Working on Recipes

I'm working on another recipe. This one is a cheese dip sold commercially out of state. I know the ingredients but not the amounts. It's sooooo good! Since I can't be ordering it to be shipped in summer, I've got to figure it out or starve...well maybe not that drastic. The ingredients are cream cheese, french dressing, thousand island dressing, onion and garlic powder. This can be done, hopefully easily, or I may get sick of it by the 4th time.

Catering is more than just food...

Just like a wedding planner, a personal assistant, or a job head hunter, people frequently look for others to help them out, take care of tasks, organize. A caterer can be that and more. Sometimes making the food is just trivial next to finding the place to eat it, or hiring assisting staff. Networking is essential to any business that works with the community. Never miss an opportunity to network with people who might help you out with future events.

Season that food...

Some of my catering requests have been popular recipes that are not low calorie, and then the hostess asks for some healthier items. The most common request is for low fat, low salt. I'm always experimenting with seasonings and herbs. You can get wonderful flavor by adding in a new seasoning and omitting the salt. Remember, caterers need thick skins, put salt on the table for those who crave salt, but the recipe will be "healthy" for those who crave flavor.

Just home from vacation...

Gotta love that time off!! I was visiting a friend in the midwest - my favorite place for cheese and sausage, yum!!- anyway... they had to work one day during the week, so I decided to cook a little. I made their requests; meatloaf, mashed potatoes, beef stroganoff, steamed veggies, cheesy mashed cauliflower, salted nut roll, and poppyseed almond cake. That'll last them a few days.

Chicken Salad Recipe

I just had some chicken salad at a conference that I've never seen before. Wow! It was fantastic! Of course I couldn't get the recipe, so that's my challenge...reproduce that chicken salad. It had shredded chicken, red onion, dried cranberries. When I went back for more, the caterer said "sorry, that went over better than expected, it's gone!" Oh, bummer, I was planning to pick it apart to figure out the ingredients. That's a goal for this week.