Family-style or restaurant-style?

How do you serve meals?

I've been thinking about the pros and cons of each style. I grew up with a mother who always plated at the stove. When I set up our kitchen, I dedicated a strip of counter space to plating up dinner plates every night. It's something that feels ingrained in my approach to meals. But even old habits can be changed, if warranted.

So, I wanted to think through the pros and cons of each style of serving meals.

Family-style

Pros

Ease of serving supper, especially if cooking vessels can go stove to table.

Everyone takes however much they are hungry for. Presumably less waste, combined with opportunity for "seconds" if someone's hunger is greater.

Everything can come to the table hot.

Family-style could serve as incentive for stragglers to get to the table on time.

Cons

If cooking vessels can't go to the table (amount of space on table in relation to size of pot/pan/casserole dish), then foods must be transferred to serving dishes, negating some of the time savings of family-style.

For me, I have a motley collection of hand-me-down pots and pans. They wouldn't be attractive on the table in their current state.

Potential for more scraps of leftovers to deal with.

Some individuals might not take the proper-sized portions (whether too large or too small), or take unbalanced meals (more starches, fewer veggies, or mostly meat and nothing else, or to the other extreme, only salad).

Restaurant-style

Pros

The total amount of food can be divided between all the plates, as the cook deems appropriate.

Leftovers can be minimized, or purposefully reserved for lunches or a future meal (important when trying to cook for two meals, and save enough for the latter meal).

The table can look more visually appealing and less cluttered.

If not everyone eats at the same time, individual plates can be filled, and kept warm in the oven for late-comers, meaning no one gets stuck with just the leftover bits.

Cons

It takes time to serve each individual plate, time that is mostly performed in isolation by the cook. Whereas, time spent serving selves could be considered part of "family time".

Serving all of the plates at the stove requires a "station" for plating. Kitchen counter space could possibly be put to better use, particularly in small kitchens.

The hybrid approach

Serving meals doesn't have to be one style or the other. There are hybrids. For example, my grandmother often set up a buffet, on her kitchen counter. We would file through her narrow, galley kitchen and each fill our own plates. My own mother filled dinner plates with the main entree at the stove, but we passed a salad bowl at the table. And of course, one day, meals could be served restaurant-style, but the next be served family-style. There's no rule that says things must always be done the same way.


Does one serving style reduce food waste, and therefore save money? It could be argued that serving oneself at the table lessens waste, as individuals only take what they feel hungry for. But then again, by my plating each person's supper, I can make just exactly how much I feel we will all eat, then divide it all up fairly. So, maybe neither method is superior in reducing food waste.

Does one method save time over the other? Well, it would appear that serving family-style would save my time, up front. But if extra serving dishes had to be used (other than the cooking vessels), than that saved time in plating meals would be used in cleaning up extra dishes.

How about the happiness factor in mealtimes? It does make a person feel taken care of, to have their plate served to them. But then again, it is such a cheerful image, a family gathered around a table, sharing their stories of their day, as they pass the food items around the table.

I guess the answer is which method fills the most pertinent needs, in general, and at the moment. What pros and con have I overlooked? If you prefer one method over the other, why?

Putting it all together

So, in yesterday's post I told you what I bought in February (towards the bottom of that post, is a condensed list of items I bought)..

I know it can be baffling how I might manage to feed 5 of us, daily, for a month, when it appears that I could not have possibly purchased enough variety of ingredients.

Below, is a recap of how I used those ingredients (and others from the freezer/pantry) in meals for the month. These are the suppers I served over the course of the month. In addition, our breakfasts mostly consist of toast or muffins and milk, smoothies, oatmeal or granola and milk, and for some weekends, waffles or pancakes. Lunches are often peanut butter sandwiches, occasionally leftovers from a supper, or concocted casseroles and soups specifically made for lunch meals. I reserve the whole pieces of fruit, like apples, bananas and oranges primarily for to-go lunches, as they are tidily "packaged", and don't require a container or utensil to eat, as opposed to apple or rhubarb sauce or stewed plums. So, to last a month on 35 bananas and 11 apples (plus a few oranges from previous month) is feasible, if mostly using those fruits for weekday lunches. The nuts and seeds I buy are often used as an extra item in packed lunches, as I rarely buy those snacky foods like potato chips, crackers or pretzels.

Meat served as the "main event" at a supper only occurred 7 times in the month. I used cheese as the main protein source only 2 times (although I used it as a secondary protein source on several nights). I mention this because meat and cheese tend to be my more expensive ingredients, so I use both, modestly.

