Vacation Meals - Feeding large groups on vacation

[Anonymous]

Going on a two week long beach vacation with five adults and three kids. We would like to eat dinners in each night.

What do you make for dinner on your vacations for large groups? I am thinking along the lines of tacos, spaghetti and meatballs, etc. so you don't need a ton of spices or ingredients.

[Anonymous]

Do you have access to a crockpot? You could make a big roast and then pull it apart when its cooked and add bbq sauce and serve on rolls.

[Anonymous]

Why on earth would you go on vacation and spend time cooking. Stay home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why on earth would you go on vacation and spend time cooking. Stay home.

I disagree. Eating out every night would be costly, not to mention unhealthy. Cooking at home is not hard to do if you can figure out some easy tasty recipes--which was the purpose of this thread!

[Anonymous]

We grill most of our beach vacation. Seafood, chicken, burgers, dogs, steaks. In fact, we're having steak and scallops on Friday night for our main course, and having grilled oysters for our appetizer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why on earth would you go on vacation and spend time cooking. Stay home.

I disagree. Eating out every night would be costly, not to mention unhealthy. Cooking at home is not hard to do if you can figure out some easy tasty recipes--which was the purpose of this thread!

This. It is cheaper than eating out each night, plus the three kids are young and I don't feel like hustling them out to restaurants, waiting an hour for a table, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why on earth would you go on vacation and spend time cooking. Stay home.

So spend all your money and time frequenting mediocre beach restaurants. Your choice.

Back to the OP's question: we rent a large beach house with extended family, and most of us have evening plans including tennis, parasailing, kayaking, etc. We've found that these plans are much easier to carry out if we eat at the house rather than waiting for a table or two (10-20 people) at a beach restaurant. The food is much better when we cook, too. So we have one person/couple cook each night, with a few nights off where everyone either goes out together or separately. We tend to have a Tex-Mex night, Italian night, stir-fry night, grilled veggie skewers night, etc. About half of us are vegetarian or pescetarian, so all meals are veggie by general agreement, although there are sometimes extra seafood options. Some of us cook ahead and freeze (baked ziti), while others do a quick store run and cook/assemble at the beach house. Some of us spend more time thinking about the meals than others, but everyone appreciates only having to cook and clean up once. (In our house, we have enough kids and teenagers to have them handle cleanup most nights.) Total time spent is about 2-3 hours max per person/couple over the week.

[Anonymous]

JamieOliver.com has a really good recipe for baked pasta. Good if you have kids that are picky eaters.

Shrimp tacos is another easy dinner where you sauté the shrimp in olive oil, salt and chili powder. Put it in a tortilla with some avocado and some chopped up cabbage.

[Anonymous]

We use the crock pot a lot at the beach, cooks all day while we're down having fun and we just throw together sides when we get back. Pulled pork, beef roast, chicken breasts for fajitas, etc

[Anonymous]

Seafood boil!

[Anonymous]

We alternate cooking with one couple doing a different night
Grilled shrimp on skewers, chicken for the kids
Pasta with garlic bread and salad
Tacos
Pizza, with steamed veggies to keep to healthier

I like grilling because it doesn't heat up the kitchen

[Anonymous]

There's a recent thread on this for add'l ideas. I will try to search

[Anonymous]

Grill- burgers, chicken, hotdogs, fish, brats, steak, veggies, pork. Bring kabob sticks and you can marinate the meat while at the beach and then stick on the kabob stick. So easy.

Taco night with rice, refried beans

Spaghetti and salad night

Enchilada night- just roll up a bunch of those suckers and put them in the oven

Pizza night (at least two times I would go out to eat pizza and ice cream. You could pick it up and bring home if you wanted, I guess.)

Breakfast for dinner- eggs, French toast, sausage, etc

Tuna melts

Meatball subs- you could make extra meatballs with the spaghetti and have meatball subs the next night or night after that.

Meatloaf

You could also take turns with the other adults with watching the kids and going out to eat once or twice. Either you and your husband go out alone and eat or girls go while guys watch kids and then guys go out- however it works out with your group dynamics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why on earth would you go on vacation and spend time cooking. Stay home.

I disagree. Eating out every night would be costly, not to mention unhealthy. Cooking at home is not hard to do if you can figure out some easy tasty recipes--which was the purpose of this thread!

This. It is cheaper than eating out each night, plus the three kids are young and I don't feel like hustling them out to restaurants, waiting an hour for a table, etc.

Order in pizza or something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why on earth would you go on vacation and spend time cooking. Stay home.

I disagree. Eating out every night would be costly, not to mention unhealthy. Cooking at home is not hard to do if you can figure out some easy tasty recipes--which was the purpose of this thread!

This. It is cheaper than eating out each night, plus the three kids are young and I don't feel like hustling them out to restaurants, waiting an hour for a table, etc.

Oh, I thought you said you were going on vacation.