I mentioned several weeks ago that we’d be hosting our High School Youth each Sunday night beginning in the fall. (This has traditionally been called “Huddle”.)  This begins today! I’ve been both excited and intimidated about this committment. Each Sunday night we’ll have around 30+ teens in our home. They are great kids though, plus we have two or three other great adult couples who will be joining us and who have offered to help with the food prep at any time. I plan to say “yes” to this offer of help whenever I need to – I’d be crazy not to! I’ll also be referencing this list of “Food to Feed a Crowd” as well as all of your helpful comments for meal ideas each week.

In addition to hosting the high schoolers on Sunday evenings, Matt and I have started teaching a marriage class on Sunday mornings in our home for six young married couples. We meet before worship time begins at church, and I’m hoping to provide some sort of muffin or other breakfast item along with coffee and juice each morning during class. Having these treats seems to put everyone at ease and well, the smell of hot coffee and muffins is just welcoming, isn’t it? We really want these couples to feel welcome and loved in our home. (Yes, food is my love language.)  :)

In order to pull all of this off this year, I’m going to have to be very organized and try to get as much done on Fridays and Saturdays as possible. When I can, I’ll take pictures to share. Although it’s not terribly exciting, I was able to snap a shot of my beverage table this morning before class. I had to put the Applesauce Bread in a separate spot since this table filled up too quickly!

Today, we also had a church potluck. Food, food and more food! Here’s our menu for the week:

Sunday, September 18
Applesauce bread, fruit plate, coffee, juice
Potluck – Italian pasta bake, frosted brownies, green beans
“High School Huddle” – BBQ pulled pork sandwiches, cream cheese corn, homemade pickles (provided by my friend), carrot sticks with homemade ranch, grapes, butterscotch bars

Monday,  September 19
Simple soaked pancakes, blueberries
Taco potatoes, fresh peaches
Chicken noodle soup, carrot sticks

Tuesday, September 20
Crustless breakfast quiches, oranges
Tuna salad on tomato slices, strawberry-peach slushies, sweet peppers
Cheesy salsa enchiladas, tossed salad

Wednesday, September 21
Coconut flour muffins, apples
Black bean salsa, organic corn chips, grapes
Chicken veggie quesadillas, fruit salad

Thursday, September 22
Pancake sausage muffins, applesauce
Cheeseburger macaroni, peas, cantaloupe
Lamb chops, baked potatoes, zucchini

Friday, September 23
Peanut butter honey toast, pears
Chicken burritos, fruit
Hamburgers, potato wedges, peaches, green beans

Saturday, September 24
Scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, peaches
Leftovers
Beef stroganoff, green beans, tossed salad

Question for you – for tonight’s pulled pork sandwiches, I purchased a 9 pound pork roast. I feel like that will be plenty of meat for 30 people, but I don’t think I got enough buns. How many buns would you feel necessary for 30 teens and adults? I know this shouldn’t be so complicated but for some reason I can’t feel comfortable with the amount of buns I got. But I don’t want a bunch of extras because one of my sons LOVES white flour buns and I’d prefer not to have lots leftover for his happy little white bun indulgence. :)

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Hi. I have a bun update. :)

I had originally purchased 40 buns, but we went and got two more packages just to be safe. We ended up only using 38 (surprisingly), even though there were 35 people here (my kids included). Therefore, we would have been okay with only the 5 packages of buns. Still, it was great to have piece of mind about the buns. Also, the 9 pounds of meat was the perfect amount as we only had enough meat leftover for two sandwiches.

Several ate only meat and bbq sauce without the bun. Several others came back for seconds. I still think using what many of you suggested as a general rule, estimating 1.5 buns per person is a great idea. I’ll do it this way from now on.

Also, the Butterscotch Bars and Cream Cheese Corn (recipe in Holiday Hospitality ebook and Learn to Cook ebook) were HUGE hits!!!

Most exciting of all – we asked the kids to each rinse their plates and cups and put them into the dishwasher after they were finished eating. At the end of the night, all I had to do was wash a few serving dishes and turn on the full dishwasher. Awesome! We are definitely going to go with that system every week!

Thank you all for your helpful input about my buns. I mean about the burger buns. Oh, you know what I mean. ;)