Entertaining,  Food,  Organization,  Our Family

From Spaghetti Sauce to Lasagna to 28 Quarts of Sauce

July 21, 2011 / 16 Comments

 I have always enjoyed cooking and planning parties, so being asked to cater a friends wedding was a treat.  Cooking for 70-100 is something I have done so frequently that I’m very comfortable with it but the latest count for this wedding reception is 260.  Oh, dear. 🙂

Heather wanted to have Italian, and when I first heard that I thought “Oh, that will be easy, no problem.”  What I had not counted on was the fact that the reception hall has only 1 oven.    Just how was I going to juggle cooking that many lasagnas in one oven? 

Fortunately, that has all been worked out – we have a friend that owns a warming cabinet that will also cook.  That will hold 12, they will be able to cook 12 at their home and I will cook 6 at a time in the little church oven. 

I decided to serve the meal family style.  Each table will have their own lasagna, salad and bread bowl.  I’ll tell you why I decided to do it that way.  First of all, I don’t like wedding where people have to wait and wait and wait for their food.  By the time they get their food, the first table that was served has finished eating.  Second is the fact that I really am not good with food presentation and the thought of having a fancy serving table or two was intimidating me.

So, we’re going with everyone being served at one time and NO fancy serving lines, thank you very much!

I’ve been up to my ears making spaghetti sauce for the lasagnas.  24 gallons as a matter of fact.  I ended up having about 9 gallons too much.  Oops!

We had a workday here at the farm and we assembled 25 lasagnas before we ran out of a few ingredients. 

Here are my beautiful helpers.  They did such a fantastic job.

lasagna for 260

I had the table set up like an assembly line.

Ladeling sauce…

preparing lasagna for 260

Preparing Ricotta filling…

preparing lasagna for 260

The Bride preparing mint tea concentrate with mint from the garden.

preparing lasagna for 260

The mother of the bride…

preparing lasagna for 260

My lovely daughter who kept things running from the kitchen.  

preparing lasagna for 260

We actually managed to place all the lasagnas in my freezers but at the end of the day, I sent them on to another house that has an empty chest freezer.  I wanted all the lasagnas in one place (not in multiple freezers) and then I would also have room for the additional lasagnas I would be making.

Goodbye, lasagnas.

preparing lasagna for 260

This morning I’m finishing up the remaining lasagnas.  Chuga-chuga-chuga-chuga… I’m getting there.

Yesterday, I canned 28 quarts of spagetti sauce (6 gallons worth).  I didn’t want to take up freezer room with all the sauce since my freezers are quite full already.  So I went the canning route.  It took a long time since I had to heat the sauce and then cook it under pressure for 70 minutes!

canning 6 gallons of spaghetti sauce

Do you like to plan events?

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