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.

I recently went on a hen night where we had a private chef. Three (beautiful) courses for 12 people came to about £600. I was very pleasantly surprised.

Epic link incoming...

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Breakfasts: keep it simple - continental, a ton of pastries, yoghurts etc

Lunches: Waitrose or M&S sandwich platters plus fruit

Dinners: get the pros in.

Good luck!

The biggest problem you're going to have is that the kitchens of the separate cottages are equipped to cook for four or five people each.

There is unlikely to be pans or dishes big enough to make anything for that number while you're there. I would be looking at making or buying ready-made meals to heat up yourself instead, but of course they'll be stored in five different fridges so getting everything cooked for the same time is going to be complicated.

Plus everyone will have to bring a plate, knife and fork from their own cottage and make sure they get returned afterwards.

one day you could roast chickens pieces with salad leaves, make couscous, homemade coleslaw if you have a food processor is cheap, cherry tomatoes, veggie tart if applicable. This would be about £50 in total buy ice cream for dessert.

id make curries but i can scratch make easily, again I could feed everyone for under £50 including fruit for dessert. A standard home multi cooker cooks perfect rice for 24! Fish curries take approximately 35-40 minutes from the first chop.

bbq is fun though If precook sausages, chicken drumsticks and ribs to prevent issues.

Id probably make fajitas for the last meal, again easy in 45 minutes

For lunches I’d just buy the ingredients to assemble your own sandwiches, for breakfast I’d do pastries and fruit some days and bacon baps (or egg) on the other days.

Can you go to Costco and buy platters and things? They do shove in the oven Mac and cheese and all sorts! Be much cheaper than shopping! Few bags of salad and pizza and garlic bread one night. Pasta dish the next, tacos the next etc

I attended something similar and a local lady cooked dishes and left these in the freezer popping in each afternoon with salad, veg etc. We had to cook it but it was really simple.

Breakfast
1&2 croissants and jam, pain au chocolates, fruit and yogurt
3&4 bacon rolls (veggie alternative) with fruit and boiled/fried eggs

Lunch
1&2 Lots of rolls with a filling station and salads (ham, cheese, egg, chicken, tuna mayo). Sharing bags of crisps, melon and something like kitkats
3&4 Quiche, sausage rolls (veggie rolls), scotch eggs, salad, crisps and mini rolls

Dinner
1 - lasagne, garlic bread and salad. Variety of ice lollies
2 - chilli and rice, roast vegetables. Couple of varieties of cheesecake
3 - chicken traybake with potato salad, vegetable sides. Eton mess with pre made meringue
4 - cottage pie with peas, carrots and broccoli. Chocolate fudge cake and Victoria sponge cake

Snacks if needed - variety pack of biscuits

I would just be honest with everyone and say it's more work than you anticipated and there's absolutely no time for you to enjoy the break if you take this on. See how much help his volunteered and go from there. I'm sure people will be willing to help, it's pretty unreasonable for them to expect and all inclusive experience provided by their family.

Where is there for everyone to sit together? Store the food? It is not going to have to in each individual fridge anyway?
I would be providing breakfast food for each house to make their own.
ditto for lunch if I was you also.
Then some scaled up family meals for dinners.

Do people really have pastries for breakfast and sandwiches for lunch? Aren't you starving all day?

Anyway, Costco is a good shout. They have a nice ready made curry and frozen samosa etc.

Their 'fresh' pizza is crap but you can get twin packs of frozen crosta mollica for about £7. They're really good. Also good quality meat and salad for a BBQ or two.

It's not posh but camping Mac and cheese. You'd need to work out quantities. Cook enough pasta. Add frozen veg and cook it all together. Drain. Add evaporated milk (depends on how saucy you want it) and pregrated cheese plus a bit of seasoning, mustard, paprika etc. Mix over low heat until it's all melted together. With several kitchens and some big pans you can serve everyone quickly. We sometimes add hot dog sausages too and serve with bagged salad.

Maybe invest in a couple of large slow cookers so that something like, chilli, curry, beef Bourguignon or chicken casserole can be ready for when you’re home. Serve with pre prepared/ microwaveable veg or rice.

Definitely division of labour too. So cottage 1 (you?) supply a curry, cottage 2 cook up the rice, cottage 3 samosas and so on. Like a bring a dish but coordinated so you get things that go together.

Waitrose do ready made quiches and similar for this number of people. Check out the Waitrose catering website. They also do desserts and salads so that’ll sort lunches with the addition of bread and cheese and meats etc.

agree bbq one night. Pizza ovens take bloody forever and are really slow if you are trying to feed 22 people so wouldn’t recommend.

two curries plus naans plus samosas plus bhajis is another night and you could take the curries there frozen. Buy a freezer bag and they’ll travel ok.

can you get delivery from anywhere or do you have to cook? Fish n chips or Chinese might be a good shout?

