The best one is a French spaghetti bolognaise. Make it fancy by serving in a big stifry pan topped with black olives, tomato and herbs and make a garlic sharing loaf by slicing a loaf pushing in garlic butter and baking!!
thanks for all of the ideas. Its a pretty casual family get together that I have some people bringing items i just needed to make the main dish. happy New Year to all!
Assuming plates will be on laps? Disposable plates and cutlery?
Chili - one beef, one vegetarian - and a crock pot of rice. I'd skip a green lettuce salad because it's sloppy to eat from a plate in your lap with plastic cutlery. Alternatively, salad could be something chunkier and easy to spear on a fork, like a cucumber, tomato and chickpea salad in a vinaigrette. (If cherry tomatoes, be sure to halve them to make them easy to stab with a fork. :-) Dessert for that many people ideally is finger food - brownies, cookies, mini tarts or mini cheesecakes, etc.
For that many people, it helps to have "signage" at each dish so you don't keep getting the same questions over and over. Just get heavy card paper stock or blank index cards, fold in half to make a "tent" that stands up on its own, handwrite the description.
I was going to suggest the same as Pegeen - chili - but with a variation. Make a great bean chili for all, then serve it with a bar if toppings, like an ice cream bar. Include meat of your choice among the garnishes, along with the usual suspects: grated cheese, green onion, cilantro, more chilies, sour cream, roasted garlic, et al.
A pasta bar..make an Italian meat sauce, a chili, an Alfredo and some sautéed vegetables to go over the pasta. Then cook a variety of pastas and add various toppings like sour cream, grated cheese etc for enhancement. Make sure you have olive oil to enhance.
For a buffet event: Swedish meatballs and noodles served separately.
A Vegetarian Spinach Lasagna. Some type of Chicken dish. Maybe even a casserole type thing. That'll cover the three bases of the more common diet restrictions you'll encounter.
Pernil, a Puerto Rican pork shoulder, if your patients eat meat. You should get the pork shoulder ASAP so it can marinate (olive oil, garlic, oregano , salt and pepper). Then you just put it in the oven. On the side, rice w pigeon peas, a cucumber salad and a light fruity dessert. If your guests are veg, black bean chili w brown rice. Lots of fixing a for the chili, scallions, cilantro, mild cheese, chiles, chhhopped red onion. Beer and sorbet(bought) for dessert. Of course, I don't know if either of these suit, but roasted meat or chicken or a soup or stew theme are both easy and inexpensive, although 30 people is still a lot!
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Chili - one beef, one vegetarian - and a crock pot of rice. I'd skip a green lettuce salad because it's sloppy to eat from a plate in your lap with plastic cutlery. Alternatively, salad could be something chunkier and easy to spear on a fork, like a cucumber, tomato and chickpea salad in a vinaigrette. (If cherry tomatoes, be sure to halve them to make them easy to stab with a fork. :-) Dessert for that many people ideally is finger food - brownies, cookies, mini tarts or mini cheesecakes, etc.
For that many people, it helps to have "signage" at each dish so you don't keep getting the same questions over and over. Just get heavy card paper stock or blank index cards, fold in half to make a "tent" that stands up on its own, handwrite the description.
Have a great party!
A Vegetarian Spinach Lasagna. Some type of Chicken dish. Maybe even a casserole type thing. That'll cover the three bases of the more common diet restrictions you'll encounter.