Cookaholics Bulletin Board

My oldest is graduating from elementary school this year. I'm having the class (21 kids if they all come) for a sleepover (outside in tents) in mid-June. Starting to think about menu items. Nothing fancy, but want the food to be good. They are arriving in the afternoon so dinner will be burgers/dogs and salad. Fruit and veggie trays will be purchased although I will supplement with watermelon or similar. Likely whoopie pies for dessert since I made them once for a class function and they liked them and I can make soon and freeze. Trying to do as much make ahead as possible as it's a crazy here the next few weeks. I also have some volunteers from other parents and I'm sure they'll be bringing stuff. Also have choc chip cookie balls ready to bake.
Breakfast will be sausages and peameal (aka Canadian bacon) and I was thinking of just doing pancakes to go with but worry I can't keep up with production so thought to have some other items ready to eat. I've invited their teachers for the breakfast part as well. So I started thinking cinnamon rolls which I've never made before. Thoughts on making and freezing? I thought we'd talked about this but no luck on the search.
Other ideas? No allergies in this group. I could also do a plain scone but they'd have to be able to be baked from frozen or thawed overnight in the fridge then baked. And I'm guessing fridge space will be at a premium.
Thoughts? Ideas are welcome.

Can you prep the night before and bake in the morning? Monkey bread is somewhat less work than cinnamon rolls (particularly a recipe a la Sandra Lee) or a scrambled egg casserole can be assembled in baking dishes the night before and heated up the morning of.

The CI overnight french toast would probably work if you can bake that morning. I've done it in a disposable foil pan before and it worked out great. It is really sweet so they would probably like it. It gets raves every time I make it.

--Lisa

Best Make-Ahead Recipe has a good recipe for cinnamon rolls that can be made the night before and baked in the morning. It can also be frozen, but it really doesn't bake all that well from frozen, IMHO. Monkey Bread is another good option. You can have the dough ready in the morning and let the kiddos roll balls themselves. I remember doing that at church sleepovers when I was a kid and it was as much fun as one can legally have at a church sleepover. I also seem to remember that it was just canned biscuit dough, too.

Pete, I can't count on doing anything the day before. The kids are arriving at 3 ish and we have a pool so hubby and I have to be outside the whole time. And I'm sleeping in the girls' tent. Or at least at the entrance to it
So everything has to be prepped on the Friday or at the very latest Saturday morning as we'll be putting tents up etc. on the Saturday. I may just buy croissants at Costco and have that with jam out to supplement the pancakes.
I'll look at the overnight French toast Lisa, thanks. It has to be able to sit for 24 hours though, which is where I'm running into issues.
JB-thanks for the info on the bake from frozen. I found that on a blog but didn't know how good they would be. I could freeze and thaw overnight then bake- thoughts?
Trying to let the kids just hang out in the morning, I figure they will be tired from not sleeping and also I'm a bit of a control freak in the kitchen.....

How about CI's Anytime Muffins? They bake just fine from frozen. You could mix them tomorrow, if you wanted. I posted the recipe in the Baking forum.

Awesome thought. I could even bake them the night before from frozen so that they'd be ready first thing in the morning. It astonishes me how much teens eat....it's non stop. And the smaller ones seem to eat the most!

Okay, so I've made 2 batches of mocha chocolate chip, 1 blueberry and 1 lemon poppyseed of the anytime muffins. I didn't oil the tin enough for first 2 batches so they didn't pop out...so I wound up leaving all of them in the tins in the freezer. Fingers crossed that they release. I'm going to bake them on the Saturday night while the kids are watching a movie (we show them outdoors, the class seems to think they will be able to watch them all night....not) and then just warm them in the a.m.
These along with pancakes and peameal bacon will be breakfast. I've got orange juice, chocolate and regular milk and coffee/tea since many are drinking that now. There are 2 fruit trays coming from other parents for the Saturday night and I'm hoping there will be some left for breakfast. I'm also going to put granola and yogurt out, but not sure if I'll get any takers on that.

Nobody goes hungry when they stay at Jean's house! That's a terrific menu for teens - something for everybody. By the way, what's peameal bacon?

fitzi

thanks!
and peameal is what we refer to as Canadian bacon, but it's different from the Cnd bacon I've seen in the US. It's basically a cured pork loin rolled in cornmeal, thinly sliced. This is where I get mine: http://elitemeat.ca/peameal-bacon-2/, and there's an explanation as to what it is as well.