Need to feed 22 people in air bnb for 12 meals

[bessaas]

Need to feed 22 people including 2 kids for summer.

We're having family stay in the UK for 4 days this summer. Everyone is coming in from abroad from really expensive places- Australia, USA, China, except my partner and I- for us its 2 hour drive.

I have rented an Airbnb which we are all splitting the cost of. Everyone is paying for their own flights.

We are however paying for all food as our contribution. Everyone is paying at least a grand for their flights.

We completely underestimated the cost of food. Professional caterers for four meals for four days have quoted £8k. We were originally thinking £1500 as a budget and feel we may have messed up.

The air bnb is 5 self catering cottages all grouped with separate kitchens.

Were thinking one professional meal catered. Three course. For that it will be £900. It was £850 for buffet so we thought may as well go sit down three course.

We are needing 4 breakfasts, 4 lunches, and 4 dinners total. Others can help cook but we are footing the bill. We invited everyone so it makes sense.

without giving away what were doing we will be onsite the whole time but not have a load of time to cook. So we can't have a plan that will take more than 45m from start to food on the table.

We have thought : continental breakfast all four days, sandwich platters for lunch. one lunch be sandwich platters and scones so 'afternoon tea' and bbq for dinner.

Are there any other quick and inexpensive meal options we can do?

We also looked at hiring a food truck but for so few people it was £25 a pizza.

Yeahhhh... 45 minutes is quite a push for that many people. If youre doing breakfast lunch AND dinner too thats really going to eat up most of your day.

If it was me I would be honest that its coming in pretty expensive so I will be doing things like make your own pizza/wraps. While it would be nice to get a takeaway (so im literally not just cooking the entire time) it would really eat into the budget I have for this.

I would ask them to pitch in for a takeaway one night. You would probably have to pre order for those sort of numbers

You have to factor in food hygiene issues if you are personally transporting food. How far away from your house? Space in the car? Anything defrosting that isn't going to be used immediately for example. Reheating pre-prepared food.

I think you have no option but to make it all when you get there. Sorry.

It'll take 45 mins to dish out all the plates, cutlery and drinks, and then to gather them in again at the end of the meal.

@bessaas i think the only practical solution is to do a grocery shop for each cottage and let people cook

Makes much more sense than trying to facilitate huge group dinners with inadequate facilities

Will the pans even be big enough to cook the amounts of food you need? I'd be tempted to get a few large capacity slow cookers

Cosco for big lasagne type stuff
a baked potato and toppings meal

Could you do more of, what we call up north, a 'Jacob's Join'?

Basically each person makes something and brings it to the table, everyone can eat any of the dishes, for your situation 1 dish per cottage? You could make suggestions of what to cook.

To complicate matters even further, there’s the possibility that the guests’ flights from such far away places as Australia, China and the US will have to be cancelled in the summer due to a shortage of jet fuel.

Oh FGS!!!

You could do a themed night each night other than your catered one.

so Mexican with nachos as the nibbles, a couple of pots of veggie chilli and 1 of chilli con carne, rice, guacamole (relatively easy to do HM if you have soft avocados), salsa (from jar) crème fraiche/sour cream, those pickled chilli’s from jars, grated cheese all in bowls.

Another night a couple of veggie curries of different heat (spice) levels with various sides.

Italian as a roasted veggies and tomato sauce with a short type of pasta (penne, fusilli, rigatoni, Conchigle etc), maybe a second sauce which is cream based (penne a la vodka, with baked squash, mushrooms and thyme and white wine/cream…). Maybe a seafood pasta (could use tins of clams or mussels) if that would work or carbonara with bacon.

Different kitchens doing different elements to all meet at the shared table.

Have you a contingency if the outdoor table doesn’t work (if it rains?).

Have a couplE of tuna of beans/spaghetti o’s in case the DCs are starving and need something fast. Or bread to do melted cheese on toasts.

Put out bowls of fruit - already chopped into segments ready to eat (just slice oranges into 6 wedges with skin on, apples same but also slice off any core, bananas still in peels is fine, small bunches of 5/6 grapes) in late afternoon with jugs of water/squash etc before moving on to anything heavier. Already segmented means it’s far more likely to be eaten.

