Recipes needed for a family gathering

January 26, 2006 9:43 AM

I'm planning a menu for a family do (12 to 20 people expected) and I need three specific types of recipes.

1. A non-alcoholic fruit punch recipe. My family will happily drink gingerale and fruit juice dumped in bowl, but I'm hoping to come up with something more distinctive.

2. A recipe for sourdough biscuits. Oddly, I don't seem to have one in any of my cookbooks.

3. A non-pork meat dish (my other meat dish is a pork roast). Something relatively inexpensive, and that doesn't involve meatballs, please.

posted by orange swan to food & drink (18 comments total)

For the meat dish, do you need something that cooks in the oven, or on the range (that is, do you need to plan the cooking around the pork)? Any other constraints or preferences? That's kind of a wide-open question.
posted by occhiblu at 9:45 AM on January 26, 2006

I have a very good and very easy lamb stew recipe if that sort of thing interests you. I'm sure the lamb can be replaced with beef for cost constraints if necessary. Note: it does contain one bottle of beer, so if alcohol is completely off limits, then you won't want this. (But it's really good...)
posted by boomchicka at 9:55 AM on January 26, 2006

I'd throw a chicken or two in an oven bag. Put in a few veggies like onions and carrots. The bag box should have approximate time for cooking. Cheap, easy, and tasty.
posted by 6550 at 9:55 AM on January 26, 2006

A super-easy delicious beef recipe for the crockpot:

Better Than Arby's Roast Beef
posted by SuperSquirrel at 10:04 AM on January 26, 2006

What about roasted chickens? Just smear the outside & insides with lemon juice, olive oil, and salt and roast in a 400 degree F oven for 30-45 min (until thoroughly cooked).
posted by catfood at 10:08 AM on January 26, 2006

-6 veal shanks
-1 1/2 cups of Brandy
-2 cups of clear beef stock (don't use powdered crap, make it yourself)
-three carrots
-three stalks of celery
-one large onion
-red pepper
-3 cloves of garlic
-one can of tomato paste
-thyme
-basil
-olive oil
-butter
-gremolata (parsely, lemon zest, garlic, lemon juice, salt, all chopped and blended)

Sear the veal shanks over high heat on all sides until brown in the butter and olive oil (8-10 minutes per batch)
Remove them to a plate.
Brown the onions for a while over moderate heat.
Dice the carrots, red pepper and celery. Add to the onions and cook until soft.
Remove the vegetables to a bowl.
Deglaze the pan and make a sauce out of the beef stock and brandy.
Arrange the shanks in a layer on the bottom of the pan.
Throw in the crushed garlic cloves, some thyme and a basil leaf or two.
Pour the vegetables over.
Braise in oven for 1 1/2 - 2 hours.
posted by jon_kill at 10:12 AM on January 26, 2006

I've not used this recipe, but it's pretty standard as at least one method of making sourdough biscuits (in which the starter is not used as a leavener at all, but as an aide to flavor and an acid to potentiate the soda). I would use maybe a 150% hydration starter with this recipe (ie 1.5 pounds water to 1 pound flour in the refreshment), and then adjust the hydration of the dough from there. You'd want a pretty wet dough.

I can post some more recipes if you'd rather from books I have at home later.

Aunt Cora's Sourdough Biscuits

* 1 1/2 cups Sifted Unbleached Flour
* 2 tablespoons Sugar
* 3 teaspoons Baking Powder
* 1/4 cup Shortening -- Melted
* 1 teaspoon Salt
* 1 1/2 cups Sourdough Starter
* 1 1/2 teaspoons Baking Soda *


* More Baking Soda may be added if the starter if very sour. Place flour in bowl, add starter in a well, then add melted shortening and dry ingredients. Mix lightly and turn out onto a lightly floured board and knead until the consistency of bread dough, or of a satiny finish. Pat or roll out dough to 1/2 inch thickness, cut and put on a greased pan. Coat all sides of biscuits with melted butter. Let rise over boiling water for 1/2 hour. Bake at 425 degrees F for 15 to 20 minutes.
posted by OmieWise at 10:31 AM on January 26, 2006

Duck breasts - fast and easy, goes well with lots of easy sauces.

