Cooking for a crowd

When Tom and I were resident heads almost 20 years ago, we used to cook for large groups all the time.  The University of Chicago organizes residential units into "houses".  Smaller buildings are sometimes just one house, but larger building were divided into houses that run from 30 to a little over 100 students each, with most houses running around 60 students.  These days houses are larger, average about 80-100 students.  Each house has a single resident head or a resident head couple, and at least one RA (formally titled Assistant Resident Head, rather than Resident Assistant).  We had 60 students in our house, so cooking for 30-60 students was a regular occurrence.

Since we moved out of the dorms in the late 90's, we haven't hosted many large parties at home.  There were some church dinners, but then the church we attended at the time was smaller, so church dinners were only 30 people occasions, at the most.  The church we are attending now has at least 150 people attending its Sunday worship service.  Last month, after one such Sunday, I had the job of providing the "family dinner".

I took a Mostaccioli Casserole recipe from  Cooks.com and multiplied everything by 6.  So here's how I made enough baked mostaccoli to feed 100 people.  I asked the congregation to bring the sides (those with last names A-L bring a salad or vegetable side dish, and those with last names M-Z bring a bread or dessert).  I also made one special mostaccioli with mushrooms instead of sausage; one with sausage and no cheese; and one with mushrooms as well as no cheese.

Baked Mostaccioli for 100
modified from Cooks.com

15 lbs. Italian sausage
60 cups of Spaghetti sauce (a 24 oz bottle of Spaghetti sauce is about 2.5 cups)
7.5 cups water
7.5 cups of Parmesan cheese
15 lb Mozarella cheese
15 lb Mostaccioli (or any small dry pasta like penne, rotini, etc)

This works best if you cook about 3 lbs of pasta at a time in a stock pot. While the pasta is cooking, cut up the Italian sausage and brown in a very large pan.  Put cooked sausage, the spaghetti sauce and the water in a big pot.  Bring to a boil and simmer for about 10 minutes.  Add the Parmesan cheese to thicken the sauce.

The assembly is fun, very similar to assembling lasagnas.  In a 13" by 9" foil pan layer one cup sauce, then one layer of pasta, then two cups of sauce, and two cups of mozarella on top of the sauce.  Repeat with a layer of pasta, a layer of sauce, and a layer of mozarella.  Bake each pan for 30-40 minutes until heated through and enjoy.