Monday, February 25, 2013

Women's Conference Dinner 2013

     So I had a "little" project that consumed all of January and went to February 7 that I ought to include in my blog-family journal. I had visitors when I returned to work after Christmas break with an assignment. They asked me to do the dinner for women's Conference...again. Well how were they to know I had done this a couple of other times in different capacities. So my first order of business naturally was to enlist the help of Lori & Cheryl. We are such an awesome team I think. We all cook great and have different strengths to bring to the table so to speak. We pounded through my ideas and got our assignments all figured out. I spent every night thinking and rethinking it out in my mind because of course I wanted it to be perfect. Besides I figure the more planning you do, to take care of the details, the less screwups you should have in the end. Notice I said less not none.
     We got the menu established with the suggestion from the stake that they would like soup. So we ran with that. I enlisted Benjy to tear apart some pallets and make some crates to serve the soup from. To me nothing says tacky more than crock pots lined up on a serving table so I tried to "prettify" that. Benjy came out and spent a day building me crates for the roasters and planks to rest the served soup on and even a fabulous pallet inspired cupcake stand. I had the vision and he brought it to life. I kinda like having a carpenter in the family who will do what ever I ask!!
I love how the crates and planks turned out and they looked so cute that night!
       I searched Vegas and found an awesome bread bakery that I am now officially addicted to: Great Buns! Seriously to die for and should be checked out by bread addicts everywhere. I had lots of helpers. Ashley picked up the order for me that day and brought it with her.Kathy & Carolyn came over and chopped veggies for 3 hours one night for me too. I can't even count how many times I went to Vegas to get stuff.
I am pretty proud of how it all turned out in the end. My servers that night were incredible. I had Lori, Ashley, Jolynn, Lisa, Shannon, Jill, Shona, Shannon B, Lauralyn and last but certainly not least Alisha. They were such hard workers and helped feed 350 people in 45 minutes! That's 50 more than we expected so thanks to the husbands who ran up lots of reinforcements from our own fridges!



Women's Conference Dinner Menu
 Choose a soup:
Baked Potato
Loaded with bacon, cheddar, green onions & sour cream
or
Tomato Bisque
or
Vegetable Chicken
Broccoli, cauliflower, red peppers, carrots, cabbage, chard & zucchini
Spinach Salad
Artesian Rolls
~
Choose a cupcake for Dessert:
Red Velvet
German Chocolate
Vanilla Bean
Mint Lemonade or Water to Drink



 Sadly I never had time to take my own pictures. So I got some from the stake so I can kinda remember how it all looked which is always so important to me! My soup servers serving up all the soups and placing the bowls on the planks for them to choose one. The stupid breakers kept going off so it was crazy trying to keep the soup warm. Poor Mendis had to make an emergency trip to the stake center to help me out. Next came the salad and bread table. It looked so pretty.



So poor Jolynn had to try and keep the salad and bread stocked with women swarming all over. She handled it like a champ. Ashley was my mint lemonade gal. She served up lemonade as fast as she could.

I used the mint from my garden to make the simple syrup. We had gallons of it left over which was okay by me! Then the crown jewel was the cupcakes! They looked so pretty. Lori and Cheryl made them all for me and they were beautiful. I made a couple hundred decorated holders for them that are hard to see but turned out nice. They went fast though and we barely got one before those women ate them all up!


It was an amazing night! It was actually fun to see the vision come to life. I was happy to do it for the women of the stake. They all work so hard and they deserved a special night with a special dinner. But man were we all every wiped out for the next few days!!