Inexpensive Menu for 25 Seminary girls

eschaya

Tue, Oct 30 2012, 12:45 pm

for a meat dish, you can make a stir fry served over rice or a lo mein... the meat or chicken (go chicken for cheaper) will be stretched a long way. Or you can grill skewers; again because the chicken is interspersed among the vegis (tomato, mushroom, pepper, onion, zucchini, pineapple... whatever is cheap near you) you can get away with buying much less. You can also find lots of different and tasty chicken salads. Because these dishes are "exotic" it will not seem like you are being cheap. And if you make 2 options, you'll seem fancy, the girls will appreciate the salad options.
I would do similar with fish; plate a nice salad with strips of fish on top. Girls will like the salad and you don't need a full portion of fish.
For side dishes, it would all depend on what is cheap in your area. A pasta dish (whether a lukshon kugel or a cold pasta salad) is usually inexpensive, you can make a large 3-bean salad pretty easily and cost-effectively (it's mostly cans).

I'm getting a little carried away here, but you can even do a whole oriental theme for a meal; it would be pretty inexpensive and could seem so impressive. Chicken soup (as mentioned above, when made with chicken parts is easy and cheap) with won tons, chicken lo mein, chinese chicken salad, rice, a steamed vegi (carrots or s/th else inexpensive)

A few recipes
Lo Mein: quick, easy, and makes a little meat go a long way
- 1 box linguini or spaghetti, boiled and drained
- 1 pound chicken strips (or pepper steak, but that's more expensive)
- lots and lots of vegis cut into strips (you can use a bag of bodek stir-fry vegis but it's much more expensive. I usually like to use zucchini, onions, carrots, pepper)
- 1/2 cup oil
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 1 tsp garlic
- 1/4 tsp pepper
- 1/2 tsp ginger
put everything together in a pan, cover tightly, bake at 375 for 1/5-2 hrs.

dressing for chinese chicken salad
- 1/4 c vinegar
- 1/4 c oil
- 1/4 c sugar
- 2 T soy sauce
1 T minced garlic
- squirt mustard
- teriyaki sauce

joy613

Tue, Oct 30 2012, 1:03 pm

eschaya wrote:

I'm not op, but that lo mein sounds really good. Just wanted to clarify, you don't saute the veggies first, or brown the chicken/meat first? Everything goes straight into the pan as is?
Seems easy enough.

eschaya

Tue, Oct 30 2012, 5:43 pm

other than cooking the pasta, you just throw everything in raw. It's really easy, yummy (ok, and fattening) and a classy way of getting away with less meat.

To add a note to my previous post... When I was not married for long (and also on financially unstable footing) I made a sheva brachos for a friend and we had >25 people. So I used my above idea of going oriental as a way of having a classy, nice meal without breaking the bank. I made a coconut thai chicken soup, the lo mein mentioned above (using meat), a grilled chicken salad using the dressing listed above, steamed green beans with almonds, rice and I can't remember what else (it's been many years...). Then we had put out dishes of duck sauce and fried chips on the table, decorated the table in oriental fashion, gave out chopsticks... overall it looked and tasted great, but I did not have to worry about buying 1-2 servings of meat/chicken for 30 people.

Lani22

Tue, Oct 30 2012, 8:50 pm

this is what I would make- serve lots of chalah at each meal
Fri night-
chumus, pickles and olives
chicken soup (made with a little chicken and lots of bones)
BBQ chicken bottoms (cheapest option in the US have no idea about israel) or chicken stir fry over rice
potatoe kugel
apple kugel (again apples in the us are cheap right now..)
a big lettuce salad (use cheapest vegies)
a big cabbage salad

shabbas lunch-
gefilte fish (little slice per person) or I like the tuna wrap idea someone else posted
Israeli salad
chulent ( little meat lots of bones)
shnitzel ( make lots small peices- everyone usually takes just one)
lukshen kugel
carrot muffins
big lettuce salad

Shaloh shudes
dips
hard boiled eggs
cut up vegies
big pasta salad

for desserts maybe ask the girls to buy some packaged cakes?