Meals For a Crowd

I should apologize to any readers I may have.  We have been on vacation this past week, and I should have notified you all that I wouldn’t be adding any blog posts during that time.

We were staying in a beach house with 16 other relatives.  So the cooking that took place was nothing fancy – just meals for a crowd.  The first night we went to a staple of ours:  taco salads, along with soft & hard taco shells, and Spanish rice.  It was an easy crowd pleaser.

We had biscuits & gravy, bacon, and scrambled eggs for breakfast one morning.  But most others just consisted of cereal, muffins, or donuts.  We also made spaghetti with meat sauce one night, served with side salads, garlic cheese bread, and had fresh baked bread with olive oil, parmesan cheese, and cracked pepper as an appetizer.  This was a fun night.  I was able to teach my 10-year old cousin-in-law how to cook.  He really soaked it up.

We sautéed onions & garlic with olive oil and cracked pepper.  Then we added ground sirloin, and leftover sausage meat from the biscuits & gravy.  We added Italian seasoning, red wine, and a store bought pasta sauce and let it simmer.  He really enjoyed it.  Then we sliced open a loaf of Italian bread and coated it with olive oil, parmesan cheese, cracked pepper, and Italian seasoning and threw that in the oven.

Here’s a quick aside:  I told my wife I was going to sneak whole wheat pasta in on everyone.  This was caught by grandpa, to which he said “you’ve got to be sh*tting me!”  Then Uncle Doug said there was no way his daughter would eat it.  She’s very picky and she would notice right away because she only eats her spaghetti with butter & parmesan cheese.  Well, everyone ate every single strand of pasta.  Not one complaint!  And we got several compliments on how good everything tasted.  So give whole wheat pasta a shot if you have never tried it before.