Choosing Food for a Reception: What Would You Want to Eat?
 

So I'm in the process of choosing the menu for my wedding reception. The local vegetarian restaurant is going to be doing the catering. Now, some of their choices are a little more exotic than others, and for a portion of the people attending our wedding, anything outside of the Mexican-Chinese-Italian ethnic food continuum is exotic. So, I ask you, TFP, to peruse some of the choices below, tell me what YOU would like to eat, and what kinds of foods you prefer to see at a wedding reception (please do not mention meat; I am not in charge of the meat, that is my future father-in-law's province, and yes, he will be firing up his smoker).

We're doing this buffet-style, and since the ceremony is at 2 in the afternoon and short, people will start rolling in to my in-laws' place (where the reception will be) at about 3pm, so we'd like to also have an array of appetizers available. I've already gone through the choices and kind of broken them up into Italian and Mexican menus; I'd also put together a Greek menu but that was voted down as too exotic. The reception will be outdoors. We have a tent. Since the wedding is in late August, it is likely that it will be hot.

Thanks in advance for your assistance!

Appetizers and Snacks

Dips and Spreads
Baba Ganouj
Baked garlic
Chips & salsa or spicy bean dip
Red onion dip
Guacamole
Toasted almond cream cheese spread
Tapenade (caper-olive spread)
Olivade (olive spread)
Blue cheese spread with walnuts
White bean dip with toasted pita chips
Baked artichoke dip
Whipped feta with roasted peppers
Hummus
Veggie pate

Finger Foods
Tortas (Pesto, Mexican, Greek)
Marinated Mushrooms
Marinated Artichoke hearts
Savory Appetizer Cheesecake
Brie baked in pastry
Fruit plate
Cheese & Crackers
Fiesta Platter
Nori rolls
BBQ tofu
Veggie antipasto
Cheeseballs
Veggie plate
Brie Pinwheel
Cheese triangles
Dolmas

Breads

French bread
Scones
Cornbread
Muffins
Rolls
Zucchini bread
Cranberry bread
Pumpkin bread
Blueberry bread

Salads and Sides

Potato Salads
Aegean potato salad (feta, parm & ricotta cheese)
American Potato salad
Potato salad with Japanese dressing
Potato salad with spicy peanut, ginger and cilantro dressing
Potato salad with Indian spices
Greek roasted potatoes

Pasta Salads
Pasta primavera (mushrooms & sun-dried tomatoes)
Pesto Pasta salad
Greek Pasta salad
Pasta with marinated veggies
Pasta with peanut-lime vinaigrette
Penne, feta and olive salad
Asian noodles

Bean Salads
White bean salad with green olives
Black bean, couscous and corn salad
White bean & tomato salad

Vegetable Salads
Asian cabbage slaw
Artichoke heart - tomato salad
Vegetable-tofu almondine salad (tofu, almonds, green beans, carrots &
mushrooms)
Mixed Green
Waldorf
Tabouli
Cucumber-wakame
Greek salad
Fruit salad

More Salads
Couscous, artichoke hearts & walnut salad
Rice salad with sundried tomatoes
Couscous, pinenut and olive salad
Asian pesto salad (cilantro, mint, basil, cashews and peanuts)

Entrees

Italian
Pasta bar (red fennel, alfredo, creamy pesto or puttanesca sauces)
Lasagna (spinach, pesto or French)
Ravioli / Tortellini
Ratatouille

Mexican
New Mexico Lasagna
Enchilada casserole
Burrito bar

More Entrees
Indian Buffet
Spanakopita
Mideast buffet
Sweet & sour tofu
Soup & salad bar
Chili & cornbread
Mushroom stroganoff

just reading all those made me very hungry.

A lot of the things on your list are what I crave when I eat at Maoz. So laying them out on a buffet along with some good pita breads so you can stuff them, plus the falafel, of course, would be very appetizing. Even my carnivorous teenage boys love it. Plus, I think it goes great with a nice white wine or champagne.

Now I know what I'm eating later today

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2.../maozmagic.jpg

Meat.

I suppose that isnt much help.

Some of the things in the list werent known to me (maybe a language thing), but I think you cant go to far wrong with cheese, bread, and crackers... a few apples and grapes.

I would eat almost everything on there.
Kudos for finding somewhere excellent. I'll go over it when I'm not on my iPhone. What I think you're asking is how others would break it down? How many in each category are you looking for?

BadNick, yeah, I'd LOVE that, but for my SO's grandparents, that would be WAY too adventurous.


Yes, noodle; I'm looking at different ways to kind of make this meal coherent.

We're looking for:
about 3-5 different appetizers
1-2 bread options
2 salads
an entree

It might be helpful to pick the entree first and then work your way up - its a lot easier to tweak the smaller dishes/sides to be in a compatible flavor profile than the other way around.

I would probably do the pasta bar, and vary your base sauces enough they could go along with the appetizers in some way - the pesto opens the way for more Mediterranean, for example.

For the entree I would go with the Lasagna or Ravioli I don't think I know a single person who refuses any incarnation of pasta with tomato sauce. We had baked ziti at our wedding; everyone ate and no complaints. I would pair it with a vegetable salad to be safe.

Bread: something that stays together nicely with few crumbs. People aren't going to want to get their nice clothes all crumby (literally), yourself included.

As for appetizers: hot wedding = cold appetizers. If you fill hot people full of hot food, followed by more hot food, it's only going to make them more uncomfortable than they probably already will be.

I would do any combination of these...

Tapenade (caper-olive spread)
Blue cheese spread with walnuts
White bean dip with toasted pita chips
Baked artichoke dip
Whipped feta with roasted peppers
Veggie pate

Tortas (Pesto, Mexican, Greek)
Brie baked in pastry
Fruit plate
Cheese & Crackers
Veggie antipasto

French bread
Rolls
Zucchini bread

Aegean potato salad (feta, parm & ricotta cheese)
Potato salad with spicy peanut, ginger and cilantro dressing
Greek roasted potatoes

Pesto Pasta salad
Greek Pasta salad
Pasta with marinated veggies


White bean & tomato salad

Mixed Green
Greek salad

Pasta bar (red fennel, alfredo, creamy pesto or puttanesca sauces)
Lasagna (spinach, pesto or French)
Indian Buffet
Mideast buffet

My SO wants to do the pasta bar for the entree (monkie, are you a mindreader?!), so now I'm trying to figure out what to put around it. Great groupings there, noodle. Tapenade is a must for me; I love love love the stuff. Given that we want to do the pasta bar, I'm leaning away from starchy salads.

Here's what I have:

Tapenade
White bean dip with toasted pita chips
Whipped feta with roasted peppers
Fruit plate
Veggie plate
Veggie antipasto

French bread
rolls

Mixed green salad
tomato-artichoke heart salad

Pasta bar

Would you eat that? :)

Ah, yup.

and with the toasted pita chips for the tapenade, bean dip and whipped feta, there's your other bread for the carbos. :)

Yum. Just... yeah. All I could think as I looked at that overall list was Vegetarian heaven. You could have picked any of those items.

I think you'll have a lot of happy people with the theme and menu you (and Noodle) have chosen.

Sounds like you have a found a good way to avoid meat. The choices are overwhelming.

We did a pasta bar at our wedding and it was excellent. I don't seem to recall anyone complaining about the lack meat (although I seem to recall that at least one of the pasta dishes on offer had meat -- it's been a few years since I was married).