The purpose of these next few blogposts is to offer options to anyone who might have to cook for a large group of people. Hopefully, you can take a few recipes and ideas from our menu plan to help you organize your meals! My sister and I planned a week of meals to prepare for our family while we were away on vacation with them.
Here is a link to the Menu for the week in an Excel Spreadsheet and also the Grocery Store list. You can simply copy and paste the menu and the shopping list into your own spreadsheet and edit as necessary.
MONDAY
Bacon and Egg Casserole
I doubled this recipe to make enough for everyone and baked it in two pans!
Ingredients
18 eggs
1 lb bacon from Costco
1 large pepper (any color)
1 onion
1 cup milk or heavy cream
1 tablespoon butter
Salt and Pepper
Directions
1) Fry up the bacon and cut into bite-size pieces.
2) Dice the pepper and onion.
3) Heat a little of the bacon grease and some butter in a pan and cook the onion and pepper for about 5 minutes (or until translucent).
4) Whisk the eggs and milk (or cream) together. Pour in the bacon, pepper and onion. Pour into a 9 x 13 pan (we used deep 9 x 11 pans from Costco).
5) Top with foil loosely and bake at 400 degrees for an hour.
Okay - the recipe was so easy that this kid made it. But don't underestimate his skills - yesterday he made homemade butter for our biscuits. He is amazing.
TUESDAY
I found the recipe for this from Erica Lea at Cooking for Seven. I took a risk by making it for the first time for 22 hungry people without having taken it for a test-run. It was soooo delicious!
Simple Baked Oatmeal (Link to original recipe here)
(More like Crazy Delicious and Extravagant Oatmeal-in-a-Pan!!! We doubled this recipe and made two large pans for 22!)
Ingredients
1 cup butter (2 sticks)6 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1 1/2 cups maple sugar, maple syrup, or brown sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons salt
2 cups whole milk
4 eggs, slightly beaten
4 teaspoons vanilla extract
Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 350° F. Place the butter in a casserole dish (9x13) and place in the oven to melt. Make sure to keep an eye on the butter, or it will burn!
2) In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the oats, maple sugar, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl, mix together the milk, eggs, and vanilla.
3) Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix well, making sure all of the oats are moistened.
4) Remove the pan with the butter from the oven. Pour the oats mixture into the pan and stir, mixing until most of the butter in incorporated, but leaving some unmixed at the edges & bottom of the pan.
5) Bake in the preheated oven until the edges are golden, about 30 minutes. Serve hot with cream.
Slice up some fruit
And serve!
(Ignore the grumpy teens. They were woken up before noon.)
We doubled the recipe and made two of these. It was about this point in our vacation that everyone started calling me Pa.ula De.en!! I would like to state for the record that if I had woken up on time and made this breakfast, I NEVER would have used 2 sticks of butter per pan. It just so happened that I was up all night with crazy children and my saint of a husband got up and just started breakfast for me. He looked at the recipe I had printed out and just got to work! He isn't scared of 2 sticks of butter. He's Texan :)
WEDNESDAY
I made the two of the Egg Casseroles from Monday (minus the bacon) and my little brother whipped up a double recipe of this amazing concoction:
Cheesy Ham and Hash Brown Casserole (Link to original recipe here)
Ingredients
1 (32 ounce) package frozen hash brown potatoes
8 ounces cooked, diced ham
2 (10.75 ounce) cans condensed cream of potato soup
1 (16 ounce) container sour cream
2 cups shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
1 1/2 cups grated Parmesan cheese
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x13 inch baking dish.
2. In a large bowl, mix hash browns, ham, cream of potato soup, sour cream, and Cheddar cheese. Spread evenly into prepared dish. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.
3. Bake 1 hour in the preheated oven, or until bubbly and lightly brown. Serve immediately.
If none of us had a heart attack at this point, it was only because we served a little scotch with each breakfast. Scotch unclogs arteries. Betcha didn't know that!
Oh and we served a fruit salad as well :)
(He only works for tips...)
THURSDAY
French Toast Casserole (Recipe adapted from here)
Syrup is already liquid sugar. I cut a lot of the sugar from the original recipe since we would be topping it with syrup! I also cut the butter just to prove that I am not P.aula Dee.n!!
Ingredients
About 25 slices of bread diced
8 eggs
3 cups milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly butter an 9x13 casserole dish.
2. Line bottom of pan with bread cubes. In a large bowl, beat together eggs, milk, salt and vanilla. Pour egg mixture over bread. Let stand for at least 10 minutes.
3. Optional: Combine remaining 2 tablespoons sugar with 1 teaspoon cinnamon and sprinkle over the top.
4. Bake in preheated oven about 45 to 50 minutes, until top is golden.
My casserole dishes were so deep and huge it took 90 minutes to cook through! We put foil over top at the end to cook it faster and that worked. Next time I will just put foil on from the beginning and cook for an hour. Then take the foil off and cook for a little longer if needed.
FRIDAY
Giant Oatmeal Breakfast Cookies (Link to original recipe here)
These have become a staple in my house. We absolutely LOVE them!! I found them at Heavenly Homemakers and I make them about once a month. I always double the recipe to make about 60 cookies and freeze them so we can have them whenever we want.
Ingredients
1 cup butter, melted
¾ cup honey
2 eggs
1 t. salt
1 t. cinnamon
1 t. baking soda
1 t. vanilla
1 T. kefir
½ scant cup raw milk
½ scant cup raw milk
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups whole rolled oats
1 cup raisins or homemade chocolate chips
Directions
Pour 1 tablespoon kefir in a measuring cup. Fill the cup with milk to reach the 1/2 cup line.
Mix butter, honey, buttermilk, flour and oats together and cover with a cloth. Let them sit out overnight on the counter to soak.
In the morning, mix in the eggs, salt, cinnamon, soda, and vanilla. Stir in flour and oats. Fold in raisins or chocolate chips. Scoop heaping tablespoons of dough onto a cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes. Allow cookies to cool 3-4 minutes on cookie sheet before removing cookies to cool on a wire rack. (Makes about 25-30 cookies.)
Mix butter, honey, buttermilk, flour and oats together and cover with a cloth. Let them sit out overnight on the counter to soak.
In the morning, mix in the eggs, salt, cinnamon, soda, and vanilla. Stir in flour and oats. Fold in raisins or chocolate chips. Scoop heaping tablespoons of dough onto a cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes. Allow cookies to cool 3-4 minutes on cookie sheet before removing cookies to cool on a wire rack. (Makes about 25-30 cookies.)
This was the only breakfast I prepared beforehand! Everything else was prepared when we woke up. It took maybe 15 minutes of prep each morning to get the food in the pans and then we just bake it in the oven!
Stay tuned for the next posts:
Snacks
The Baked oatmeal sounds great. I would have liked to know everything you put in your fruit salad... Did you use something to keep the bananas from browning?
ReplyDeleteWe kept the fruit salad super simple with just bananas, strawberries, and blueberries. We bought the bananas at Costco which is notorious for selling green bananas. So they were perfect to eat by the time this day rolled around!
DeleteWe kept the fruit salad super simple with just bananas, strawberries, and blueberries. We bought the bananas at Costco which is notorious for selling green bananas. So they were perfect to eat by the time this day rolled around!
DeleteI'm not much of a cook and really not sure what is "scant cup of raw milk"???
Delete