{"id":754,"date":"2009-05-17T15:31:29","date_gmt":"2009-05-17T22:31:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/?p=754"},"modified":"2009-05-17T15:31:29","modified_gmt":"2009-05-17T22:31:29","slug":"catering-lessons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/2009\/05\/17\/catering-lessons\/","title":{"rendered":"Catering Lessons: The Cost of Cooking for 30"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently had the chance to cook a Shabbat dinner (Friday night ritual) for my synagogue.\u00a0 You can find all the details at Shabbat Dinner for 20<\/a>.\u00a0 Because I’m being reimbursed for ingredients, I kept careful track of my expenses.<\/p>\n

You may wonder about the two titles.\u00a0 Did I cook for 20 or 30?\u00a0 Well, that’s part of learning to cater meals, judging amounts.\u00a0 I goofed big time.\u00a0 Because of late RSVP’s and walk in’s, I wasn’t too sure exactly how many would come, so I planned for 20 (knowing I’d have enough for 25 if need be).\u00a0 We got 10 adults, one teenager, 5 children age 5 and under, and 2 more adults who weren’t present for the dinner but were given care packages of food.\u00a0 I’m counting this as the equivalent of 15 adults.<\/p>\n

With most of the food, I made twice as much as necessary.\u00a0 Had I made half as much total, we would have run out of most things, but people would have been able to eat large amounts and been satisfied.\u00a0 As it was, we all ate very well and took home enormous amounts of leftovers.<\/p>\n

Below, I give costs for everything I used.\u00a0 Some are exact, some are estimated.\u00a0 Pretty much everything is organic and good quality.\u00a0 I didn’t skimp.\u00a0 The savings comes from making things from scratch.\u00a0 I did one huge Whole Foods run two days before the dinner.\u00a0 A few items were in my pantry so those say “est” after them.\u00a0 Soy flour we had to get from a local store.\u00a0 The strawberries are from the amazing Carstensen Farms<\/a> here in Petaluma (organic and picked the morning of the dinner).\u00a0 The masa is organic and made from whole corn in Sonoma by Primavera<\/a>.\u00a0 The olive oil for cooking is Star from Costco and the olive oil in the salad dressing is an organic brand I get in 55 gallon drums for my soap business.<\/p>\n

Chili Cornbread Casserole<\/a><\/h2>\n

On my blog entry for this recipe, I have a single and a double recipe.\u00a0 I made a quadruple one here.\u00a0 We finished the larger of the two pans.\u00a0 Now, this does save well and is almost as good cold as it is hot.<\/p>\n

The big splurge here was the dried tomatoes, which I got to reduce any trace ingredients that might cause problems for people.\u00a0 They came from the Whole Foods olive bar, but Costco jarred tomatoes are much cheaper and you can also buy plain dried tomatoes in some stores’ bulk sections or from Trader Joe’s.<\/p>\n

Note that this recipe fed 30 people with several sides.\u00a0 If you’re serving it to your family as is, or with a small side salad, count on needing two servings per person.<\/p>\n

Dried beans (1\/2 black, 1\/2 adzuki) 6 cups (2 2\/3 lbs) $4.30
\nOlive oil 4 TB or so $0.25 (est)
\nVegetable mix total 8 cups $4.32
\n– Yellow onion 2 (1.9 lb) ($2.83)
\n– Carrot 3\/8 lb ($0.73 .37)
\n– Celery .45 lb ($0.76)
\nCumin 2 2\/3 TB $0.94
\nOregano, fresh 4 tsp (from my garden, free)
\nChilies, dried 4 large $0.50 (est)
\nSun-dried tomatoes pint deli container $8.81
\nTofu 24 oz $2.84
\nRice wine\/vinegar 4 TB $0.25 (est)
\nLemon juice 4 TB $0.25 (est)
\nSoy flour 2 cups $1.80
\nBrown rice flour 2 cups (.66 lb) $1.18
\nXanthan gum 2 tsp $0.10 (est)
\nCornmeal 4 cups $2.35
\nBaking soda 2 tsp $0.10 (est)
\nBaking powder 2 TB $0.10 (est)
\nApple cider vinegar 1 cup $0.85 (est)
\nSoy milk 2 cups $0.87
\nSunflower oil 12 oz $3.80<\/p>\n

Grand total: $33.25
\nPer serving (feeds 30): $1.11<\/h3>\n

Roasted Vegetables<\/a><\/h2>\n

This is a 14 lb batch.\u00a0 We ate about half.\u00a0 Leftovers last a couple of days.<\/p>\n

