My wife and I go on a mission trip each year to the Pacific Northwest (OR/WA) with a group of 25-60 people from our home church in central Texas. I am the cook/chef for our team for the evening meals (and more recently for our camp workers & kids during the day, 70-150). I am always looking for new ideas for somewhat simple or easy dishes to prepare for the evening meals. I have access to a church kitchen of various sizes and I am the only one dedicated for preparing these meals with a few other people that will pop in to help from time to time when they have a break.

Some items that I do regularly are spaghetti with meat sauce, King Ranch Chicken, beef tips over rice or egg noodles ... and a few that I have done a few times that have been hit or miss are a taco bar, baked potato bar, pulled pork. We normally go to the beach or a park on the Columbia river one evening as a break and nice outing where I prepare burgers and/or hot dogs in the kitchen and haul to the park. I always have salad and veggies available each evening that goes well with the main course. Then usually the last night I break out all the leftovers with a smaller portion of something new (like the tacos/ potato/pulled pork) to prevent waste when we all leave.

I am thinking of smoking a few briskets at home, vacuum sealing and freezing. There will be several people driving out, that could take these in an ice chest without any issue.

any other suggestions or ideas for a group of 25-60??? I have to keep it somewhat reasonable as not everyone can handle overly spicy foods.

You have some good ones already. I'd add gumbo w/rice or jambalaya for 25-60. You can pack a lot of flavor and the rice help keeps cost down. Both are pretty easy and can be handled by one person. You start talking 150 people you need a couple extra kitchen hands.

Beans and rice. Dried pintos or red beans(kidneys) can go along way. I could eat beans everyday and be happy, have found out though that most people can take them or leave them. Mashed potatoes and baked beans always seem to be a hit and go well with brisket, both are easy to do.

I'd like to see your King Ranch recipe for a crowd if you don't mind sharing.

Props to you for your service work.

My suggestion would be to smoke some briskets at home, then take them with you...but looks like you have that covered!

Potato soup w cornbread
Cowboy pintos with chopped beef w cornbread
Turkey and dressing
American goulash
Mac n cheese
Ham, tater salad, baked beans
Enchilada casserole w rice and frijoles
Catfish and fries
Local seafood creole w rice

I’m getting hungry.

Especially if you're gonna turn it into chop beef sandwiches, too easy to chop it up at home and vacuum pack reheat in boiling water.

I'm a huge fan of chicken spaghetti for large crowds and you can easily make it pretty mild.

Yes!

Chili ? Or would this be too spicy?

thanks, some great thoughts so far ... I just try to not have something similar, totally different each evening ... the chicken spaghetti is another one I've thought about (and love) but very similar to regular spaghetti and the King Ranch (almost like those two combined).

as for the brisket, I had planned on taking them whole and slice with baked beans & tater salad ... but chopped brisket might be another good idea ... hmmm

I have many of the other side dishes, like mashed potatoes, various types of beans, mac & cheese, steamed broccoli, etc ... and chili (for hot dog day and to top baked potatoes) ...

Chalet, how many people do you want the recipe for on the King Ranch Chicken ... I have all my recipes loaded into an excel spreadsheet with formulas where I can plug in how many people are going and it auto-calculates all the major ingredients and I just adjust spices accordingly.


as for the lunches, I just use what they normally do when we have this similar camp (like vacation Bible school on steroids) back at home with pizza, various sandwiches, etc. along with chips and purchased individual snacks.

Recipe for 100 should do it, I appreciate it.

King Ranch Chicken
feeds 100 (likely will have leftovers unless all are very hefty eaters)

boneless chicken (lbs) 25.0
Rotel (can) 10.0
Corn Tortillas (each) about 200
Cream of Chicken soup (10.5 oz can) 16.7
Cream of Mushroom soup (10.5 oz can) 10.0
Chicken Broth 10.5 oz can 6.7 (I use broth created from cooking the chicken with a bullion cube or two tossed in)
Onion, (chopped # cups) 10.0
grated cheddar cheese (pounds) 12.5

black pepper and onion powder (I do this by eye depending on the amount)

I would round up on the above when it is a partial container.
~+~+~
boil chicken and cut into small pieces (bite size)

slice and saute onion (butter & olive oil)

combine chicken, Rotel, cream of chicken & mushroom soup, chicken broth and sauteed onions ... bring to a boil ... mix in Black pepper and onion powder (taste to suit)

grease large casserole dish(es) (I use the large size aluminum foil pans), cover bottom with corn tortillas (but layer to completely cover bottom), add layer of boiling chicken mixture, sprinkle with cheese, repeat for next 2 layers (to be 3 layers when done).

bake for 1 hour at 300 degrees F

I don't add any salt during the process other than to the water I boil the chicken in (plus the bullion cubes) ... people can add salt if they choose after cooked.

Chalet covered a few of my suggestions. Was going to suggest a chicken & sausage gumbo, jambalaya, dirty rice, shrimp or crawfish etouffee, carne guisada, enchiladas, and your brisket & beans.

meat loaf
lasagna
boiled or BBQed sausage
If cool weather some kind of stew/soup
Sandwiches

How about chicken and dumplings easy fix for a large crowd

some more good ideas since I checked yesterday ... thanks for the input!!!

It's a bit hard since I like spicy foods but have to keep in mind how many others are so sensitive to things like that. And, I am not much of a chicken eater myself, so I tend to stray away from chicken dishes unless that is disguised LOL ... I do have a pretty killer beef enchilada recipe that's pretty simple that I could tone down on the spices and keep it pretty good. Meat loaf is another good idea that isn't too close to the others ...

I typically do about half and half on our night at the beach/river between hot dog wieners and link sausage. That's a pretty easy night other than trying to keep the food warm for the hour drive to the park.

everyone loves my spaghetti and KRC, so those almost have to stay on the menu ... and the other nights not be closely related

Keep em coming ...

Fresh vegetable beef soup/stew w cornbread. Every fresh veggie in the store goes in. Lotsa beef chunks too. It’ll feed an army and everybody likes it.

Chili
Enchiladas
Jalapeno soup


Jalapeno soup thread....

How about a Sloppy Joe bar? Beef and pork SJ, American cheese slices, buns, sliced onion, japs, pickles. Add pinto beans and sweet tea and you won’t hear much talking.

How about hamburger SOS, buttermilk biscuits and cottage fries for breakfast?

breakfast is served at the hotel ... whew, one meal I don't have to prepare for ... and I pulled off the sloppy joe idea one year by combining the leftover spaghetti sauce and chili plus some more ground meat ... thanks for that reminder!

cornbread would be great too, but don't have access to cast iron cooking pots/pans, not really any other pans come to mind either for cooking something like that either unless I were to do it in some of the disposable aluminum pans ... hmmm, that might work

Don’t do that. Cast iron is the way to go. You could cook it at home, vac pak and take it with you.

Why don’t you have cast iron?

The SOS meal is great for dinner too. SOS is just hamburger crumbled and fried, salt pepper flour, canned milk and water. One can milk one can water. I like it best on toast, but with that crowd, biscuits.

Cottage fries are tater silver dollars cooked slowly with onion in a covered skillet.

And every recipe I got uses cast iron.

Here’s a cornbread idea, corn cakes. Just add chopped onions to batter and fry up a hamburger patty sized cake. They keep well enough to get you through a meal. Good leftover too, great with pinto beans.

Not sure what kind of budget you are working on but my family will rent a food truck for large family parties. Come out to around 5-8$ a head usually and no one has to cook. Prepay for a certain number of people. Plus everyone gets to order something different. Just a thought I’d you have a reasonable budget.

That's funny!