Soups for large group
Vic

09/12/05 		Making large batches of soup. I am serving three soups made from scratch. Chicken Noodle, Chili, Broccoli Cheese. How do I judge amounts for 110 adults? They can come back 2-3 times.Most of them come back twice so it is really over 250 servings of soup?
ellen

09/13/05 		2 cups or 16 ounces each is 220 cups or 13-14 gallons. They will probably eat less, 9 gallons total would be more usual, but having three choices means you need more; if it is mostly men, the chili and chicken soups will go, while ladies would eat more broccoli and chicken.

If you use an 18 quart Nesco roaster for each type, each will hold 4 gallons, you could start with one of each. Just remember the food safety rule to discard after 2 hours on the serving line and DO NOT pour new soup into the soup that has been standing, if you do, the added soup must be scalding hot and you still count the two hours from when the first soup went in. Also, you need to set the roasters at 200-250 or if you use large crockpots set them on high.

Please read the chili page about sides and garnishes.

If this is ladies and you have an oven, small glazed scones and muffins are a wonderful surpriise with the soup.

Gloria
palapa31@hotmail.com
10/19/05 		I want to make a Harvest Stew with pork and winter vegetables for about 75 Any helpful hints?
ellen

10/19/05 		4 people per 1 pound lean boneless pork, 8 ounces assorted veggies per person, and use good stock for the sauce.
anita
anita1948_04276@yahoo.com
10/26/05 		I am making a beef stew and need the amount of beef stew meat for aprox. 90 people
thank you
ellen

10/26/05 		Like the pork stew, 1 pound lean boneless per 4 persons if there are lots of nice veggies and gravy. If the meat is not lean, 3 per pound. If you want to be very meaty, 2 per pound, but that is a LOT of meat in your stew. TYou can use up to a pound of veggies per person. and as above, use a good stock or broth for the gravy.
David Langdon
03/04/06 		We have a wedding reception coming up soon for my son. Him and his bride want to serve soup and sandwiches. They also plan cheese and meat trays. Got any ideas. We would like to serve Stuffed Pepper, and Chicken Tortilla soup got and recipes for 120 guests???
ellen
03/05/06 		Hmm. Nice, practical couple. If you look hard you can probably find some attractive china or glass mugs to use for serving and that would simplify the serving and eating of the soup A LOT. If there is time to decorate them, you could even offer ziplock plastic bags for people to take them home as favors.

Now on to the actual soups. I would use the 8 ounce serving rather than the 12 ounce I usually allow for, and with two equally popular I would make 4 1/2 gallons of each. Very small pieces of stuff, or even purees, as chunks are difficult in party clothes.

The best soup base I have found in regular grocery stores is called "better than bouillon". One jar makes nearly 10 quarts, so 2 jars would make a good base for each recipe.

The only difficulty with the chicken tortilla soup is the crispy tortilla strips, grated cheese, avocado slices and dab of sour cream to be added to garnish each serving; you might consider one spicy and one non spicy soup, and both simpler. I have soup recipes throughout the site, and there are some very good quantity soup sites on the net.

The sandwiches, quantities and recipes, are covered in depth on my sandwich event page. Be sure to make this self serve. Making the sandwiches up ahead is a lot of trouble, it is hard to keep them fresh, and they are wasted if not used. With platters and added baskets of good rolls and breads, you can put them out just as needed and freeze what is not used for later.