GREAT EATS HAWAII: UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII WAHINE VOLLEYBALL TEAM DINNER

WAHINE VOLLEYBALL TEAM DINNER

STAN SHERIFF CENTER, UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII

We love hosting the Team Dinner for the University of Hawaii Wahine Volleyball Team. It is especially nice when the team comes off a three game sweep over Cal Poly and is now 12-1. We were wanting the girls to come off the court hungry because we had prepared quite a bit of food for them. What do you cook for the entire team of players from diverse backgrounds and coaches who have traveled the world? For past dinners we used caterers so we did not have to worry about cooking or transferring the food to the Stan Sheriff Center and then making sure it was warm when served. Many of the girls are picky eaters with some not liking fish, fried foods or Asian foods so it is tough to please everyone. We decided to keep our menu fresh, homemade and pretty healthy and basically went with some of our favorite dishes that we cook at home. You will find all of these dishes on my blog. Prepping for this meal started the day before with a shopping run to Costco, Sams and the local grocery store. We picked up the Salmon the day of the dinner so it would be fresh. Literally took all day Saturday before the match to get everything prepared and cooked. So much goes through your mind when you are cooking for thirty plus people. My main concern was how to keep the Tuscan Chicken Breasts from drying out and becoming rubber when we had to have them at the game two hours before the end of the game. The other thing you cannot determine when preparing a fresh team meal is the timing of when the meal will be served. If the games go fast as was the case this night you can be serving dinner 90 minutes from the start time. If they go to four or five games you can be out two hours or more. We decided to miss the game and cook at home until the match started. Our plan was to leave our house by 7:30 pm and arrive at the game by 8:00. This allowed us to cook the chicken breasts at the last minute and take them to the game warm. I had to cook around 16 chicken breasts and only could fit three in the pan at one time. Since it takes 14 minutes to cook each batch this meant that cooking the chicken would take around two hours. After cooking the first batch of chicken, I cut the chicken into pieces and it was so juicy and cooked perfectly. Decided not to cut any of the other breasts until we got to the arena so the juices would stay inside. This turned out to be key. If I would have cut them all two hours before serving they would have dried out for sure. Cutting them right before serving kept them moist. We prepared a Caesar Salad with fresh tomatoes and Parmesan Cheese. Used Gerard's Caesar Dressing which is a winner. Next up was Penne Pasta with Meat Sauce. We cooked the sauce early in the morning so it had hours to cook. The sauce contained ground beef, Italian sausage, carrots, celery, basil, oregano and onions along with our secret Tomato Sauce. I was tasting the sauce all day and it was really good. Served with fresh basil and Parmesan Cheese along with Garlic Bread with Parmesan. We cooked the Penne Pasta a little Al Dente so that it would not get mushy. Figured it would continue cooking in the warmers when served. To transport the Pasta, we coated it lightly with olive oil so it would not stick together. This worked perfectly. When we arrived at the arena we mixed the pasta with the sauce and topped with grated Parmesan and fresh Basil. Next up was Baked Salmon with Hollandaise Sauce. This is an all time favorite family dish but we were not sure how the players and coaches who like it. The dish is so simple to prepare and is so delicious when served with white rice. We baked the Salmon and transported it in dishes where we layered the hollandaise sauce on the bottom and then put the fish on top. Before serving we added a bit of Hollandaise on top of the fish and topped with fresh Dill and a little bit of Paprika. To our surprise the players and coaches seemed to like the Salmon dish. Several people came up afterwards and said they loved it. The star dish of the night was Chocolate Covered Strawberries. Every single one was eaten up by the players.

This was a lot of work but well worth it to be able to feed the team a quality home cooked meal.

Below are recipes for the dishes served to the team;

Tom's Tuscan Chicken

http://greateatshawaii.blogspot.com/2015/08/tuscan-chicken.html

Salmon with Hollandaise Sauce

http://greateatshawaii.blogspot.com/2010/12/dinner-favorite.html

Spaghetti with Meat Sauce

http://greateatshawaii.blogspot.com/2011/10/spaghetti-with-meat-sauce-and.html