Progressive dinner advice

bbullett

I've been egging for about a year and will be taking part in my first Progressive Dinner in the next month. My neighbors have nominated me for the entree, no doubt due in part to the EGG ! We are expecting 16 people, 4 of which are tree huggers (anti-meat). [p]How about some advice about how to handle this crowd, with this format. The whole crowd will be at one house for drinks, then another house for salad, then to my house for dinner. I need to have a couple of entree choices to satisfy the varios palates, and I suppose minimal attention since I'll be away from home during some of the cook.[p]Progressive dinner veterans, stand up and show yourself.

JSlot

bbullett,[p]Grill steaks or boneless pork loin chops, big thick ones, for the meat eaters and grill some good size portabello mushroom caps for the vegans. There are lots of good recipes around for these. My fave is in Steve Raichlan's book "How To Grill". I'll pass it along this afternoon when I get home if my memory doesn't fail me. LOL![p]Jim

Unknown

bbullett,
Be careful about them thar tree huggers. Some of the ones that I know will not eat vegetables that have been cooked on a grill where meat has been cooked. You might want to check that out. Other than that, a fruit and vegetable medley (shrooms, tomato, onion, bell peppers, kiwi, pears, etc, cut into bite size pieces) that have been marinated with teriyaki, olive oil and brown sugar and a little bit of garlic and then grilled are always tasty. I use one of those funny looking wok type things with holes in it. Works great.[p]I’ve heard rumors about vegetarian hamburgers and hotdogs that might fit the bill as well but I have never tried them.[p]Good luck
Matt.

Wise One

bbullett, I'd have to second JSlot's recommendation for the Portobello (sp?) mushrooms. Get some large ones, marinate in oil and vinegar with herbs. Grill and then slice before serving feathering the slices out to make it seem even larger. Another course you might try (I have never tried it) is grilled Tofu. I have seen a recipe or two for it but have never tried it. I have tried some of the Tofu burgers and they're OK but unless you're doing burgers for the rest of the crowd it might look a little strange.

The Naked Whiz

bbullett,
Another thought might be to do a vegetarian lasagne if you have room in the grill. If they object to their food coming into contact with a grill that has cooked meat, then putting the lasagne in a pan (hell, do it in the oven) might make them happy. [p]I just saute mushrooms, zuchinni and onions and then build up a lasagne with cheese, spaghetti sauce and the veggies.[p]TNW

Unknown

bbullett,
You can't go wrong with pork tenderloin (except of course with the tree huggers / vegans). Easy to do. You can cook it ahead of time, then wrap it in foil, then a towel and stick it in a cooler till you are ready to slice. You may want to take it off at a lower temp than usual, because the temp will rise in the foil.

Hammer

bbullett,
You have been given some good advice by the various eggsperts, and the only thing I can add is, that you serve three different types of wines. A red, white and a blush.
I can assure you that the tree huggers or vegans can't object to wines, because there was no meat involved, unless they (as some one said) object to bees, because bees pollinate the vines in many instances.
Damn, sure glad I don't have your problem. They come to my home, they either eat what I have cooked, or skip this part of the progressive dinner.
Have fun!
Hammer