We used to do a big house holiday every year for 5 families and did the same meals every year, first night shop bought pizzas and salad, second night jacket potatoes, salad, baked beans, nice cheese, crispy bacon, hummus, sliced meat, coleslaw, whatever other toppings sounded nice, third night takeaway fish and chips.

Just bring cereal, toast, yoghurt, fruit, butter, jam, marmite, peanut butter etc for breakfast, I agree people prepare their own breakfast in their own house. Pastries are OK for one day, but they're not very sustaining.

BBQ one night?

everyone has been so helpful thank you I am reading through all of these. Not sure if theres a freezer but love the bolognaise and spaghetti idea

so everyone wants to eat together, we only see each other once every 2-3 years and theres a big table outside so were hoping for good weather. If not one of the cottages we can all cram in.

Love some of these ideas and didn't even think of pre made lasagnas and Mac and cheese thats a great shout.

We will do a bbq and will think of easy recipes we can make and freeze if theres a freezer.

Sandwich station is a good idea - has anyone done burritos or similar for 22 people?

Have you looked at local takeaways? We often use a local pizza place booked in advance for a big stack of pizzas for family parties

As a PP has said, you might be quite limited in what you can cook & store in each individual cottage. In your cottage, you may only have an under counter fridge for example which definitely won’t be enough!
Also, it sounds like people are coming from different time zones so may well be waking up & sleeping at different times and getting hungry at different times too.
I’d suggest each cottage has its own breakfast supplies as well as some fruit and some snacks of some sort. Perhaps ask each cottage group what sort thing they’d like. There’s no point putting bananas in every cottage if two of the groups don’t like them. Same with breakfast items. Some might love toast, others porridge.
How close are you to civilisation? I think it might be the case that you need to have a delivery each day of core items. One lunch could be based around quiche; another around pre-roast chickens. For dinner, perhaps research the area as, whilst you might not be able to have a pizza van come to you, is there one locally to where you’re staying that you can visit? How much is the local fish & chip place? That sort of thing.
The first night in the easiest, I think, as you make bolognase or curry before you
go and it defrosts en route

I think your plan is good. Breakfast and lunch I would just do a big supermarket order. Bread, cheese, jam, peanut butter, honey, milk, yoghurt, granola, fresh fruit, maybe some bacon for breakfast. No one is going to be bothered about a full cooked breakfast on holiday.

Lunch - sandwiches and salad and crisps and fruit. Maybe some pasta salad, potato salad. You can buy big catering trays of this sort of buffet lunch

Dinner is more tricky. Is there even a big enough kitchen to feed 22 people? I wonder if you could batch cook some stuff at home, freeze it and bring it to the Airbnb. Things you eat with rice or pasta and then you only have to cook the rice or pasta.

Outsource the evening to COOK (lasagna, mustard chicken with rice etc and do one BBQ dinner - marinated chicken thighs and sausages, pre made salads.

Lunch - rotate pre bought quiches & salad, breaded chicken strips in wraps with salad and cheese and M&S sandwich platters.

You could also research people who do meal prep in the area you are holidaying. Certainly around us in the South-East it’s not really all that expensive to get someone to come in and cook furiously for six hours, leaving you with lots of dishes in silver trays to reheat.

Tapas is brilliant for this sort of big thing, because you can do it as a mix of hot and cold which sidesteps the issue of oven space. But, you would need to do the prep at home or do mostly ready-made because it’s quite time consuming.

Cold whole roast chicken, green salad, Greek salad, homemade coleslaw, potato salad, crusty bread is a pretty good combo and easy to do for those numbers,

I like pp suggested lasagna trays as well.

I think people do like a cooked breakfast on holiday! But they can do their own

Is there a good a fish n chip shop nearby? I would maybe contact them to see if they could supply one meal - your guests might appreciate some traditional English food!

Or you could buy 4 or 5 big pies, pre make a load of mash and add a few greens.

Chilli is easy to bulk prep, then all you need is rice, nachos, sour cream & guac. Spag Bol also, with garlic bread and salad.

Breakfasts - I’d be tempted to put a couple of boxes of cereals, some bread and jam/honey, and maybe bacon and eggs in each cottage. Plus tea and coffee and plenty of milk.

Lunches - a couple of soups, a few crusty loaves, plenty of butter. Try local cafes who might be happy to whip up a selection of sandwiches to deliver on a couple of the days. Look at M&S food, you can pre order catering sized platters.