Recipes for 25-30

[Downandout24]

Potentially a tricky one - I’m going to be cooking for 25-30 people on a regular basis with an extremely limited budget (£25-35). I understand it’s a low budget but there is 0 flexibility on this. No dietary restrictions or religious observations, no allergies. No central storage for stock items, some venues have a single oven / grill / 4 hob set up, some have double oven / 8 hob. We often prefer to cook the day before and reheat on site.

I’d love some fabulous recipes to have on rotation - historically the group have mostly had plain pasta plus meatballs, sausages and mash etc - so some extra idea would be fab. Today was my first day and I made chicken and vegetable pie with mini roasties and veg which went down a treat!

dessert options also welcome!

Fajitas? Mostly cold pre-prepped stuff, and finished chicken mix can be re-fried very nicely.

Chilli.

Stovies and oatcakes. You could semi-cook the stovies beforehand and then just reheat and finish cooking the potatoes.

Chorizo adds tonnes of flavour with very little actual chorizo. Some kind of chorizo and chicken thigh casserole, with salad and crusty bread.

Are the desserts included in the £1/head cost? That's trickier!

Sponge and custard type things I guess. Syrup sponge, raspberry sponge (if you can get cheap raspberries), banana cake, apple cake.

What kind of dessert have you done before?

Sorry for multiple posts! Jiggling baby!

I'd look at curries and casseroles as both can be made ahead of time and reheated. Your budget will spread furthest if you go veggie, or at least use a veggie base with a little meat. Beans and pulses are about the cheapest sources of protein. Seasonal or frozen veg will likely be cheapest.
I make a chickpea, butternut squash and spinach curry which I think is about the cheapest meal I make but I do have a well stocked spice cupboard. A sausage casserole bulked with veg and beans is also pretty thrifty.
Do you know in advance the facilities the kitchen you will be working in?
If you have the oven space a tuna pasta bake bulked with sweetcorn and peppers is pretty economical, like wise a veg fritata.

Dahl and rice
Pav bhaji
Veggie chilli
Marry me beans
Chickpea and veg tagine

Sadly yes :/ although some weeks we get donations of desserts or I just pay for it separately

Desserts previously done are baked cakes / sponges as suggested above so it’s good to know we are on the right track. Sometimes it’s ice cream as it’s cheap and simple and everyone seems happy!

re facilities I know in advance now that one day it’s literally an oven / 4 ring hob ( that doesn’t work well and takes forever to heat!) and the other day it’s a double oven with space for 7 “trays” and 8 ring hob burner.

no fridge / freezer / cupboards. It’s a challenge 😬

Is this some sort of soup kitchen/homeless shelter? Do the company source bulk items from say costco/bookers or other bulk buy places?
I'd be asking on olio/next door for donations of free apples/pears/plums and other seasonal fruit or veg. Befriend local allotment groups. Could you ask for say blackberries from the customers or the community? I grow in my garden and have a glut of cucumber, runner beans and courgette currently, and I can only share so much with friends/family and freeze/cook/pickle so much. I'd happily donate to you. Just some ideas, depending what you can get:

-Pasta bake with various proteins and veg. Chicken/frozen peas/corn
-lasagne. You could bulk out with lentils to reduce the meat, replace a layer of pasta with slices of veg
-Thick pea/ham soup. I buy a smoked ham knuckle/hock (cooking bacon might work too) and cook with almost any veg I have- onions, swede, potatoes, onions, carrots, celery. I use the quick cook split green peas, which only need 30mins of soaking, but if you have the time, there are cheaper split peas which need soaking overnight.
-Savoury mince, bulked out with extra veg served with rice
-Frittata and salad on hotter days. Similar to a quiche but without the pastry and generally more eggs than a quiche.
-Baked potatoes with either chilli, tuna/sweetcorn or whatever toppings you have

