A Belated 4th of July Post: How to Feed More Than 10 People on a Budget

It has been a crazy week, and so I am much delayed in posting on the 4th of July party we hosted. Originally planning to picnic on the Esplanade, the half-million plus crowds combined with the 90+degree heat led us to change our plans with less than 3 hours before people started to arrive. Yet, with a quick trip to Whole Foods and Panera, and with a little creative stretching, we served about 12 people on leftovers and about $35. Pretty awesome.

First, we didn't serve a full "meal" per se, but the amount of noshes we had was more than enough for "dinner" for everyone.

First, we took a page out of our own book, and the base of our meal was about 4 baguettes from Panera (about $10), and some cheese. However, fancy local mozzarella was not in the budget for this many people, so some concessions were made to locality for budget's sake. Now, brie may sound fancy for a dinner party on the cheap, and it is, but we have found a super deal on it. President's Brie now comes in easy-to-slice brie logs, and since it is a new product, they offer a coupon for it! You can get $3 off a brie log. Fill out the info and you can print your coupons. Now, supermarkets like Shaws and Stop and Shop will put $2 and $3 dollar off coupons on cheese (and other deli products) that are close to their expiration date. If you look through the cheese section you can usually find some. So, on the 4th, we got 2 brie logs which are normally 6.79 each for about 1.79 each! Slice thinly, and these go a long way.

We also added some somewhat local blueberries and strawberries from Whole Foods which were on sale, some other random things we had lying around the house, and we made a delicious spinach salad. You can buy a whole giant container of baby spinach at Whole Foods right now for about 6.99. That sounds expensive, but we only used half of the container for our salad to feed 10-12 people.

Spinach and Strawberry Salad

Baby Spinach, sliced strawberries, +cheese (optional, feta or goat is highly recommended)

Dressing...mix balsamic vinegar, a little olive oil, and poppy seeds together. It's delicious!

So, with a delicious meal, we settled down for an excellent view of the fireworks...in air conditioning!