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Saturday, November 2, 2013

A Barn Dance




Three of us were in charge of cooking for a get-together not long ago. It was quite an undertaking but lots of fun. :)

We started gathering supplies early to make sure we had all we needed. Filled my freezers with shrimp, crawdads, crab legs and smoked sausage. Bought the potatoes, corn, onions, garlic, lemons and bread fresh.
For the crawdad boil we had
 lemons, onions, garlic, crawdad boil seasoning, coarse salt, cayenne pepper. (to season the pot).
75lb crawdads
75lb smoked sausage
75lb shrimp
65lb crab legs
65lb potatoes
300 ears corn on the cob
420 slices grilled garlic bread
cocktail sauce
garlic butter

some of the crab legs getting ready to take to the party...


some of the smoked sausage, cut into bite sized pieces...



some of the shrimp.....


did not get pics of the crawdads or corn...

the potatoes. We cut the larger ones in half for even cooking time...


more tatoes...



onions...


tons of garlic for the pots and for garlic butter.... took forever to peel! lol



I think I ended up with 32lbs of cocktail sauce. I poured it back into ketchup containers after mixing.



lemons to season the pots, I just cut them in half and squeezed the fresh juice into the pots.


grilled 30 loaves of garlic bread. I was able to get 14 slices of garlic bread from each loaf so I ended up with 420 slices.



Setting up the food tent.....at friend's ranch...









Day of the party.....loading up the beer, whiskey, tequila, rum, Jack, Crown, vodka, and others....







....and the ice...



"Beer Meets Ice"  :)
Started layering beer and ice into 5 foot stock tanks....















setting up the bar on the work bench in the barn...


music...


Used 7 cooking pots, refilled them when each batch was cooked..




When the cooking started, things got hectic. I didn't get to take as many pics as I wanted.
Put the seasonings in the pots first, onions, garlic, salt, lemon juice, cayenne, crawdad seasoning, smoked sausage.   Then the potatoes.
Next the corn then the shrimp and lastly the crawdads.
Had one pot dedicated to warm garlic butter.



The crab leg pot...


the pot was big enough to hold all 65 pounds of legs with room to spare...



One thing I didn't count on.....more help than was needed showed up.  I spent a lot of time avoiding answering questions and trying to reach the food and pots without running into "helpers".  The three of us have cooked large parties with no problems, we have a "system" and know what needs to be done and when to do it. It was a bit of a struggle working around some of the extra bodies. lol
 I do want to thank Wichita and Dallas, couldn't have pulled it off without you! 


The table was about 24 ft long. (three 8ft tables end to end) We placed plates, forks, napkins and dips on one end and poured the cooked food down the rest of the newspaper covered tables...






people filled their plates and we just kept the table full. 



Didn't get many pics of the dancing. I was either cooking, dancing or talking with friends.  :)




We had expected around 75 people when first planning this, then it grew to maybe 100....then more people said they were coming so we figured to get enough food for 150. The more we talked to folks, the more said that they were coming......it sort of snowballed into 250 people.  Everyone had fun and there was plenty of food and drink. :)

People danced and made several trips to the food tent. I stayed until around 3 a.m., there was still a bit of food left and people dancing. I left baggies on the tables for people to take leftovers home.

A couple of days later, after resting up, it was time to take the food tent down.






Didn't take long for me to realize I was better off taking pictures than helping. :)






All is quiet and back to normal. :)





I'm ready to do it again! :)

26 comments:

c w swanson said...

Wow! What an undertaking that was! Congrats on the success!

cowgirl said...

Thank you C W! It was a lot of work but worth it. Thanks for stopping by too. :)

LindaG said...

Love the last two photos. I'd turn them into puzzles!
Where did you ever find that many crawfish this time of year?

Congratulations, it all looked great!

Sid said...

Impressive! Way over my head. Thought I'd see a tractor rim in there somewere though.:)

cowgirl said...

Thanks Linda! Those would make good puzzles. I should figure out how to do that. :)
The local grocery store had the crawdads, I bought all they had then went back for more. lol

cowgirl said...

Hey Chris, hope fall is treating you well. :) This was over my head too but I didn't think about it. lol Knew how many I could feed with one pot full and went from there.
No tractor rim this time. :)
Have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by!

Bushman said...

That would have been fun I'm no good at dancing but I am very good at eating! NIce job. Lot of work!

Jim Dorchak said...

My wife and i have done this same type of event many times in South Carolina before we moved to Chile. We did a slightly different twist on the boil. It is called low country boil or Frogmore stew. We have also done smoked lamb and smoked pork picnics. It has always been a lot of work and a lot of fun too. We really enjoyed doing square dances, as well as bon fires.

Jim Dorchak

cowgirl said...

Bushman you would have fit right in! It was a lot of fun. :)
Hope you're weekend is going well.

cowgirl said...

Jim that sounds great! It's a lot of fun! Maybe you could throw a barn dance for your new friends in Chile, bet they would love it!

Frugal Canadian Hermit said...

Looks like it was one heck of a shin dig to me. Brought back a few memories of my own from some times gone by actually. I've never put on anything like that, but I sure have participated a time or two. lol. The food looked pretty special Jeanie, you guys did a heck of a job as usual.

cowgirl said...

Mark, I'm glad the pics brought back a few memories for you. (hope they were good ones :)) I bet you did attend a few cowboy dances when riding. :)
Thanks Mark, hope you're having a great weekend!

SmithGang said...

Oh what fun.

Mrs. JP said...

Wow, that looks like a huge undertaking but yall pulled it off in style and what a crowd!

Chris said...

I thought we did a lot when we did our crawfish boil but you really outdid us with this huge event. I totally get you on the problem of having too much help.

Old Smoke said...

WOW! What a doin's.....
I help out with several fundraisers to help "sober grad" and other community agencies. I am part of a 4 man crew that cooks
200+ large tri-tip on 2 large Santa Maria type grills, over oakwood coals. We have been together a loooooooong time and move like we should be on "Dancing with the Stars'......Well almost ;)
After I turned and accidentally stabbed (minor no blood)a "helper" with the meat fork he decided that maybe he would help out with the salads.
We don't get many helpers now!!!!!!
It is great to be finished, but my buddies don't dance......aaaaaahhh with me anyhow......lol :)
We celebrate with red solo cups full of "brown water"
Good Job!

cowgirl said...

SmithGang thank you! I appreciate you stopping by. :)

cowgirl said...

Mrs JP it was a lot of work but really worth it. Had such a great time. Thanks! :)

cowgirl said...

lol Chris it didn't dawn on me to section off the cooking area...Now I know. lol Thanks!

cowgirl said...

Hahaaa Rick, I can just picture you poking someone with a knife. lol
I bet your tri tip cooks are awesome! It would be fun cooking with you but then again I might stand back and just watch. lol
Thanks for the laugh Rick!

JazzCat said...

Great Photos Jeanie!
Quite a spread, I'm sure everyone left smilin'!
Nice work!!

Unknown said...

Hi Jeanie,

Damn girl, I'm hung over just looking at the pics! Hope all is well with you, sure looks like it is!

Lou

cowgirl said...

Jazzcat thanks! I think everyone had a good time. Hope all is well with you, good to see ya! :)

cowgirl said...

Lou!! How in the heck have you been? It's good to see you. :)
All's well here, still cooking too much. lol
Thanks for stopping by!

Old Smoke said...

OK it's a deal we will cook something next time I cruise through your neck of the world....
I promise not to stab ya!;)
OH! btw nice hat............
in pic #1

cowgirl said...

Sounds great Rick!
Not a pic of me but thanks about the hat too. :)