I was asked at the end of September if I would be willing to do the harvest dinner this past November at my church, and it ended up being quite the event– I planned the menu, picked up the ingredients, and cooked (with lots of wonderful help) a delicious meal for 100 people. It was fun, and hard, and complex, and wanted to share the recipes and some background of the different things that were made.
Squash Soup
Squash bisque soup! This was one of several giant blue hubbard squash that were grown out at the in-laws this past summer. I couldn’t think of how to eat it all before it went bad, and what better way than to serve a crowd? I didn’t follow the recipe exactly– I subbed out cashew cream for heavy cream, and I’m pretty sure I still ended up light on the squash and heavy on the broth, and accidentally added the sage and thyme to the roast carrots instead of the soup, but it came out delicious.
Cornbread
This is my go-to recipe right now; I can’t remember the multiple I used to fill a pan this size– 12x maybe? You can find the recipe here. What’s worked well for me has been Bob’s Red Mill coarse grind cornmeal and Bob’s Red Mill 1:1 GF baking flour. The nice thing about this recipe is doubling the recipe works out to 1 bag of cornmeal, 1 bag of the flour, 1lb. butter, and 1 qt buttermilk.
Cranberry Relish
Old friend’s family recipe that’s approximately the same as what you’ll find in a search online–
- 1 bag cranberries
- 1 orange
- 1 apple
- 1 cup sugar
Blend, puree, or grind the apple, orange, and cranberries, mix with sugar and let set overnight in the fridge for the flavors to meld.
Roast Carrots and Potatoes
For the carrots, I mostly eyeballed the recipe. No creme fraiche, no harissa, I added sage and thyme, and didn’t need to toss during roast. Adding some maple syrup (or better yet, maple vinegar) to the parboil for the carrots would be tasty, maybe next time.
The roast potatoes are always delicious, but the serving suggestion is way too small– as posted it serves 4; it goes fast and never seems to serve that many. I’ve only done it with gold potatoes and haven’t tried russets and I’ve always used olive oil to keep it vegetarian, but the duck fat suggestion sounds really good, if you have the opportunity. Save an extra bowl to clean and add the potatoes back to the stock pot and shake with the lid on. If you aren’t a fan of garlic, you don’t miss much if you skip it. Adding the rosemary and garlic back at the end doesn’t matter much, especially when it’s SO easy to burn them when you cook them in the oil. it won’t make the oil taste off if they end up a little burnt, but adding the burnt rosemary and garlic at the end would…
Brisket
So many briskets. My father-in-law smoked 9 briskets on the smoker– had to rig them up to stand vertically to fit them all in. The usual prep is to coat the brisket in yellow mustard, rub down with a spice rub (varies, but Meat Church has been the go-to for a while), wrap in plastic and let sit for several hours. After that, it goes in the smoker for several more hours, then a wrap in foil, continue to cook until it gets to temperature, then a rest in a cooler for several hours before serving. I wish I had a good picture of these, they came out beautifully.
Creme Caramel
From America’s Test Kitchen cookbook. It’s behind a paywall but is in their big red cookbook if you’ve got it.
It’s good! It’s easy! It’s a huge pain to clean at the end! That said, the caramel can be a bit tricky– it quickly goes from boiling, to straw-colored, to burnt, so keep a close eye on it with a candy thermometer and move quickly when it’s done.
Wrap up
The dinner was super successful. I made far more food than we had for guests (in proper midwest fashion), but we made a bunch of meals for takeaway and froze and sold the rest of the leftovers separately. I’m happy to say I keep hearing from people who tell me how great all the food was.