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Cook Talk

graduation banquet for 90
Bethany
05/23/13
We are planning a graduation banquet at our church for 90. It will be the high school graduates plus family - mostly teens and adults. We are planning on italian and it will be a plated served meal. We are doing a meat lasagna, spinach lasagna, and a chicken alfredo penne. I am planning on using full pans. How much of each entree should we plan for? We are doing salad on the side and it looks like I need 12 pounds of salad mix. if we do breadsticks, how many should we allow per person? We are doing mini cheesecakes for dessert - how many should I allow per person?
ellen
05/24/13
A full pan of lasagna serves 20, while a full pan of penne serves only about 15. This is a nice selection of choices, but it is tough to get a close estimate with the three similar choices.

meat lasagna, 3 full pans
spinach lasagna, 2 full pans
chicken alfredo penne, 3 full pans.

Salad looks fine.

If this were my menu I would add steamed broccoli or roasted veggies- about 20 pounds

Bread- you want about 12 pounds, 1 1/2 to 2 ounces per person. A little extra never hurts with teens. Olive oil dipping oil on the tables would be a nice touch- about 1 tablespoon per person

Mini cheesecakes vary in size. If they are quite small, do 3 per person, if a bit larger, 2 is OK. I order 23 pounds of cheesecake for 100 people.

Bethany
05/24/13
I did forget to mention that this is a lunch meal.

Is there an easy way to figure out how to take a standard recipe and convert it to full pans? are full pans double a 9x13?

ellen
05/24/13
It may be lunch, but these are teens eating Italian food...

Pan volumes are detailed here:

www.ellenskitchen.com/cooktalk/pansmeas.html
the standard catering full pan is 12x20x2. Deeper than a 9x13, holds 2 1/2 to 3 times as much.

bethany
05/24/13
we have shallow pans and deeper pans - we normally use the deeper pans to hold water in the chafer sets ups and the shallow pans for food. I guess I need to measure them so I know how big they are..

Also, I know that you said that it was hard to come up with amounts because everything was similar - should we change up one of the dishes - I was trying to do a meat option, a veggie option and an inbetween option.

ellen
05/24/13
The deeper pans fro water is exactly right.

One alternative is to have a white and a red lasagna, with an eggplant or roasted veg casserole, most people would have a veg service but vegetarians use the veg dish as an entree. If you like that Idea, I can post you the figures.

Bethany
05/24/13
thanks for the help.. I think I will run with what I have... the spinach option will use alfredo sauce.... so a red option and two alfredo options..
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