Haitian French Bread

Catering Series, Ep 1: The "Am I crazy?" Edition

Not only am I ambitious, but I am the type to work hard instead of work smart. A recipe for disaster. So what do I decide to do when my UNICEF committee has to throw together an ethnic dinner for at least 30 people with a budget of less than $80 in DC? I decide that we're going to cook.

Yes. In the midst of exam season in this interim between spring break and Easter break, I come up with five dishes that would have otherwise cost over $500 (considering most catering charges around $100 per large tray of food) that I am going to make my committee cook / bake / prepare. Times have never been more hectic. I already spent the entire week e-mailing the tech people, registrar to try a negotiate a better venue, my two speakers, marketing people, my committee members, and more. With no time to touch academics outside of class, the dinner was T-minus four days.

I needed people to carry the groceries, chop vegetables with a group of people who proclaim "can't cook" (or use a knife), carry food to the venue (ten-minute walk). If we weren't so organized, there's no way dinner would have been possible with a severely under-equipped kitchen college common room. But I am proud to say that we did it! Some remarkable feats we managed to carry out included having someone carry probably 10-lbs of juice made by diluting concentrated cans of fruit-flavored syrup, using only one large pot and one small pot to make everything, etc. Everything went well, except someone learned not to grate too fast at risk of grating his own finger the hard way. That means we escaped with only one incident! Whew, now that the event is over, I would like to feature the cater- and budget-friendly dishes we made, courtesy of googling "haitian recipes," hoping that the food was at least somewhat resembled Haitian food. However, when you have a room full of hungry people because the event was advertised too early, they don't really complain about any food, really.

haitian french bread adapted from Cooks.com Serves 30 2 loaves of french bread (each $1.99 loaf was sliced into roughly 16-18 5/8" pieces) 1/2 lb. butter 4 tsp. dijon mustard 2 diced yellow onions 4 tbsp. poppy seeds 4 Tbsp. lemon juice 1 16-oz block of Monterey Jack cheese (far more economical than shredded) Combine everything in a small pot except for the bread and butter. Spread bread slices with butter. If catering, place melted concoction into a container (or leave in pot) and refrigerate. Place bread bites in tray, and cover with food wrap. Once ready to toast, place oven rack on highest tier, and preheat to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Melt cheese mixture in microwave. Prepare bread slices by arranging on a baking sheet and spooning enough cheese mixture to cover onto each slice. If you want to, sprinkle chopped dill as garnish. Once ready, turn broil setting on "high," and throw tray in oven for about 4-5 minutes. The edges should start to brown rapidly, so keep a close eye on the oven. When finished with one batch, place toasts into serving tray, arranged to minimize sogginess (on its side, bottoms facing up, etc. as demonstrated in the large picture of this post). Repeat steps 5-7 until all the bread is toasted. If not serving immediately, arrange all the toasts on their sides or backs, and keep tray in oven with the door open until about time to serve.

Lesson of the day? Now that I understand the logistics of carrying out an event, I know what to do and what not to do. Not having to e-mail the board members of UNICEF hundreds of questions should save plenty of time itself. Now I know what my members are capable of doing, and I should be able to spread my tasks among them, as to not place too big of a burden on myself. Also, I already realized that I've never been good at prioritizing. Here I am now, posting instead of studying for my human science exam that's in about 2 days. Speaking of which, it's about time to get started—right after a quick episode of Psych.

Note: picture taken with a DROID Razr Maxx HD.