-Jelly with tinned fruit set inside or just plain jelly with ice cream or tinned/powdered custard
-apple/pear/plum crumble, depending what fruit you have
-stewed fruit with ice cream/custard
-baked, whole apples
-poached pears

These are fab suggestions thank you I’m making a list! Currently no bulk buying happens due to a mix of lack of storage facility plus various volunteers cooking weekly out of their own homes etc.

im hoping if we have a set of recipes that work well within the budget / facilities and The clients enjoy - we can organise better even if just to buy weekly a batch of ingredients we can use across all cooking days. Ie we all use the same veggies but across a curry / pasta or traybake style meal

Try Ottolenghi recipe for Confit chickpeas with rice or flatbreads. It’s delicious and cheap to make… although you might have to dial down the quality of the olive oil.
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2020/jul/11/yotam-ottolenghi-chickpea-recipes-confit-tandoori-polenta-chips-parmesan-braise

Yellow sticker food and freezer are your friends.Also fresh markets/ farm shops.

Chickpea, tomatoes, onion and sausage casserole (especially if you can get cheap sausages). Cook in the oven, but reheat in saucepans on the stove top. Or you could use a mix of what ever beans were cheapest.

Bean and bacon soup, with haricot beans, onions & carrots, Use cheapest bacon joint, (hock?). Once the bacon is cooked, take it out of the soup and chop it up into small pieces, blend the soup, then when reheating it, add the bacon
You could serve cheese scones with this.

Other ideas...
vegetable lasagna

jambalaya

chicken and vegetable (eg broccoli, mushrooms, leeks & peas) in a white sauce with a mashed potato topping (like cottage pie).

Gnocchi with bacon joint pieces and mushrooms and leeks in a white sauce. Make the ham sauce before hand and cook the gnocchi on the stove top in just a few minutes.

With any stew or sauce you could bake trays of polenta and serve slices of it.

I would agree that you need dishes where you can use cheaper cuts of meat, AND be a bit stingy with the meat. A slow cooked casserole using lamb shoulder that has lots of chickpeas added and some vegetables like carrots/butternut/aubergine (although aubergine can get expensive) will go a lot further.

What about a chicken and chorizo paella? If you buy chicken thigh fillets at no more than one per person, plus a couple of chorizo rings (for 25 people you could probably get away with as few as 3 rings) then you just need paella rice, some onions and lots of peppers and some frozen peas and some stock. If you're cooking at home and can add a dash of sherry vinegar and some oregano from your own stores, you increase the flavour significantly but it's not essential.

I am not sure how easy this would be to cook in bulk or in advance, but a nice cheapish pasta dish we like to do is roughly chop up sausages (one per person is fine) and fry (you could also just buy sausage mince if that's an option or even just pork mince, but the sausage meat is often cheaper and alread seasoned). When browned, add some fennel seeds, some garlic, some lemon zest and chopped chilli/chilli flakes (optional). Fry off. Add a handful of chopped fresh tomatoes then equal amounts milk and white wine (to reduce cost - I'd use stock instead of wine or mix just a bit of wine with the stock). simmer. Then add either baby spinach or frozen peas to cook/wilt then some creme fraiche. Serve with parmesan (potentially the most expensive part here), salt, pepper and some squeezed lemon over pasta.

Hi, OP -

I haven’t tried this myself, but the source is good: the late, great Laurie Colwin, author of Home Cooking and More Home Cooking, collections of her columns from the now defunct Gourmet magazine.

Laurie usually prioritised the use of fresh vegetables. However she also cooked lunch in a shelter for homeless women and later did a lot of cooking for charity events at her DD’s rather posh school. In both cases she did not hesitate to use instant mashed potatoes for topping shepherd’s pie and the like. Although IIRC she believes in enriching them with a bit of real butter or cream, it probably still works out cheaper, and certainly much easier, than using real potatoes for 35. At least, I hope it does!

Hi OP, what about having a look at Jamie Oliver’s £1 wonders and scaling up?