I am making a pasta lentil salad for 400. (The rest of the meal will be a hot roast beef sandwich, mix veg, and fruit).

I am using your Pasta Salad recipe as a base. I am planning to use 22lbs of pasta and 5 lbs of red lentils. Do you think that's ok? Also, roughly how much celery in pounds/heads would I need? I was thinking 4 celery heads would be enough.

I think that pasta salads benefit from the lightening they receive with celery and other veggies, especially if they also have lentils/ beans, so I would probably use a LOT more veggies: 12 to 16 heads of flat leaf parsley, leaves only, chopped fine; 12 to 15 pounds bell peppers, assorted colors, chopped; about 15-20 pounds (no kidding) of celery. Especially since there is not another raw salad.

For 400, I would use at least 24 pounds, up to 30 pounds of pasta, and 5 pounds of lentils will only cook up to about 30 cups, which is about 2 tablespoons per person. Is that what you had in mind?

Thanks for the information on the veggies; that helps a lot.