Inexpensive International Food - Help!
I am in charge of providing food for our school's Internation Fair. We are a middle school and have a pretty big turnout, but I will have a lot of volunteers to help me.
I would like to offer a choice of 3 meals but would like to keep them at $5 a meal. We don't mind if we don't make money on the food, just don't want to overspend.
I am thinking of Italian/Chinese/Greek - any ideas?
Add a comment:
Previewing your comment:
HTML Hints
Some HTML is OK: <a href="URL">link</a>, <strong>strong</strong>, <em>em</em>
Comment Guidelines
Post whatever you want, just keep it seriously about eats, seriously. We reserve the right to delete off-topic or inflammatory comments. Learn more at our Comment Policy page.
If you see something not so nice, please, report an inappropriate comment.
Start Talking!
Need a question answered? Have advice to share? Start a Talk topic now!
Sign up to get your questions answered and share advice.
8 Comments:
How are you cooking/serving? That would make a difference. Here are a few suggestions that would work if you are precooking and reheating in chafing dishes:
Italian is pretty easy - any sort of baked pasta will be good and cheap (if you don't get fancy cheeses), and it is an easy food to do in bulk.
Maybe for Chinese you can do orange or sesame chicken with fried rice with stir fry veggies (for the veggies you can get a mix of whatever is on special at the store).
For Greek I would say to do a spinach pie (using frozen spinach, which is usually cheaper) and greek salad.
It's possible that if you get all your ingredients from one store, and tell a manager there what you are getting the ingredients for, maybe they will give you a discount if you give them a thank you or credit somewhere.
NYCEater at 2:11PM on 03/07/09
Some Italian ideas that kids like - Focaccia, heavy on the toppings, is tasty, kids like it, it keeps well and is delish at room temperature. Calzones are also good, and you can make different fillings, but they are best served hot. Manicotti with veggies on the side is another cost effective and good choice - the kids might not have had them with homemade crepes. Pasta primavera is a nice healthy choice, if you think the kids won't be veggie adverse, and you've got enough staff to prepare to order - or a veggie lasagne.
Greek: Spanokopita, sapanotriongas (spinach pie or triangles), or tyropita (cheese pie) if you think the kids won't be grossed out by spinach or feta (some kids think feta is stinky). You can even make the pies in individual pot pie size. Pastisio (macaroni & meat), moussaka. Keftadas (meatballs made with ground lamb, or lamb & beef) served with orzo or rice.
Asian can be a little tricky, as a lot of dishes are based on peanut/sesame ingredients, and many schools have no nut rules - Chicken teriyaki (kids like food on skewers), maybe a tofu/veggie stir fry (Buddah's delight,or chicken with snow peas, carrots, etc.), veggie or chicken fried rice.
MMinNYC at 2:34PM on 03/07/09
When my grammar school used to have an international week, the food fair was all dishes donated by families. Is that feasible for this event? Granted, you'll probably get a lot of lasagna and fried rice (not from the same people, haha), but you might also get some other dishes that you wouldn't normally know how/have the time/equipment to make.
kfarrel3 at 3:45PM on 03/07/09
Rice and noodle based dishes are always great.
beth1 at 4:30PM on 03/07/09
Indian would also work. Mildly spiced Chicken Biryani. Might give folks something unexpected.
supersu75 at 4:57PM on 03/07/09
As for Asian, sushi is really cheap and easy. Then again, all of us grew up on it where I lived so it was something every party/pot luck/picnic had.
All you need is a lot of good quality rice, nori, egg crepe, blanched spinach (or cucumber), and someone who knows how to roll.
If you have access to that super bright pink fish powder (forgot the name of it atm) that's a little sweet and not very fishy, it'll add color. I'd say takuan (daikon) but some kids may not have been exposed to pickled veggies, so it might be too weird...?
It can stay out for hours and all this stuff is extremely cheap and not THAT weird separately...well, maybe the seaweed is.
Cassaendra at 9:37AM on 03/08/09
Due to new food safety laws, we are not supposed to serve food that is prepared by random school families so I either have to get local rest. donate at a low cost or make it myself in the school kitchen.
I just received an email from a local italian place that will give me a pan of lasagna that will feed 20 people for $75. I think for cost involved, I might just buy frozen ones from Sams Club, even though they won't taste nearly as good!
One of our school parents own a Thai rest. so I might see what they will sell me at a discount.
We have our Hispanic Heritage Festival in the fall and serve traditonal Spanish foods at that time, otherwise I would just do some easy tacos! I'm thinking of the following menu:
Lasagna from Sams, salad, italian bread and a small cannoli
General Tsao chicken or maybe orange chicken, fried rice, egg roll and a fortune cookie
Moussaka, greek salad, pita bread with maybe some hummus and a small piece of baklava.
Now I just have to figure out if I can make this happen for $5 a dinner!
floridayaya at 4:34PM on 03/08/09
Keep it vegetarian - using legumes as the base for your dishes will keep things less expensive than using meat. Indian food does well in large quantities - things like curry chickpeas and lentils are easy to have catered along with some rice or naan bread.
LetThemEatQueso at 12:10AM on 03/09/09