Brandon's Wedding: Mission Accomplished!

Saturday was my brother-in-laws wedding which was in the backyard of my parents house. As stated before, as a wedding gift I offered to do the food. Originally it was going to be fifty people people to the wedding ceremony. Then they told me their reception plans to which they were going to invite an additional 50 people. For the reception they were going to have a chocolate fountain. period. After hearing this, I suggested to them they invite everyone to the wedding dinner, seeing how if I drove all the way down to Hobble Creek for a wedding and all there was to eat was a stinking chocolate fountain, I would be pretty annoyed (I know I am a food snob, but come on!) So they invited everyone. I told them they really needed to get RSVP's as it was going to be a nice sit down dinner.

I am normally a very stress free, low key person. I like to do things on the fly and just pull things together. At the thoughts of cooking for 100 people, I found myself a little stressed! I will admit, it was a little hard to sleep a couple nights before!

I bought almost all the food at Costco and spent just under 500 $ (the chocolate fountain was 400$). We started with a iceberg wedge salad with tomatoes, cucumbers, bacon and sharp cheddar cheese, and ranch dressing (that I bought at the BYU creamery their ranch dressing is the best!)

The guests ate the salads with crusty European style bread while the other food was being prepared and plated.

The entree was the London Broil ( I cooked 14 London broils, but probably only needed 12) that seasoned with steak seasoning from Costco and grilled on the BBQ ( I had two barbecues going).  Along with the London Broil I served mashed potatoes. I used all the burners on the six burner stove and boiled them. Then we riced them into a roasting pan to keep them warm (mixing them with all that makes potatoes taste good of course). Also came roasted asparagus that we roasted in three pans in the double oven. We garnished them with Parmesan cheese. To garnish the plate we added some strawberries and blueberries drizzled with Dannon La Creme yogurt (if you haven't tried it, it is so good! Its the closest thing I can find to European yogurt).

Interestingly, although I was very stressed up until the day, they day of wasn't too stressful. Not too stressful despite, my in-laws told me to expect 85 and we had about 115, and my knuckle head brother left the house a disaster I unexpectedly had to clean it up first. It wasn't stressful and here is why. . . .

I prepped anything thing I could prep the days before. I cook bacon for the salad for days. I had like 2 pounds of rendered bacon fat.

I had tons of help. I hired 8 teenager girls, and I had two friends, Lori and Kristen (you guys are the best!) and my sister Lisa's help.

Everyone was quite impressed with the meal. Heck, I was quite impressed!  A few of us plated the food in the kitchen while the others served the food. The day turned out prefect.  So if you are planning a wedding dinner, give me a call!