The hard part of feeding fifty people was never the cooking. It's the arithmetic, and the clock.
How many pounds of beef for fifty-five when a third of them are children. How many pans that comes to, and whether they'll fit in the oven at once. What time the ziti goes in so it comes out hot the same minute as everything else. How to get twelve quarts of chili cooled down fast enough to be safe to serve tomorrow.
Count the heads before you touch a pan. Every decision after that follows from one number, and this book is the arithmetic in between.
If you've cooked for a crowd before
- You've made three times what was needed and sent half of it home in foil.
- You've run out of the main course an hour in and gone quietly cold about it.
- You've served something lukewarm and known it as you served it.
- You're scaling a recipe for six up to sixty, and you know perfectly well that six times the salt isn't right.
- Somebody has to feed the family after the funeral and it's going to be you.
- You got a caterer's quote and thought: I can do this better, if somebody would just tell me the numbers.
You don't cook for a hundred. You cook one thing a hundred times, in order, with the head count written at the top of the page.
Everything in this book is built that way: no chef's flourish, nothing that needs equipment you'd have to buy. Big pans of plain food that people are glad to see, worked out so the arithmetic is already done for you.
Every recipe written out three times
Not a recipe for eight with a note saying "multiply by six." Each one is set out in full at all three sizes, because none of it scales in a straight line — not the salt, not the leavening, not the time in the oven.
- For 8. A full table at home, a Sunday dinner, the family after a funeral. Ordinary pans, ordinary oven.
- For 25. A small hall, a team, a reunion of cousins. The pan count, the oven loads, and the order things go in.
- For 50. A church supper. Roasters, the borrowed urn, the serving line — and the test for done at that size, which is not the same test as at home.
What's in the 141 pages
- Portion charts for 8, 25, 50 and 100 meat, starch, vegetables, bread, dessert, drinks, coffee and ice, with kids, teenagers, buffet and plated all figured in separately.
- Cost per plate in plain tiers, the cheap proteins that still feel like a feast, buying in bulk without waste, and how to stretch the meat so nobody can tell.
- Five complete event plans church supper, family reunion, funeral meal, holiday dinner for 20, team dinner — each with a menu, a shopping list and an hour-by-hour schedule.
- Food safety for crowds, properly: cooling big pots fast, holding food hot, the two-hour rule, reheating, transporting, and the guests who need more care than the rest.
- Sides, breads and desserts that fill a plate for very little: bread pudding out of stale bread, sheet cakes, cobblers, the pan everybody comes back to.
- Leftovers, stored safely and turned into the next two meals instead of the bin.
Four real pages
Feeding a Crowd for Less
$29 · PDF · 141 pages · Instant PDF download
Everything in the book
- Introduction: Arithmetic You Can Eat
- 1. Crowd-Cooking Basics
- 2. How Much Food
- 3. Shopping Cheap
- 4. Big-Batch Mains (15 recipes)
- 5. Sides, Breads and Desserts (8 recipes)
- 6. Timing (including a holiday dinner for 20)
- 7. Food Safety for Crowds
- 8. Event Plans
- 9. Leftovers
- Appendix A: Charts in One Place
- Appendix B: Planners and Lists to Print
- Appendix C: Temperatures and Logs
The recipes (23)
Big-Pot Beef and Bean Chili · Stretched Sloppy Joes · Baked Ziti · Oven Chicken and Rice · Oven Pulled Pork · Baked Macaroni and Cheese · Pinto Beans and Ham Hock · Sheet-Pan Cornbread · Shepherd's Pie · Hamburger Vegetable Soup · Potato Soup with Bacon Ends · Overnight Sausage and Egg Casserole · Sausage, Potatoes and Green Beans · Salsa Chicken and Black Beans · Fried Cabbage and Smoked Sausage · Creamy Coleslaw · Country Green Beans · Real Mashed Potatoes · Cornbread Dressing · Drop Biscuits by the Pan · Stale-Bread Pudding · Chocolate Sheet Cake · Peach Cobbler for a Crowd
The details
- Format
- Illustrated PDF ebook, full color
- Length
- 141 pages, 13 chapters
- Page size
- 7 × 10 in – reads well on a tablet, computer or phone
- Printing
- Print any page for your own use. Checklists included.
- Copy protection
- None. Download it and keep it.
- Delivery
- Instant. Download straight after you pay.
Who it's for
- You cook for a church, a hall, a team, a reunion or a very large family
- You're on a budget and you'd still like the table to look generous
- You've been handed the job and you'd like a plan instead of a panic
- You want the food-safety side done right without a lecture
- You want cooking for two, or fine dining. Neither is in here
- You want calorie counts and nutrition tables. This book counts heads and dollars
I'm Otis Prater. Elizabethtown, Kentucky.
My father cooked at a diner on Dixie Highway for thirty years. He taught me the craft and, more useful than the craft, the stretching. Ruby says I still cook for forty when there are two of us in the house, and I'd argue with that if I had a leg to stand on.
Go feed somebody.
Read it for 60 days. If it's not for you, I'll refund it.
Email support@oldhands.co within 60 days of buying and you get your money back in full. No questions, no forms, and you keep the file.
Questions
Are the recipes complicated?
No. Chili, sloppy joes, baked ziti, chicken and rice, pulled pork, mac and cheese, beans and cornbread, shepherd's pie, soups, breakfast casseroles. Food people are pleased to see.
Do I need commercial equipment?
No. The book tells you what you really need — which is fewer pans than you'd think — and what's worth borrowing instead of buying.
Has the arithmetic been checked?
Every quantity in the book was worked out and checked before it was printed, which is exactly why each recipe is written out three times instead of multiplied.
How do I get it after I pay?
Checkout is handled by Whop, a payments company. The moment you pay, the PDF is in your Whop account to download, and the link is emailed to you as well. You can download it again any time.
Is this a printed book?
No. It's an ebook: a PDF you download straight after paying. You can print any page, or the whole thing, for your own use.
Will it open on my phone?
Yes. It's an ordinary PDF, so it opens on any phone, tablet or computer. A tablet or computer shows the pages best.
What if I don't like it?
Email support@oldhands.co within 60 days and you get a full refund. You don't need to give a reason.
One supper's worth of groceries. Once.
$29, and the portion charts, shopping-list templates, event planner and temperature chart are all in the back to print.
- Instant PDF download
- 60-day money-back guarantee
- No copy protection – yours to keep
One-time payment. Sales tax or VAT is added at checkout where it applies.
Count the heads. Then go feed somebody.