Son2 worked a music festival this weekend doing catering. This was one of those 2 day events with 3 stages and a pretty decent lineup for a smaller inaugural festival. Even with a small festival they had 33 different bands, which means bands, crews, support staff for the bands, tour managers, festival organizers and so forth which translates to meals for about 250 people each day for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
If this could be like a banquet catering would be a snap. You could have a choice of 3 entrees with all the same sides and a small dessert, but that is just now how it works with music catering. You always have the normal eaters, who will eat anything in front of them as long as it is tasty, but then you have to add in all the other diets: lacto-ovo vegetarians/vegans/gluten frees/no sugars/organics/lactose intolerants/rawists and any other food allergy. It is definitely not a one size fits all type of catering. You wind up preparing meals that will compliment as many of the diets as possible as a part of the general menu, but you always have to have special meals ready. After a few shows under your belt you learn that you always need a few extra "special" meals than you original count indicated.
When the festival was over and clean up was done, they found they had a few uncooked vegan entrees. Son3 wrapped them in foil and brought them home instead of tossing them in the garbage can. Woo-hoo, supper tonight was halfway done. When I unwrapped them I found 3 stuffed bell peppers. Since I already had some ground beef in the fridge I made a pan cooked patty with steamed onions over the top. (I guess we could have just eaten the peppers as an entree, but then I would have had to make a salad which would mean running to the store for tomatoes.)
It is still too hot to bake anything so I put 3 stuffed peppers in a pyrex pie pan, added about 1/2 inch of water to the bottom of the pan and zapped them in 3 minute intervals until they were done. I think I zapped them about 4 times before the peppers cooked through, but were not wilted and mushy. After I put them on my plate I started eating them and doing dinner forensics.
I am not going to give you amounts, but rather tell you how they were made, so this is another how-to rather than a recipe.
White cooked rice was mixed with chopped yellow squash, chopped onion, minced garlic, chopped tomatoes, salt and pepper. It was then stuffed into de-seeded bell peppers, then topped with about a tablespoon of tomato paste. It was very tasty, but with just a little bit of love it would have been fantastic. A chopped fresh parsley and some basil or dill (not both because they are just not friendly herbs) mixed into the rice and tomato paste would have made it truly delicious. Mushrooms would have been a nice addition to the rice which I would also cook in a vegetable stock if I wanted to keep it vegan, or chicken stock if I wanted to make it more delicious. Either way it was very tasty and something I will do with the few modifications mentioned.
Hats off to the organizers, who managed to draw a crowd of about 15 thousand the first day of the festivities. The second day saw a larger audience to see/hear bands on a 103 heat index day. Those fans are much more dedicated than I am. I've been there and done that, and now I prefer to hear live music at smaller weather controlled (ac/ or heat) venues. Could I actually have grown that old?
For your listening pleasure, St. Paul and the Broken Bones
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