Keep costs down by buying at farmer’s markets or on sale.\u00a0 You can roast a wide variety of vegetables.\u00a0 Beets and rutabagas run $2\/lb at my local Whole Foods and leeks run $3 with some sales down to $2.\u00a0 When choosing based on cost, keep in mind waste in preparation (almost none for the root vegetables, quite a bit for the leeks) as well as shrinkage during cooking (moderate for root vegetables or cauliflower, a fair amount for leeks and cabbage).<\/p>\n

Red and golden beet 6.83 lbs $13.59
\nRutabaga 6.71 lbs $13.35
\nLeeks 6 large (2.47 lb ($7.39) at WF plus some leftovers from a local farm) $10 (est)
\nOlive oil & celtic salt $1 (est)
\nRosemary free (from my garden, would be $2 in store)<\/p>\n

Grand total: $37.94
\nPer serving (feeds 30): $1.26<\/h3>\n

Green Salad<\/h2>\n

The base is 4 heads of romaine lettuce.\u00a0 This made 2 large bowls.\u00a0 I only put dressing on one of the bowls since dressing will make salad go limp and gross pretty quickly when leftover.\u00a0 We ate about half.<\/p>\n

Watch the cost of lettuce.\u00a0 It can vary a lot.\u00a0 It’s usually sold per head and the size of the head varies even more than the per head cost does.\u00a0 I was lucky and these were large heads on sale.\u00a0 You can use any type of lettuce you want, or other greens.<\/p>\n

Romaine lettuce 4 heads $6
\nCherry tomatoes clamshell container $2.99
\nDaikon radish .76 lb $0.75
\nOrange cauliflower 1 head (1.63 lb) $4.87
\nCarrot 3\/8 lb $0.36
\nDressing (with salt) 3 cups $6.66
\n– Olive oil 2 cups ($3.25)
\n– Balsamic vinegar 3\/4 cup (est) ($1.91)
\n– Amy’s Mustard 3-4 oz (est) ($1.50)<\/p>\n

Grand total: $21.63
\nPer serving (feeds 30): $0.72<\/h3>\n

Strawberries with Cashew Cream<\/a><\/h2>\n

I got a full flat of strawberries (12 baskets).\u00a0 The cost is slightly higher if you buy less.\u00a0 We used 6 baskets.\u00a0 The cashew cream was a big miscalculation.\u00a0 We only ate 1\/4 of it at best.\u00a0 The problem with the cashew cream is it’s hard to judge if you’re going to get a thick or a thin batch.\u00a0 This was thin.\u00a0 It tasted great but no one wanted to take very much.<\/p>\n

Strawberries 1 flat (12 baskets) $28
\nCashew (raw) 6 cups (1.97 lb) $15.74
\nLemon 2 $1
\nVanilla 2 TB $0.50 (est)
\nStevia & salt $0.50 (est)<\/p>\n

Grand total: $45.74
\nPer serving (feeds 30): $1.52<\/h3>\n

Challah<\/a><\/h2>\n

I bought 10 lbs of masa and used 5 (on purpose so I’d have some for myself later).\u00a0 I made two trays of challahs and we ate 1\/3 to 1\/2 of them.\u00a0 They weren’t ready until well into the meal.\u00a0 I suspect we would have eaten far more had they been ready on time (before the meal, just after the blessing for the wine).\u00a0 Note that the reason for the oatmeal is so they contain one of the 5 grains (the rest have gluten) so we can say the blessing over bread.<\/p>\n

Masa 5 lbs $7.50
\nOatmeal, sesame, salt 2 cups $3 (est)<\/p>\n

Grand total: $10.50
\nPer serving (feeds 30): $0.35<\/h3>\n

Total costs for entire meal: $149.06
\nPer person (30): $4.97<\/h2>\n

Hours spent on meal, about 10.
\n8 hours prep work (not counting shopping)
\n1 hour work on site
\n1 hour cleanup (which I didn’t do, but my husband did a fair amount)<\/p>\n

If I were to charge for my time, I’d tack on $200 to the total.
\nThat would make the total $349.06.
\nAnd the per person cost a mere $11.64.
\nNot bad for an organic gourmet meal (meat doesn’t usually cost more, though organic meat would).
\nFortunately, my time is a donation.<\/p>\n

The synagogue charges $10 per adult, $5 for ages 5-12, and free for under 5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently had the chance to cook a Shabbat dinner (Friday night ritual) for my synagogue.\u00a0 You can find all the details at Shabbat Dinner for 20.\u00a0 Because I’m being reimbursed for ingredients, I kept careful track of my expenses. You may wonder about the two titles.\u00a0 Did I cook for 20 or 30?\u00a0 Well, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[124,26,66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-budgeting","category-food","category-meals"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=754"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":758,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754\/revisions\/758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}