...and here are some more great photos from Tejal.

Tejal,
Wow.. Awesome pics! Thanks so much for sending them. I will definitely add these to the site! 86 meatballs. WoW! Awesome! A lot of love there! :-) I love the presentation you have for the spaghetti with the meatballs on time. Great idea! I'm going to give that a try actually. I like the easy serving of it all. How did you keep them all warm? Oh, I see. So you made up multiple trays with the spaghetti, sauce, meatballs, parm and parsley, covered them with tinfoil and placed in the oven at 200 degrees and kept it that way until they showed up? That is really a brilliant idea! :-) Really awesome to see that you were not afraid to tackle grandmom's sauce the right way for this large group! Did you do the three pots on one stove? Or did you have more than one stove to use? I find with two pots on the stove I am out of space. Only small burners left after that. I really love these pics! Well, have an amazing day! Glad the sauce and meatballs came out great! The sauce is the only recipe I have made for a large group so far. Will let you know if I tackle more. Oh, well, the Sausage Bread goes a long way and is always a huge hit!

Anthony,

Anthony,
I would have loved to have done the family style seating like you did (that's the way Indian families eat too), but I think it would have been more difficult since the marines were there at different times to eat. My stove has the exact same size gas burners, so I was able to heat/cook all three pots. I use two "smaller" pots (they were the biggest I have) and borrowed a 12 quart pot from a neighbor. I combined one of the pots with the 12 quart when it came time to refrigerate the sauce. That 12 quart pot was gorgeous, I may need to invest in one or add it to my "hey, Evan, I want something shiny list..." (I don't really have one of those... but if I did it would consist of household things!). I finished "plating" around 2 PM... and had to alternate the trays every 30 minutes in the oven since they wouldn't fit all at once. The last hour before I left for Camp, I heated several trays at a time and moved them directly to the car. Once I got on base, I had to wait an hour because a mortar had hit one of the cell phone towers on base and Evan and I couldn't find each other. Evan finally found me and had several of his marines with him to help carry all the trays in. They have an oven in their barracks, so they continually heated the trays like I did on 200 (left a couple marines on guard) and then went to the armory to turn in their weapons. The food was still warm! It was an adventure. BUT SO well worth it! I have received many, many thank you's from the marines through Evan and some of the other officers in the company. They said some of the marines almost cried at the sight of a home cooked meal... which just warms every nurturing bone in my body and makes me want to do this again! If they can fight without any regard for their lives to protect our country's freedoms, then I can DEFINITELY be in the kitchen for hours! :) Thanks again!

Tejal

Special Note: I have created some special pages with tips and specicifcs on making the sauce for a lot of people. Check these links here:

Anthony's "Pasta Cooking", "Leftovers" and other secret Italian cooking Tips for Pasta Sauce.