I used the corn tortillas for 7 suppers, and the tofu for 6 suppers. Pumpkin showed up in 11 of the suppers. Frozen spinach was used in 10 suppers. And canned tomatoes were used in some form or other in 14 suppers.

At the beginning of each month, I do a mental inventory of what I have a lot of, that I'd like to use up. Then as each week rolls around, I brainstorm various possibilities using those ingredients. I like good food, too. So one of the best ways to motivate me to cook every day is to think of something tasty to use the ingredients on hand. Hunger is the meal planning "method" that works for me!

Anyway, I just thought I'd put my shopping list together, with how I used the purchased items, so it would all make more sense to someone not living within a stones-throw of my pantry!

1-turkey and vegetables topped with biscuits

leftover pumpkin pie

2-ham (from freezer)

mashed potatoes (from freezer)

frozen green beans

3-homemade mushroom and black olive pizza (dough from freezer, quick sauce of tomato paste, water and dried seasonings)

vegetable medley of canned tomatoes, onions, frozen green beans and garlic powder

blackberry cobbler

4-veggie enchiladas 

Spanish rice & black beans on the side

5-Fried rice, with spinach, mushrooms, peas, tofu and egg

Pumpkin-ham soup

Chocolate chip cookies

6-Black bean tacos

Tomato Florentine soup

Pumpkin pie

7-Black bean tacos

Oranges

Pumpkin pie

8-Pork roast with garlic and rosemary

Rosemary potatoes

Spinach and onions sauteed with bacon bits

Pumpkin pie

9-Fried rice (with eggs, peas, peanuts, onions, garlic), topped with a garlic and peanut sauce

Tofu and orange salad in a ginger-soy vinaigrette

10-Fried corn tortillas, topped with

refried beans, cheese, avocado, salsa and black olives

fiesta corn (frozen corn sauteed with onion, green pepper and chili powder)

oven-roasted canned tomatoes

11-baked chicken leg quarters

canned tomato, onion, garlic, green pepper and herb sauce

brown rice

pumpkin pie (from freezer)

12-Homemade wonton soup (yes, I made the wontons myself -- and this soup was so wonderful!)

Fruit salad of banana, orange segments and dried cranberries

Pumpkin pie

13-Chicken, rice, spinach, onion enchiladas

Avocado

Chocolate chip cookies

14-Heart-shaped pancakes with red currant syrup

Crustless mini quiches with spinach, onion and sausage

Bacon

Fruit salad

Cream puffs filled with frozen strawberries and whipped cream

15-popcorn and some cocoa

16-Southwest pumpkin, bean, potato soup, topped with avocado, salsa and Cheddar cheese

Pumpkin muffins

Rhubarb-plum sauce

17-Egg salad sandwiches

Roasted tomato soup

Pumpkin pie (from freezer, last pie from the batch)

18-Meatloaf with gravy (I made 2 and froze the other one)

Mashed potatoes (extras so I can make a turkey-rosemary-potato soup in a day or two)

Oven-roasted canned tomatoes

Grilled onions

Pumpkin pie

19-Chunky tomato soup

Focaccia, topped with leftover grilled onions, leftover roasted tomatoes and black olives

Stewed frozen plums

20-Rosemary, turkey and potato soup

Croissants (gifted to us from event my girls and I helped at)

Cucumber, avocado and roasted red pepper salad, topped with slices of boiled egg (cucumber gifted to us, roasted red peppers from pantry)

Assortment of pie to choose from (leftovers from event)

21-Skillet-fried wontons (homemade from freezer)

Ham and egg fried rice

Cucumber salad

Choice of cake or pie

22-Spinach and tofu lasagna

Choice of leftover chocolate cake or pie

23-Vegetarian tostadas -- fried corn tortillas, topped with Spanish rice, frozen corn, refried beans, cheese, olives, lettuce from greenhouse, roasted red peppers, salsa and avocado

Choice of cookies, chocolate covered cherries or mini-cheesecakes (leftovers from volunteer work at a tea over the weekend)

24-Meatloaf and gravy from freezer

Mashed potatoes from freezer

Frozen spinach

Pumpkin souffle

25-Leftover spinach and tofu lasagna

Chocolate cake from freezer

26-vegetarian chili, topped with Cheddar, avocado and fried corn tortilla strips

whole wheat toast

27-olive, onion and green pepper homemade pizza

candy apple salad

frozen green beans

28-spinach, onion and Cheddar quiche

frozen peas

brown rice

29-Salisbury steak with gravy
mashed potatoes with kale
pumpkin souffle