People over for dinner, how much food

[vilasman1]

We had a couple over for din din today.
we had a 11x15 of stuffing a 11x15 of macaroni and chesse
a 9x13 of sweet potato casserole, better than sex cake, a roast, a bowl of mix vege's, rolls and more than enough juice. 4 people and 1 child,
How would you figure out how much food to have?
Both in variety and amount

 

[Audeo]

Good question, vilasman1! There are a lot of unknown variables, in my mind. First the crowd: trust me when I say teenagers eat ten times as much as my 50-year-old neighbor adults. That makes a difference. I just take a few moments to consider the worst-case scenarios and plan quantity from there. I think it's always better to have leftovers, than not enough...unless you want the group to disperse a little sooner than they may have planned...

Personally, I think the variety of items was great and offered choices for your guests. My only addition would have been salad with/and/or fruit, but consider that I'm a fruit and salad addict....

 

[auntdot]

I wish I had a really good answer vilasman1.

Yeah, I know the catering guidelines.

We always ignore those and very much over buy (maybe because we were both raised by parents who experienced the Depression, we are gun shy about not having enough food).

A few years ago had over for a simple BBQ my MIL, FIL, SIL, my brother and his wife, two elderly grandmas and an aunt.

None of whom were chow hounds.

Hamburgers, two per person, a couple of pounds of specialty hot dogs, a cut of beef sliced thin and marinated in teriyaki sauce, several pounds of fantastic salads from a really great German deli, and I forget what else.

A ton of food for that crowd.

We had it knocked, or so we thought.

Don't know what happened, but even the grandmas turned into that thin Japanese guy who always wins the hot dog eating contest at Nathan's in Coney Island every July 4th (where does he put the stuff?).

Instead of relaxing during the party, was cutting and (briefly) marinating more beef and cleaning out the freezer for more hamburgers and dogs.

Finally, and just before I believed they would all explode, they stopped.

After that day, they all went back to their normal eating habits.

I still cannot figure it out.

 

[ironchef]

We had a couple over for din din today.
we had a 11x15 of stuffing a 11x15 of macaroni and chesse
a 9x13 of sweet potato casserole, better than *** cake, a roast, a bowl of mix vege's, rolls and more than enough juice. 4 people and 1 child,
How would you figure out how much food to have?
Both in variety and amount

Easiest way to figure is by weight.

Assuming you have two meat, one vegetable, and two starches:

5-6 oz. of each meat dish per person.
2-3 oz. of vegetable per person.
2-3 oz. of each starch per person.

This is only for the main courses. With appetizers, you can probably go by the piece instead of weight, depending on what you're serving. If you let me know how much people are coming, and exactly what you're serving, I can give you more info