Catering for teenagers' party - help!

[janh]

My daughters turn 18 and 21 next week and we are having a party for them on Saturday night. They think total numbers will be about 120 - there will also be some adults keeping us company we hope! - but they say that at parties they have been to before there is always too much food and it gets left over and thrown out.

We intend to serve sandwiches/sausages/crisps/salad/dips etc and I could really do with knowing how much of everything to provide - can anybody out there help, please??? (I don't mind spending a lot but hate throwing food away!)

I've got a Good Housekeeping book 'Cooking for Crowds' but I can't get it now as it's at the top of dd's wardrobe and she's stirring...
I'll dig it out in the morning. I did a party for 60 fairly recently so I'll come back tomorrow with some ideas, it's Zebedee time now ..

Janh, just had a quick search and found this, guideline amounts for 100-150 people , don't know if it'll be any good but it's a start wrt quantities.

One tip I would suggest, lots of things can be kept and frozen afterwards, like sausages, sausage rolls etc. Veggie sticks can be made into a soup a day or two later. Keep dips in the tubs they come in and keep the lids. I know i sounds obvious, but I rarely ever chuck food after a party, I find ways to use it up!

My mum always used to do great food for parties, in fact she still does catering now. She always used to do a hot dish like chilli with rice, or a Thai curry or something. This way you can have a large pot of something on the go or just being kept warm on one of those food warmer things and if there is any left over you can freeze it.

Why not instead of making sandwiches just put out bread,cheeses and bowls of salad and then whatever is left over can be wrapped up and saved for another day.

OK, back with GH book.

The following quantities are for 12 people.

They then say to multiply these to fit the number you're expecting as follows:

25 people multiply by 2
50 multiply by 4
75 multiply by 5.5
100 multiply by 7

Salads

Tomato allow 700g (1.5lb)
Salad leaves, allow 2 medium heads
Cucumber, 1 large

Dressings

French Dressing allow 175ml
Mayonaise allow 300ml

Bread

Fresh bread, allow 1 large loaf
Medium sliced bread, allow 1 large loaf

Cheeses

For cheese & wine party, allow 1.5kg

At the party I did (60 people) we got some large, cold meat pies from our butcher, eg turkey,pork & cranbury (5 which each cut into 12 pieces). I made various pasta/rice/cous-cous style salads, I think there were about 6 bowls (2 of each type), each of which were 12 servings.
I did cheese and biscuits rather than sandwiches. Buy big lumps of a few cheeses rather than lots of bits, leftover cheese freezes well and crackers keep for ages. We bought some french sticks too (5).

I also made a load of canapes from Delia's Christmas book, almost all of them can be done ahead. According to Delia, if you're serving 'canape' style stuff at a drinks party you should allow 8 per person. All the leftovers were eaten by the time the tidying up had been done.

Hope that's some help, my Good Housekeeping book is on the pile to go to the charity shop as I've been decluttering so I'll happily send it to you if you want !

Sorry Maudy, it took me so long to type my message it crossed with your idea of bread and cheeses.

janh - are your daughters Marilyn Mason fans by any chance? if they are a couple of boxes of rusks might go down a treat, and if there are any spare, you can bring them over to Spain when you come....(only joking really)

Personally I wouldn't overdo the salad, since the party is for teenagers. But you could do some roasted peppers (just cut in half, remove seeds, put a bit of salt on and bung in the oven) as they are lovely, unusual, go nicely on cocktail sticks and keep for a good while in tupperware - you can even freeze them and then use in spag bol etc.

I hate waste too, and last time I did a big party I deliberatly only put small bowls of things out at first, with several carriers full of top-ups hidden just in case. If you put everything out, people will open a new jar of salsa dip even when theres one already open next to it.

Wow, thanks, guys, what a helpful lot you are!

Twink, your GH quantities sound reassuringly small - I looked up WWW's website but I think it is catering for main meal American-style big eaters and frightened me to death! - thanks for the offer of the book but if I'm really lucky I won't be doing this again!

The french bread + assorted cheeses + crackers is a great idea and would take much less time to prepare. DD1 is coming home from uni at about 10pm tonight (she's doing a shift at Sainsbury's first) and we are planning to then go over to 24-hr-Asda on a big shop.

Lucy, I didn't get the rusks reference at all, I'm obviously the wrong generation! (I'll bring you some if you like though!) The roasted peppers sound gorgeous, I have loads of peppers so I can roast half and cut the rest up for dips.
Crunchie, making soup out of the left-over veggies is a great idea - can't freeze anything much though, freezer's too small, I'll just have to eat all the sausages myself. Maudy, originally I wanted to do a hot thing but the daughters say teenagers don't eat them - one of DD2's friends had vats of chilli at his party and it was almost all left - it has to be finger food (they will stretch to forks if they have to.)

Thanks again, you are all great!

janh - if you didn't get the reference, then they aren't Marilyn Manson fans. But don't feel old - I only know about it because dp's sister (16) is one - they wear all black with "baby" accessories like teethers and cute embroidery bits. I'm only assuming they eat rusks too.

Also forgot to mention that you may need to put a dash of olive oil on the peppers.

Have a good time!