Wedding Barbecue

Today was a different kind of day for me. I arrived at the castle for 11:00a.m. We had to prepare everything for the barbecue, a post-wedding day event for yesterday’s VIP wedding, to be ready by 4:30p.m. at the latest. We had a lot left to do, and I went to work bowling up the salad accompaniments, preparing the corn on the cob, and getting things ready for the dessert. Then we had to put everything in fancy dishes and wrap it, and bring it all upstairs to then give to the servers. I stayed upstairs and catered to the servers requests – can I have some corn heated please, can you get me more mayonnaise, do you have a bowl for this, etc. Meanwhile, I began some more prep for tomorrow’s large wedding of 231 guests. I also got to have some wedding cake – the couple had a milk chocolate biscuit cake specifically saved for tonight’s evening buffet, and I got to cut it. Which is easier said than done, someone had refrigerated it making it rock solid. This only meant that it crumbled a lot, and I got to taste the pieces. Delicious!

The barbecue menu was as follows:
Salad with assorted accompaniments: black olives, feta cheese, shaved Parmesan, garlic croutons, sun-dried tomatoes, Ceasar dressing, French dressing.
Burgers with assorted accompaniments: baps, sliced tomatoes, sliced red onions, Monterey Jack cheddar cheese, mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard.
Meats: pork and leek sausage spirals, steak, chicken escalope, Cajun salmon.
Sides: baked potatoes, champ, corn on the cob
Assorted Breads: olive, wheat, country, sun-dried tomato.
Dessert: profiteroles with chocolate sauce, strawberries, Chantilly cream. 
Evening Buffet: Milk chocolate biscuit cake and leftover wedding cake. 

Milk chocolate biscuit cake with white chocolate coating - so yummy!

After the barbecue event was over (there were a lot of leftovers!), we still had to blanch all of the asparagus we had peeled yesterday (and apparently half of it was not properly peeled, and had to be redone), and finish off the roasted red pepper and tomato soup by straining it. So we ended on some tedious work and got out later than usual for a prep day.