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Sandwich Bar
After Caroline’s Love 15 birthday party, I didn’t intend to host another large teenager driven fall party this year. Then the Color Guard asked for volunteers to help with the Color Guard only parties, and I figured this was the volunteer activity that was right up my alley. We already decorate for fall, so this was basically going to be providing food and space. No problem!
My original plan was to serve up foods that have been pretty popular at a variety of events including Caroline’s Halloween party and Shannon’s graduation party. We were thinking, sliders, Hawaiian roll ham and cheese sandwiches, corn dogs, etc. Then Caroline asked if we had seen the list of allergies. There is a LIST! And it’s a long one. I’m always very aware of peanut and tree nut allergies when dealing with kids and teens (Adults, on the other hand, may be taking their lives into their own hands.) The list was more than just nuts, some were easy like red food dye (of course that removed anything with school colors), others were more difficult like dairy. Then there was lettuce and oranges, and the girl that said my list is so long please just have fruit and bagged chips (maybe she just really likes chips, but who am I to question her) I’m honestly not sure how they were able to feed this group dinner once a week for the entire band season. Maybe there’s something magic in a Chick- Fil -A sandwich that keeps all allergens at bay. With that, I decided that we should just go with a build your own sandwich bar that would enable each person to avoid things they didn’t like or were allergic to, and still have food for everyone.
I went into this with a pretty good idea of what we wanted to do. Cold cuts, cheese, a couple of different types of bread, one without any dairy, and maybe some spreads like chicken salad or pimento cheese. If you’re scratching your head at pimento cheese for teens, my kid likes it. Or maybe I like it, and just need an excuse to have it hanging around. This seems pretty simple, but I figured it had been done before and didn’t want to miss serving a must have condiment.
YES! This has been done before. After all, it’s less creative than the giant subway sandwich people ordered for parties in the 90s. What really threw me reading the numerous blogs on the topic (some of which had you click a link to recipes, not a recipe to make bread or a dessert, a recipe that contained a list of meats and cheeses) almost every one of the writers seemed to think this was a creative idea that they came up with out of the blue. Folks, I’ll take a lot of credit for probably not super creative things I do, but this is literally setting out meat and cheese. The really creative ones added salami and maybe a couple of types of mustard. Don’t get me wrong this was a big hit, and I highly recommend it. It’s just not creative or unique. Everyone also said it was fast and cheap. I’m going to say that it probably can be. The way we did it didn’t wasn’t fast, or cheap (at least we didn’t have to buy alcohol).
I do want to go through what we did. I think some of it would have probably been appreciated a bit more at an adult party. I definitely think this concept would work for almost any casual event you were looking to host.
First, we offered four different types of bread. We made homemade croissants, pretzel roll, and mini white sandwich bread (this was the no dairy option). We also purchased Hawaiian rolls. As some of you know, I have made my fair share of Hawaiian bread, but I haven’t got the same flavor when I make them into rolls. So, this was the easy way out. I will note, high schoolers probably don’t appreciate the 2 day process that it takes to make croissants, so if I was you I’d buy them. Caroline on the other hand, is used to the level of detail that we put into our parties, so she notices stuff like that.
In terms of the actual sandwich bar, we set out ham, turkey and roast beef. From our experience, don’t bother with the roast beef, it wasn’t touched. Based on another post, we bought “fancy” meats like prosciutto and salami. We didn’t set those out, and I think that was for the best. I think it would be a great idea if you were feeding a more discerning crowd. We also had your basic cheeses: cheddar, colby jack, swiss and provolone. From an allergen perspective, we kept the cheeses on their own platter. We added chicken salad and pimento cheese to the mix as well. The sandwich spread concept wasn’t one I had seen on other blogs, but I didn’t read them all. I’m sure someone else has done it. If you like the spread style sandwich, you could also easily add ham and/or egg salad to the mix.
We topped the sandwich portion off with the extras: lettuce, tomato, pickles, and a slew of condiments including 3 types of mustard and fry sauce (don’t even think about bringing up that maychup nonsense. It’s fry sauce). We put everything out in small dishes rather than putting out the bottles. I just thought it looked a little less school cafeteria that way. If you’re in a hurry or don’t have an inordinate amount of little white bowls crowding your cabinet, leaving everything in the bottle would be perfectly acceptable.
In addition to the sandwich fixings, we had a fruit and vegetable tray. These are always a hit. No matter how much extra food we have, the fruit tray is always completely gone. Teenagers have an affinity for strawberries and grapes. We also made homemade pretzel bites with a warm cheese sauce. The pretzel bites were a big hit, and were pretty easy to make. The cheese sauce was literally out of a can, and had all the processed goodness of stadium nachos. Besides the fruit, the most popular food item we had was chips. We just bought a big box of snack chips and veggie straws, set them out on the chip clip stand, and voila they were gone (I am positive Alex definitely helped make those disappear). Finally, we served our homemade chocolate brownies and non-dairy (would also work for your gluten free folks) chocolate cookies.
Honestly, I don’t think the food was particularly creative, but sometimes good is just good and you don’t have to be creative. I know the brownies are going to be popular, and who can resist a bag of Doritos? Despite what to me seems like a very simple party, the response was overwhelming. The group was surprised by the amount and variety of food. I think they were happy to have something different than pizza. Second and Third hand reports even via Color Guard mom, were that it was a super success.
With that, there’s no guarantee that a party will be a success but for teens what seems to work is pretty simple. Provide them with food, drinks, and a place to hang out. Then get out of the way.
Oh we also had a fall colored balloon arch…. No one took pictures with it. I may be done with balloon arches at this point.
