Feeding a group of people?

Question

I told my boyfriend that I would help feed his club this spring at an outing. We planned to do baked potatoes, steaks, corn and salad. What is the most cost effective way to do the meat? Buy a whole slab of rib-eyes and have them cut or cook it like a rib roast whole and then cut it. I want cost effective and time saving. We're not going to be able to stand over a grill all day because other things that we have to do. Thanks for all suggestions.

Answer 1

Sounds like you made the choice already, and a wise one at that.
With all the added "Fixings" you can get a pretty close guess on how much "Meat" you need, 1/4lb carved beef is more then enough unless the Club is nothing but football players. One trick I've learned also is have rolls ready and available before serving time, that's self-explanatory, good luck

Answer 2

I've done a roast like this before and it was a huge hit! Make it the day before on the BBQ with smoking chips or charcoal pellets. When cooled, cut it off the bone and slice it thinly. Mix up a couple pkgs of onion soup mix, toss it with the meat in a metal roaster and refridgerate overnight. Throw on the BBQ the next day to heat while your doing your corn and potatoes, serve with buns (beef on a bun). I make it for my students too and it is their favorite meal! You can get away with a cheaper cut of meat too doing it like this if expense wil be a factor. The more you can prepare in advance for a large crowd the better. Doing the meat ahead of time will be a HUGE time saver! I hope it goes fabulously!

Answer 3

Cooking For A Crowd
How Much Food is Enough?
Recipes for Quantity Cooking

How Much Food is Enough?

For many people, one of the toughest challenges when planning a party is trying to decide how much food they will need to serve. I'd love to say that there is a fool-proof formula to solve this dilemma but, in the end, the answer to this question involves more art than science.

Many factors come into play when you make your plans including the length of your party, the type of food you'll be serving, the composition of men, women and children in your group, as well as the richness of the food you plan to serve. The time of your party is also very important. An after-dinner cocktail party requires much less food than an all-afternoon barbecue.

Fortunately, there are a number of general principles you can follow when planning your menu and recipes. Begin by following these "rules of thumb" and write down your initial thoughts. Then look at the big picture several times over a period of a few days to make adjustments to your plan.

Always round up your estimates, don't round them down.

Anticipate which food selections will be most popular and serve more of them than the general portion guidelines suggest. For example, shellfish appetizers are always popular, so serve as much as your budget allows.

The more choices you offer, the smaller your calculation of individual portion size should be.

That said, you can assume your guests will taste everything on a buffet, but the tastes will be small. However, overall consumption per individual will be greater than if there were fewer choices.

Add "bulk" items to your menu. For a sit-down dinner have plenty of bread to fill in any hungry spots. When hosting a cocktail party, nuts, olives, pretzels, etc. provide a little extra security that you'll have enough for all but requires no extra work.

Here are basic guidelines for individual serving sizes of various foods. Multiply these estimates by your number of guests and, once again, always round up your estimates.

Portion Size Per Person

Hors D'oeuvres

6 bites when preceeding a meal.
4 - 6 bites per hour when hors d'oeuvres are the meal.
The longer your party and the larger your guest list, the greater the number of selections you should offer.

The Main Meal

Poultry, meat or fish - 6 ounces when you have one main dish, 8 ounces when you offer two or more main courses.
Rice, grains - 1.5 ounces as a side dish, 2 ounces in a main dish such as risotto.
Potatoes - 5 ounces
Vegetables - 4 ounces
Beans - 2 ounces as a side dish
Pasta - 2 ounces for a side dish, 3 ounces for a first course, 4 ounces for a main dish
Green Salad - 1 ounce undressed weight

Desserts

1 slice cake, tart or pastry
4 ounces creamy dessert such as pudding or mousse
5 ounces ice cream
When serving two of the above, reduce each by a little less than half.

A Few Other Menu Planning Tips

Don't repeat a main ingredient. For example, don't serve a shrimp appetizer and shrimp main dish.

Consider the colors of the food that will be served together and make sure there is variety.

Offer both hot and cold foods on a buffet.

Mix textures such as a crisp potato galette served with a soft vegetable puree as side dishes.

Answer 4

You can do burgers or hotdogs which are always cheap. But the crowd pleaser would be ribs. In some places you can get ribs cheap. Do some price checking (babyback ribs are my favorite for cookouts)

Now, you could do chopped beef bakers which is brisket chopped up and stuffed into the baked potatoes with all the toppings. They have pre-made briskets that you can heat up on the grill and baste with bbq sauce. It's real easy. and cheap(where I live anyways). You can buy the brisket meat pre-packaged by Sander's at Walmart in the meat section and it's already cooked.

Answer 5

Just buy steak and grill it. I don't see what the issue is here. Buy a tenderloin, cut it, grill it. It takes 5 minutes to grill a steak. If you cook a steak "all day" no one is going to eat it. Salad takes less than a minute to make. Baked Potatos go in the oven, they cook themselves. Corn boils. This isn't life altering in any way.

Answer 6

I think stage has the right idea.

No matter how you slice it ribeyes are going to be crazy expensive for a group.

Plus with the roast idea you wouldn't have to babysit it.

Answer 7

That is going to be a very expensive meal I vote for lasanga you can premake it and pop it in the oven to bake

Answer 8

no, spaghetti. Ribeye's cost like $7 for each one.

Maybe try hamburgers and tater chips.