You could prep freezer bags of veggies ready to roast (already diced and marinated - freeze flat in your freezer, they take up less space). You could even just prep the day before travel and only freeze on arrival for use later in the week. If you need home freezer space for other things.

can you get hold of a camping freezer for a few weeks? Running on camping gas or 12v plug? Use that to fill as you prep at home, transport things and keep things cold on site? Or even decent cool boxes and fill with some frozen things as well as cold things as that will keep well chilled for transport and a couple of days. Always works best to pre-chill cool boxes by filling with bags of ice or bottles of frozen water 24 hours before you want to fill and use it. And open as infrequently as possible once filled to keep it cold.

theres a big table outside so were hoping for good weather

Oooh, hope it's nice for you. Your average cottage does not have space for 22 people to cram in if it rains. Would gazebos be possible to offer some cover? My friend does a similar gathering and always books a big property or two near each other and it has to have a huge dining table/lounge area for gatherings but they're not cheap and I presume you're committed to what you've booked now.
I think for breakfast just keep it simple and put cereal and bread for toast in each cottage plus some jam, marmalade and butter. Cottages often supply some tea and coffee. Meet up for brunch/lunch (sarnies/jacket spuds?) and evening meals (Costco, Cook etc). Folks have to pitch in!

Think OP has enough to do without organising themed nights!

I was thinking more that it’s easier to plan 1-3 dishes on a theme, with sides that work, per day…and lots of the ingredients are similar across them all. But I guess everyone sees things differently.

Agree with this, I often cook for large groups and it’s a lot easier to pick a theme and know that all of the things within that theme will go together. Otherwise you’re just cooking an assortment of random things to suit different people and I find once you’re making totally different mains you have to start with lots of different sides to go with them. Easier to say “hey it’s Indian night” and provide say two curries (one meat one veggie), one vegetable side dish, rice, veg samosas, and it all goes together.

Look into getting /borrowing/hiring a bigger freezer.
Relying on bringing things to the boil will take ages and need massive pans.
The tiny freezers will maybe only hold a bag of ice and a box of ice lollies.

If you really want to do this, I'd really suggest cooking upfront things that just need to be ovened, and doing that in big foil trays. Then ideally someone can nip away to pre heat oven.

That, or doing a totally no cook few days.

I did similar one year away with friends for 4 nights.

Only we all had one day each to cater for everyone else.

And it was extremely unenjoyable on my day to cook, so it is going to be a massive pain in the arse for you to do it the whole time.

For what it is worth.
Breakfast I bought lots of pastries and cereals and a couple of fruit platters.
Lunch was a Caesar salad
Dinner I decided to do a couple of curries and sides etc

So all relatively easy but still wasn't fun

And this place was able to sleep 25 so really did have the space for people around the table, a huge kitchen massive fridges and catering size pans etc.

Not sure how it would work in a normal size kitchen.

By the time it got round to the fourth couple they booked a table at a local pub and just took the food they'd planned to have home with them. Haha.

He thinks so lol. Too grainy for me!

Oops. My spelling. Can't even blame it on my typing.

P-O-R-R-I-D-G-E

Now I get it.

P-O-R-R-I-D-G-E

Still £100s cheaper than hiring a chef!

I'd make a breakfast hamper for each cottage with croissants, Nutella, jam, continental cheese, salami, muesli and orange juice.

I don't think you can do sandwiches everyday for lunch, that would be boring, try and mix it up a bit, maybe sandwich platter on day one, smoked salmon and philadelphia bagels the next day, then maybe hot roast pork and apple baps on the third day or bacon rolls with HP sauce for the British touch. Another day you could try a regional specialty like pie and peas or Cornish pasties.

For dinners I'd do:

Day one: 4-5 sides of salmon, roasted veg couscous with feta and mint, potato salad and a big bowl of green salad. Heavier pud to make sure they are all full! Maybe sticky toffee pudding.

Day 2: Good quality Sausages, mash, onion gravy, Yorkshire puds (made ahead and frozen) and steamed green beans. Lighter pud like Eton mess.

Day 3: lasagne, salad, garlic bread, potato wedges. Has to be tiramisu for pud.

Day 4 , UK national dish, chicken tikka masala and sides! or fish and chips? Followed by choc torte/ berries/ ice cream.

I would also leave biscuits, crisps, coffee, tea and milk in each cottage with a loaf of bread for toast. Maybe a bottle of coke/ lemonade for those who like fizz. Elderflower cordial for those who don't.

I regularly cater for our family meet ups of around 15 people. It isn't cheap but I think it's doable with your budget.

What are you doing re alcohol?

If you only have tiny freezer at home, it would be fine to cook stuff like curry or pasta sauce a couple of days before and just have it in the fridge. Still easier than trying to cook it once you’re down there I think.

I think you then have to factor in how to transport it, both space wise in the car, and keeping it safe temperature wise. It isn't that easy to transport food.

Do the spag Bol the day before and just refrigerate it. The cook or Waitrose big ready meals bought just before you go or the day before and again stored in your or your neighbours fridges/camping cool boxes. Everything else delivered directly to the cottage when you arrive.

Yes all these suggestions are fine, but in practice a nightmare in unfamiliar settings and cooking equipment. Looking forward finding out how it all went, and bet OP is looking forward to waving them off . Seems the catering is dominating whole break. Shame they can’t stay in hotels, but we don’t know the purpose of the visit. My guess? An archaeological dig?