Chubby Bunny

Catering a Reception

I’m in this club at school that does concerts and I always feel that food and music are very much correlated. After a concert, we always have a reception for our guests.
So what do you do when the club only has a limited amount of money and you have a number, n, mouths to feed, where n > 0 and n –> infinity? I haven’t figured out the function f(n) yet, but I’ll tell you what I ultimately resolved.

I brought in my secret weapon.
That’s right.

I got Chez Mom involved. And we catered the event for 40-60 people.
All in my tiny kitchen.

The hardest part was planning the menu. What troubled me about ordering out is that you don’t really know where the food has been and you’re not sure of how they really prepared it. When you have students with food allergens or, in general, want the most healthful alternative possible for people, I saw the most efficient (stressful, and fun) way would be to just prepare the food ourselves.

There was much prep work done for shredding, by knife, veggies.

This would go with the rice noodles later.
And we needed another easy crowd pleaser and decided on fried rice.

Always remember: you can’t make good fried rice from freshly cooked rice. Stale rice is usually the best to use. This has to do with the way the starches work. If we use freshly cooked rice, the starches haven’t really set in the rice, and stir frying it could be a mushy mess if we aren’t careful.

I’m not too big of a fan of rice anymore after seeing how nutrient dense it isn’t. But it’s a staple in my culture as well as many other Asian cultures out there, so to meet other nutrient needs, the key is to find other foods that are more dense in the vitamins and minerals we need.

But I digress.

We made potstickers. :O
Mom wrapped these. And I later helped brown them.

If you ever decide to make your own dumplings, do not be intimidated. After deciding on an appropriate filling to go with wonton or dumpling wrappers, I think the next challenge is getting them pleated and sealed. Some suggestions? Try different styles, though pleating often works since you can go a little at a time and press as you go. Also, it may help to wet the edges so that the dough will adhere better.

And since finger food is fun, we also made a ridiculous quantity of egg rolls.

There were vegetarian and not tooooo greasy. Notice how they don’t have the bubbly, puffy effect that you might get at a restaurant. This is because the oil we use was probably not nearly as hot as a commercial deep fryer. This is more fortunate, since it means that we might not have oxidized the oil as much. Yes, oxidized oils aren’t good for you. This is especially important when you use heart-healthy oils like olive, canola or safflower, since it can take away the benefits of those oils.

What else is fun?

Food on a stick is always a fun food to eat. I “taught” my Mom all about these, since I eat out more than she has. I’ve had this once when I was out with Mike and friends at Penang. Satay chicken skewers were fun to watch people eat too. It’s convenient to have food likes these at any event, because you don’t have to sit down and eat, and it doesn’t leave a big mess.

Then I whipped out two batches of brownies and dusted with powdered sugar. (What’s a party without any dessert?) No pictures were taken of those. Well, actually I remember taking pictures but I seem to have deleted them. Or I just can’t find them.

All in all, it was a good turn out and all the food disappeared by the end of the event. Oh, except for a few egg rolls. I remember eating the leftovers for a few days after…