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What is a Good Recipe to Cook For a Large Group?

Q:

 I am cooking for a local homeless group and would love some recipes for large roasting pans which won’t break my bank.  We are a group of 10 who use our own resources to provide, but I’m not skilled at cooking for large numbers with potatoes.  If you can share some recipes, I would be very grateful. Would the Turkey Shepherd Pie travel well and hold the heat?  Can I just increase the amounts by 4X?

A:

The Turkey Shepherd Pie will travel well and so will most of the casserole recipes we have on our web site. In general, you can increase the ingredients in the recipe by four, the usual exception are the spices. Quite often these are rounded up in writing a recipe so when you multiply by four it may prove to be too salty or heavy handed with a particular spice. So, I’d suggest putting in half the amount and tasting before adding all the salt for example.

Here is a section of our web site www.idahopotato.com that has many of the casserole dishes, just click on this link.

I have also had excellent luck in traveling with potatoes for an event using some of the scalloped or au gratin recipes, as they typically have enough sauce to keep the potatoes from drying out and this also holds in the heat very well. Adding diced ham to a scalloped recipe is a relatively low cost and a good way to stretch the protein. Below is one of my favorite scalloped potato dishes to add in a meat item, and it already serves 12 as a side dish.

Also look in our recipes for some of the hash versions. The Cuban Pork Hash might work well for you too, just skip topping it with a poached egg.

Just yesterday I was at Harvard University for a presentation to the chefs of several dishes using American Lamb and Idaho Potatoes. One recipe was basically a potato hash with ground lamb (beef or pork or diced ham would work too) and it was just as delicious after sitting on the steam table line for 1 hour as it was when we first tasted it. The flavors blended together very well.