1. Work: I ended up getting a few invoices in the late mail drop yesterday. So I have a little bit to work on while at home. Since my boss and the Chief are out today, I’ll wait to do them on Monday so that they can do their thing to get them paid without the invoices hanging in the ether over the weekend. Confused? We pay most of our bills by ACH anymore.

2. Play: We are making a trip to the used bookstore today. We’re hunting for books for Jesse - Beau wants large picture books for teaching purposes; I want Little Golden Books.

3. Church: Our church is hosting a large homecoming, of sorts, for our overseas missionaries next month. It’s a week-long event and they have asked folks to step up to help with the logistics of hosting such a big thing. I volunteered to cook for some of the meals they have planned - group meals for planned events during the week, not the regular meals they will receive with whomever they are staying at other times, like breakfast.

I initially signed up for a couple of weekend day events since it’s tough for me to participate during the week with my job. And then I got a heads up that the leader of the food team was thinking about asking me to cook the meat for the large dinner where they’re expecting about 250 people. At the time I thought she meant that I would cook some of the meat for that dinner, but I got the email from the leader of the food team yesterday asking if I was up for the challenge of cooking all of the meat (pork tenderloin roasts) for the dinner. She’s estimating 10 large roasts - I told her that might feed everyone if the roasts are huge - you might be able to feed about 12 people from a large tenderloin. Any experienced cooks out there who can verify that quantity of meat will serve 250 people? Will we need more?

The problem is that the dinner is on a Thursday. I can’t take that day off. I proposed pre-cooking the roasts over the prior weekend (it will take the whole weekend) and then freezing them in the interim days before the dinner and then reheating them before slicing for serving. It’s the only way I can do it. She agreed that no matter what, it was probably going to have to be done that way. So it looks like I’ll be cooking a lot of pork tenderloin in a couple of weeks.

The good thing is that I can take advantage of my teleworking on Friday to start cooking then. I figure to get half of them roasted and into the freezer on Friday. Then I finish the other batch on Saturday before we go to church that night and I can take the lot of them to the church with us to put in the freezer there. At that point I have completed my task.

Now I’m working on a plan to cook 10+ pork tenderloins in my regular sized oven when I only have one roasting pan. I may see if I can borrow my mother’s roaster or I may just buy some of those aluminum roasters. And I’m hoping I can fit two roasts into one roasting pan and then two roasting pans into my oven at the same time.

4. Friends: My bridesmaid’s youngest daughter is graduating from high school next week. When I met Scot and Joanie, their baby girl was 9 months old. I remember her as this happy, adorable little girl with white baby chick fuzz on her head that stood straight up. Too cute. She is now a very lovely young lady. I know her parents are proud of her and I am, too.

5. Jesse: He’s teething again. I think he’s got multiple teeth making their way. I don’t know how they endure the pain of it. Poor little guy. Even with that he’s still way too happy. He’s amazing.

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1. Ok—where is there a used book store? Cause I need to know these things! We have one near us, but the books all basically cost the same as new (paperbacks are routinely about $5.50 - why bother digging at that price? - plus they’re usually in terrible shape.)

   I’ve always been told to estimate ~1/2 lb of meat per person (when boneless, 1 lb bone in). So, for 250 people you’d need, 125 lbs...so 10 12.5 pound tenderloins would be about right. The question, of course, being are they 12.5 lbs each? I might see about going by weight vs. # of roasts. Then again, depending on the quantity of other dishes, maybe you can get away with less than 1/2 lb per person. Still, seems like it would be reasonable.

   Poor Jesse!

   Posted by beth  on  06/13/08  at  08:44 AM

2. Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. I’ll remind her about the roast weight/person.

   McKay’s in Manassas - http://www.mckayusedbooks.com/

   Posted by  on  06/13/08  at  09:03 AM

3. Since they are being frozen anyway, couldn’t you begin cooking the roasts sooner?  That way you can do what fits in the oven, do them as you have time, and there won’t be the last minute stress in case things don’t go as planned!

   And THE place for used books is Wonderbook and Video (listed in the top 10 used bookstores in the country).  One is in Frederick and two in Hagerstown, one of those being books for $1/ea.  Next time you come up here we will go!  It really is an awesome experience!

   http://www.wonderbk.com/
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonder_Book_and_Video

   Posted by  on  06/13/08  at  10:35 AM

4. It all depends on when I get them and the other ingredients that will go along - the church is providing all of that.

   And I don’t get much down time in the evenings, so the last thing I want to do for a week is roast pork every night. I’d rather do it all in a couple of days. And if I can’t get them all done Friday/Saturday, I always have Sunday/Monday as fall back extra days.

   That is one cool bookstore! We definitely need to go next time we visit.

   Posted by  on  06/13/08  at  10:40 AM

5. I remember finding a website a few years ago that calculated how much you’d need to cook for large quantities of people.  I used their calculator for the Christmas dinner we hosted at a women’s shelter.  It was PERFECT.  I’ll see if I can find that for you.

   Posted by Jaynee  on  06/13/08  at  11:28 AM

6. Also, I agree with Beth that you can presume 1/2 lb of meat per person, knowing some will eat less, some more.  So 125 pounds sounds about right to me, too.

   Posted by Jaynee  on  06/13/08  at  11:33 AM

7. I was going to offer up the 1/2 pound per person adage as well...sounds like that’s a given.  Pork loin roasts don’t usually come very large though (I don’t think) so by my calculations, you’ll need about 25 of ‘em. Pork loin seems like a difficult meat to pre-prepare though because it dried out so easily when overcooked (which is likely to happen if you have to reheat it later).  Seems like a big BBQ grill might be in order for the event, so the meat could be cooked onsite the day of...maybe chicken breasts or something?  Good luck!  You’re a real trooper for agreeing to do this!!

   Posted by Gwynne  on  06/13/08  at  11:56 AM

8. Can you go back and make an alternative recommendation of boneless pork tenderloin ~ no bones to deal with, much more tender and moist, and you can do a whole lot of them in the oven at the same time. Remember the sauce Aunt N. had at Christmas to go on top?  Or a chutney glaze?  Yum, yum. If they are planning a lot of side dishes, people would probably only take a slice or two. I would definitely make that suggestion.  I can help with my three ovens.

   Posted by  on  06/13/08  at  12:56 PM

9. I’m going to email KJ later - I’ll mention all of these things. I think they have a menu planned already since she mentioned wanting an Asian taste - talking about an orange glazed pork loin.

   Mom, if you’re willing to help with your ovens, too, then we should be able to get them all done easily. And with some consistency.

   Posted by  on  06/13/08  at  01:17 PM

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