I corn my own beef, so I have to start marinating 3 weeks early. This year we had fewer people than usual, so I have lots of beef leftover. Yea! We had 16, and we've had as many as 30. (Sit-down dinner or buffet, china, silver, linen napkins - then we get casual.)
Lucas built a new firepit last summer, so we had a campfire and the kids made som'mores. Blech! but they like them and it was pretty exciting to have a campfire on St. Pat's Day as opposed to snow on the ground.
A couple of disasters, though. I had bought chicken noodle soup instead of cream of chicken, so I ended up using some frozen half and half with chicken boullion crystals for the potatoes. Now that I think about it, I could have pureed the noodle soup. H-m-m-m-m. One guest said it seemed different and when I told her about it, she thought maybe I should do that from now on. The onion and the cheese carry the flavor anyway. Then the next morning, I had no milk so had to use Redi-whip for the hash - not whipping cream, the stuff that foams out of a can. It was really pretty good; just a little sweet. I guess I'm not the worst cook in America yet, but I do keep trying.