Charity Cook for 300 - Questions

I'll be doing a cook for a foster care group the first week of Dec. and I want to run a couple things by y'all in order to get a better idea of how to be going about this. I have a pretty idea of a process in mind, but it seems like a good idea to get some insight from you pros on portions, amounts, etc.

There will be 300 folks there, 125-150 of which will be kids. Right now I'm thinking the menu will be pulled pork (with buns for those who wanna make sammiches), turkey breast, Keri's Hog Apple Beans, slaw, and collard greens as well as some kind of roll. I did a test run of Glory canned collards that I doctored up and it went very well - good stuff!

Anyway, I'm wondering about how much of what to prepare. I'm thinking 4 oz. portions of PP (it seems with the amount of kids this is the way to go - I'd normally allow for a bigger portion) and 6 oz. portions of turkey breast. I'm comfortable with hitting the right amt. of pork, but I haven't done a large cook with turkey breast - I'm guessing there isn't much of a loss of weight from cooking? I'll be shooting 'em up with Creole Butter. About a half cup each of beans and collards seems like it should work out about right.

Meats - anybody have thoughts on how much of each meat I should allow for? I am leaning towards 200 servings of each, which may be heavy but I'd rather have too much than not enough. The food costs will be covered by the group that has the charity. It will definitely test my capacity but I'm always up for a challenge. I also want to be prepared if by any chance the group turns out to be larger than what I'm told.

Beans - Keri's Hog Apple beans are basically doctored up Bush Beans (add meat, apple pie filing, etc.) - I'm thinking around 8 #10 cans should do it. A #10 can batch fills one full foil pan pretty full. I was thinking 10 batches, but it seems there's gotta be more than 30 servings of beans as a side in one of those pans, especially with kids as 1/3 to 1/2 of the group. People kinda flip out on the beans though, so maybe 10 batches is the way to go. :noidea:

Collards - 10 #10 cans. Not based on any knowledge really - just a guess.

Slaw - :noidea: Running out of slaw is one of my great talents. :tsk: It'll most likely be guerry's vinegar slaw.

Sorry to be so long, but any words of wisdom about any of this will be much appreciated - thanks in advance!

chambersuac said:

Are you having different food for the kids, like dogs and burgers? Just curious?

Also, I've done several big cooks, but I have never done turkey breast. Honestly, it can be a real PIA keeping it from drying out. Are you married to that?

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Same food for everybody. As to the turkey breast, it's mainly 'cause they want a little bit of a holiday vibe going on. In the past a major chain has provided a "holiday dinner with all the trimmings" type thing. The group thought it would be cool to have BBQ from an actual person instead, and I can't remember where the turkey came in the picture - could have come from me! I've been fooling around with turkey breast and getting pretty good results. I'll most likely keep some melted butter around to paint the slices with. I saw the dude from the Swamp Boys team doing that last year at King of the Smokers to great effect.

One day I hope to make turkey breast as good as Bigmista's, and then I can feed it to the monkeys that fly out of my butt on that day.

Anyway, I don't have the cooker space to do that much chicken, nor do I want to deal with that at this point. Seems like turkey breast will be efficient as far as cooker space, prep and cook time, etc. I thought about beef, but there's a cost issue there and I think turkey will be more favored by this group.

Yeah, I'll be leaving the cayenne/chipotle out on these beans. I'm not really gonna have smoker space to smoke 'em up right, so I'll be doing 'em in a big arse pot or 2.

And yes, the Klose will be stuffed! I'll be doing the butts at home overnight on the Klose, bringing them wrapped & ready to pull, and cooking the turkey on site in my verticals. I'm gonna go have a look at the place in the next week or 2 to see what kind of facilities they have.

Hope you'll be able to make it! Cool that your young 'un will be around though!

Right now I'm looking at brined breast roasts for the turkey. Not seeing any fresh - all frozen. I think I know where some fresh is, but it's a fancy grocery store and it'll be pricey. I just saw some at RD for $2.65/# but the local grocery store has some for $1.99/#. I'm about to go talk to them to make sure there is availability when I need 'em.