Split a duck breast into two halves - this will serve four to five people on a large breast. Crosss cut the skin side and salt/pepper. Lay skin side flat on a HOT pan for six minutes, pouring off the huge amounts of fat occaisionally. Flip onto other side for four minutes. Place into hot oven for seven minutes (if you like your duck juicy/medium-rare inside. More for medium, drywer meat.) Slice breasts and serve with a sauce.

Sauce: either reduce some stock and add orange juice, or better yet, saute sweet plums or cherries in butter and add stock.
posted by zaelic at 10:32 AM on January 26, 2006

I know it might be mostly just fruit juice and ginger ale but I made this for a family to-do just last night:

* 4 cups cranberry juice
* 4 cups pineapple juice
* 1 1/2 cups white sugar
* 1 teaspoon almond extract
* 1 liter ginger ale soda

And it went over pretty well.
I also dumped some frozen whole strawberries into a bundt pan, filled with water and froze overnight for an ice ring to float in it.

I also saw a recipe for "Angel Punch" that I remember being mentioned in this thread. It sounds really good and I'm going to make for the next shindig that calls for punch.
posted by krix at 10:39 AM on January 26, 2006

I find a mix of 3 parts cranberry juice (look for stuff with a fairly high percentage of actual, you know, juice), one part pomegranate juice and 4 parts seven up makes for a good fruit punch (seven up rather than sprite because it's sweeter and both cran and pom juices are quite tart, if you want to use sparkling water, add sugar). If you can still find an actual pomegranate, pull the seeds out and float them in it, it'll look cute.
posted by jacquilynne at 11:33 AM on January 26, 2006

do you need to plan the cooking around the pork?

Not really. I have a full-size oven with two racks and my little roasting pan containing the pork roast will just take up half of one rack. It can be stove top, oven, crockpot or microwave cooked.
posted by orange swan at 11:42 AM on January 26, 2006

Alcohol is kind of iffy. I have one sister-in-law who is very anti-alcohol, and her four children will also be there. No one in my family cooks with alcohol, so I'm not sure how she'd react to something baked or cooked with alcohol. I am serving an Irish whiskey cake for dessert (with ice cream, mini-tarts and Easter chocolate, so she doesn't have to have any cake if she doesn't want any), but perhaps I shouldn't push it.
posted by orange swan at 11:52 AM on January 26, 2006

You can replace the beer in a recipe with Malta. It's made by Goya and others if you can find it. Usually in the "Hispanic" groceries or sections of groceries.
Non-alcoholic, but made from barley and hops.
May leave your end product sweeter than beer, adjust sugar.
posted by Seamus at 12:22 PM on January 26, 2006

If cost is a huge concern, I'd go with chicken. Marcella Hazan has a couple great easy recipes. My favorite is putting fresh rosemary, a couple peeled garlic cloves, and salt & pepper inside the cavity, rubbing the outside with some olive oil and throwing some more rosemary on it, put the whole thing in a roasting pan with a bit more olive oil and bake at 375 for about an hour, basting every 15 minutes. After the roast is done, keep a small bit of the fat and pan juices in the pan, add a little bit of water and boil it down a bit to pour over the chicken.
posted by occhiblu at 1:09 PM on January 26, 2006

Oh, this is for Easter dinner? Then that lamb stew probably isn't the right choice anyway; it's very heavy and wintry.
posted by boomchicka at 1:15 PM on January 26, 2006

It's for a buffet-style Easter lunch, yes. I guess I should have mentioned that. Recipes do have seasons, somehow.
posted by orange swan at 6:04 PM on January 26, 2006

I invite you take a look at RecipeZaar
posted by LadyBonita at 8:06 PM on January 26, 2006

I like gingerale with chopped fresh mint and lime or lemon juice. I think it's perversely called a speak easy. Anyway, it's absolutely delicious.
posted by gesamtkunstwerk at 8:26 PM on January 26, 2006