are actually pretty good, but to make 75 servings of them is very taxing mentally and physically. Another thing I didn't mention is cornbread was also part of the deal.

It was up to me to figure out what we needed in regards to ingredient amounts. The church paid for the food. Now it was quite comical going through the Evil Big Box Store(tm) with a cart with 24 cans each of various sorts of beans and 12 pounds of hot Italian sausage, less comical preparing it.

I browned the sausage Wednesday night. And browning 12 pounds of hot Italian sausage does open the sinuses. I brought Adam over to assist in the preparation of the rest and Kathy was opening cans while I drove to get him. We overshot our capacity. Kathy prmised physical harm if she was ever volunteered for this again.

We also needed an expert opinion of the quality of the beans, so it was off to Medina. We took some to Kathy's parents. Her dad is the foremost authority on these beans. They both liked them. We now know our beans were a success. Now it's back home to help with the cornbread. We like our cornbread southern style, without sugar. We ended up making 84 corn muffins.

Now it's time to transport the food. We had 2 large roasters and two foil roasters of beans in the trunk. We then took them to the church, and was told we had brought plenty. We were also told that they looked and smelled good. Kathy and I had left to do some shopping, then went back home.

A couple hours later Adam called to tell us that the beans were a hit. They only had a small container left over and the corn muffins were all gone. People were asking him for the recipe. One even told him that "he bows to (Adam's) mother" since she knows how to make real cornbread, as cornbread was meant to be made without sugar.

This made it all worth the effort. But we won't do this again.

Comments

wzzp said…
Beans and rice. Rice and beans.
Cliff said…
And this is the church where we are going to for the simulcast. I wish I would have thought of that.

Now how do you prepare rice for 75 people?
Amel said…
WOW...it must be TOUGH to prepare so much food. I know how crazy it was for my Mom to prepare enough food for around 20 people (rice and different meals plus fruit dessert), let alone 75 servings. Anyway, GREAT JOB on doing it, though I understand completely why you won't do it again. I have never cooked food for more than 6 people at a time and it's hard enough to figure out how much I should buy, etc.

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