Computer Club Dinner

Computer Club Dinner Recipe and shopping tips as of 2006
Bob Rogers brogere644@yahoo.com

Meat Loaf

14# seasoned pork, frozen rolls; 4 should be hot seasoned; best place to buy = Save A Lot
44# 80% hamburger meat; negotiate with Sunflower/ Save A Lot etc. Will probably be better than Costco, but check there also.
(we increased all the amounts because we ended up serving about 210 meals, and we wanted to make big servings.)
3 doz. Eggs
2 large loaves white bread cut up (cheap white bread)
1 gallon whole milk
16 large yellow onions chopped in LARGE pieces ( ½ inch; do not dice small)
1 large bottle worchestershire sauce
Other spices:
9 Tablespoons Lawrys Seasoning Salt
3 mounded tablespoons: poultry seasoning, dry mustard, black pepper, garlic salt: mix dry spices together and divide by 4

Divide the rest of the ingredients by 4 and mix each large bowl/pan.. Prepare six roasters with water in the bottom; test each one. Divide the meat loaf mix between six large oval pans from Frys, bend the slightly to fit the roasters. Pat the mixture firmly and spread ketchup on top before cooking.

Keep some water in the bottom of each roaster (outside the meat mixture!) and turn the heat all the way up. Cook until thermometer shows 160 degrees then turn to low until time to cut and serve. The roasters vary in cooking time, so check often. Leave at least 2 hours for cooking. Don’t over cook! Keep the lids on; essential for moistness.

Potatoes

60# red potatoes, cut in ¼ or 1/6 (some like them smaller)
Sprinkle with salt (we used seasoned salt) pepper, dry parsley and vegetable oil. (we used a full litre of oil on 8 pans of potatoes

Cook in HOT oven 500 degrees. (at 450 it took more than two hours in 06!) Stir at least once and rotate between ovens as the right one is hotter. We used 8 pans to fill both ovens.

Corn

9 #10 cans of corn
2 pounds of butter
3 bunches green onions chopped (use most of the green)
5 peppers, mix of red, orange and green, or just red
Saute green onions and pepper until soft and divide between two large aluminum pans of corn and butter: warm slowly over an hour or so.

Salad

8 large bags of Dole salad mix from Costco (25 servings from each bag)
4 bottles Vidalia honey Mustard dressing (unless you can find something else on sale! We used hand me down ranch and it was popular) Pre mix dressing and put on table; takes too long for people to put on themselves at end of serving line)

Cake

5 filled slab cakes from Costco. Get the ones that are scored in the icing for 48 pieces per cake (each has a rose!) Get as many combinations of cake color, icing and filling as possible; people love the ritual of trading cakes at the tables! (HINT: tear down the sides of the box and use dental floss to cut the cake; less messy and quicker than with knives; downside is no knives to lick!

Rolls and Butter

Bags of rolls for 200 + Costco has them, but I’m not sure you couldn’t negotiate better at one of the other in-store bakeries. We divided up six pounds of butter to put on the tables and most of it was eaten.

Things We Learned

I pre-shopped before we set the price for the dinner. This made final shopping the day before the dinner much easier and gave confidence we would make the profit we wanted.

Costco is great for most of the stuff, but not everything.

Costco: salad, corn, potatoes, small dinner plates, square pans for potatoes, catsup, salad/ cake plates, butter, rolls and cakes.

Sunflower: ground beef, yellow onions, green onions, red, orange and green peppers.

Frys: oil, bread, all the spices, meat loaf oval baking pans.

Save A Lot: frozen spiced pork. (This was a big savings, and good. I would suggest checking with them for the hamburger also)

We barely got things cooked again! Leave plenty of time and start the meatloaf and potatoes around 2pm if dinner time is 5pm. The potatoes can be covered with foil if they have to wait in a warm oven for awhile, and the meatloaf will be fine if left covered on low.

Outside the kitchen:

What a crew! Things went very quickly and smoothly during seating, and the serving was the quickest anybody had ever seen! Great job.

Two thoughts: we forgot to take care of the disabled. We don’t want walkers in the line, and not everyone has a helper. Maybe we could designate helpers to serve them first. Also it would be nice for groups to be able to sit together if it is not too difficult to arrange.

Thanks to everyone for stepping forward to help out. I don’t know how much fun you had out front, but we had a blast in the kitchen.

Oh, and we made good money too!