I think that I'm getting down to the very end of our reception descriptions, here. Yay! Finally onto to new topics, right?
I served 5 appetizer-type foods: a veggie and dip tray, a hummus and cracker tray (mentioned yesterday), smoked sausage and tater tot kabobs, frozen spanakopita, and frozen mini spring rolls.
The cold trays
I put together my own veggie tray, using broccoli crowns for making my own florets, baby carrots, a bundle of celery for sticks, and grape tomatoes. When shopping for the broccoli crowns, I specifically looked for ones who had a short stem and lots of individual side branches to the head, so that I would use practically all of the broccoli crown for the florets. This worked well. I bought 3 crowns, trimming about 1/8th-inch from each crown to compost (browning/aged-looking) and another 1/4-inch that wasn't needed as part of each floret (I ate these trimmings as I was cutting, so no waste there). We didn't even use one of the crowns, and had a lot of leftover broccoli florets. In the future, I would buy just one broccoli crown, if there were 3 other vegetables on the tray. I also over-bought on the baby carrots. I bought a 2-lb bag and used about 1 pound. Ditto with the grape tomatoes. I bought 2 pints and only used 1 pint. I bought 1 bundle of celery and used most of it, not in the veggie tray but in the preparation of the potato salad and chicken salad. If I didn't have use for the rest of a celery bundle, then perhaps I would have chosen a different 4th vegetable in place of celery, such as a sweet pepper to cut into strips. Anyway, over-buying seems to be one of my problems with planning. I had a packet of dip seasoning that had been given to me as a gift a couple of Christmases ago. I used that packet (Parmesan-Asiago dip) along with strained plain homemade yogurt (in place of sour cream) and mayonnaise to make the dip. Plain yogurt works well as a sour cream substitute in dips. The dip packet instructions called for a pint of sour cream. That would have cost me $1.74 at Walmart. In contrast, because I make my own yogurt, a pint of plain yogurt cost me about 30 cents. Savings of almost $1.50.
Since we had so many foods offered, I could have easily set out just one box/type of crackers with the hummus. So, I over-bought by 1 box. Lesson learned.
The hot appetizers
The smoked sausage and tater tot kabobs must have been pretty popular. After I set the tray out, I never saw any kabobs again, just lots of empty toothpicks. To make the kabobs, we used smoked sausage (the type of sausage that you might use in place of a hot dog on the grill -- fatter and more flavor than standard hot dogs. You could also use kielbasa.), frozen tater tots, and toothpicks. I had planned on making a dipping sauce, but I ran out of time and didn't think a dipping sauce would be necessary. I used 1.25 pounds of smoked sausage, cut into 28 chunks (not quite 3/4-oz each). I browned the sausage on a baking sheet in a 350 degree F oven for about 20 minutes, until looking lightly browned and a bit puffy). Meanwhile, in a 410 degree F oven (second oven), I browned about 30 individual tater tots on a baking sheet for about 25 minutes, or until browned and crispy. When both were done, I speared a sausage piece and tater tot together with a toothpick. I had thought I could bake the two items on toothpicks together, but at the last minute, 1 decided to bake them separately so that both parts would be perfectly cooked. The whole meat and potato thing must have appealed to a few of our guests and these were the only hot appetizer of which we completely ran out. The smoked sausage cost $1.75 and the amount of tater tots cost about 25 cents. Each kabob, then, cost about 7 cents.
The frozen spanakopita is an item that I have bought once before. I love these. They're pastry triangles filled with a combination of feta cheese and spinach. This product is part of an up-scale line offered at our local Fred Meyer. It's my understanding that other Kroger affiliates carry the Private Selection label. Selling for $5.99 per box, each has 16 pieces. I saved about 60 cents per box, using my Senior Discount, so each serving costs 33 cents. That's kind of pricey, I think. If my budget were even smaller for an event like we hosted, I would nix this item based on cost alone, yummy as it is. I bought 2 boxes and didn't bake up the second box. So, we have a box in reserve for another special occasion.
The frozen mini spring rolls were the items that I thought were not great. The flavor was good, but the texture was just so-so. The instructions on the box suggested baking the product. Well, baking them yielded a wrapper that was tough and crunchy, not light and crispy (as you'd have deep-frying the rolls). I thought it was a disappointment. I bought 2 boxes and only used 1. When I use the second box, I will at the very least, shallow-fry them in oil. I think the resulting texture would be much improved. I paid $4.98 at Walmart for 15 pieces, working out to 33 cents per roll. The package did come with a dipping sauce, so that was nice. However, at 33 cents per piece, I would give this a pass.
Both of the frozen appetizers were over 4 times the cost of the sausage and tater kabobs, per serving. I think I could have saved myself a chunk of money and doubled-up on the sausage and tater kabobs.
I learn something with each event or party that I host. If such an event comes up again, I think I could pull it together for about $85 and feel like the offerings were good, simply by eliminating some of the over-buying, even more careful shopping, and skipping foods that were over-priced for the quality.