The ones at RD said they had herbs in there, which gave me pause. The ones at Von's Pavilions look to be just straight up brined, which I prefer - especially at the lower price (lower than the wholesaler! ). I saw saw some strange looking frozen Butterball turkey roast thingees with "both white and dark meat" and "gravy packet inside". Oddly shaped - I'm gonna stay away from those. :hand:

I hardly see turkey and pulled pork as "adult fare" but the chicken leg idea is a good one and I may do that. The more I think about it, the more the idea of replacing the turkey with the chicken sounds like a good idea - BUT - I think they are keeping the holidays and mind, so the turkey may stay on the menu - I just gotta confirm with the person who's running the event what they want.

I wasn't told by the organizers to make a kid menu - they just said they wanted bbq. As previously stated, a chain was providing a turkey dinner in the past and they wanted something a little different than that. I have no indication it was a kid food thing in the past.

I wouldn't expect the kids to like collards more or less than they would like any other vegetable. The group I'm serving is about 70% black, so I'm guessing collard greens won't be exactly strange to them, even the kids. I have to take into account cooker space, manpower, etc. and there just isn't really a good way for me to pull much else together. I'd love to do a nice mac & cheese for example, but I simply have no way to do that for 300 people.

poorolddan said:

I was thinking that I'd want it to be kid friendly so they would want to dig into things they might like.
How well is the place you are serving this meal set up? If they have a kitchen with ovens space for 6-8 full pans you could still do the Mac & Cheese.

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I hopefully find that out next weekend. I really want to go and put my eyes on the place and see what they've got. Apparently they've just gotten some kind of kitchen thing going - now whether that means a nice kitchen, or it just means a new microwave or something I don't know. All will be revealed soon I hope!

On site, I will be brining a 22" WSM, a Backwoods Chubby, and a Jumbo Old Smokey. I may be able to get my UDS down there as well. I'm thinking the beans and collards will happen in big ole pots on a good sized propane stove I have (2 burners). PP cooked here at home and brought there, turkey (and/or chix as the case may be) cooked there.

Well the turkey thing got solved in a major fashion. Bigmista will be supplying that. :whoo: He's gonna be busy with the restaurant, so I'm gonna send someone down there to pick it up.

This opens up some options for me, which I will be discussing with the people running the event. This is very exciting - Neil's turkey is the best I've had - period. Everybody freaks out (in a good way!) when they eat it. I think with that and the PP we're good on proteins - even for kids - the turkey really is something special.

What initially drew me from being a lurker to joining this site 4 years ago was seeing things like Chambers doing fundraiser/charity cooks and Neil doing his Galveston thing (he does other events as well, that's just the one that was going on when I started looking at this site). I thought "these guys are cool, I think I'll stick around". Well the past few years have proven me correct - these guys, and many others here, are indeed very cool and I'm proud to know 'em.

Anyway, to re-focus to some earlier questions - will 8 #10 cans of beans be enough (there'll be about 2# of meat added to each can) and will 10 #10 cans of collards be enough?

If I was to do mac & cheese, how much for 300 (with 125-150 being kids)?

HBMTN said:

6oz mac n cheese, 3oz baked beans, 3oz slaw, 3oz greens, 5oz pulled pork, 3oz turkey (small slices) The question is do you care whether they run out of a given side or not? If you are not doing this as a business and don't care then go 5oz mac n cheese, 3oz of beans, 3oz greens, 2oz slaw, 4oz pulled pork and 3oz sliced turkey. Place on buffet in this order - greens, beans, mac n cheese, pulled pork, slaw(with small spoon for topping sandwiches), turkey

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Thanks for the rundown! Definitely a big help towards figuring this stuff out. I will probably go bigger on the turkey slices - this is Bigmista's turkey and I guarantee people will eat all there is.

Still not sure if I'm going to be able to do the mac n cheese. Today I learned that this place is getting a new mobile kitchen - at the end of this month! So I won't be able to see it any sooner than a week before the event. I'm hoping to find out more about the kitchen before that. I'm guessing I should just assume there isn't going to be a kitchen and just be pleasantly surprised if there is one - if this is some kind of new build, it will be late - it's never not that way it seems.

The comment on the order of placing things makes a lot of sense - I can totally see how that works!

Thanks y'all!