Easy to make last minute platter

Canada
December 24, 2008 12:08pm CST
Hey there! Where I work, a lot of our departments get a lot of food platters for snacks, no special occasion, but most of the time it is, like a meeting of sorts, and the majority of this is a fruit platter. Well, I noticed one of our departments had a meat platter, and a cheese platter, side by side, so this got me thinking of a nice frugal way of treating people in our tiny department (we only have 3 altogether at the one site where I work, but we share with the clinical trial ladies next door...and 3 guys they have on their team, they get teased lol) ANYWHO! SINCE we get so many catering jobs here, we tend to have a lot of platter plates left over, so that part is easy - getting the platter to put everything on. THEN, I go to the grocery, check out there baked goods section, where you can pick your own buns, or whatever, pick out a few different buns, if it's over a dozen, then I go for the bagged kaiser buns mmmmmmmmmm, if less, then I pick a few different dinner rolls, you know, like 2-3 multigrain, a few white, a few whole wheat, different selections. Then I make my way to the meat section, look at the lunch meats, and then mosey on over to the butchery area, see what good cuts they have there, and then make my selection. Then of course, the cheese area, for marble cheese. I tend to stick with just the marble cheese, get a big block, BUT if I notice I can get a big block of swiss, for a good price, then I grab that too. If my money is still in the good side of things, I will splurge a little bit on the fruits, and/or veggies. For fruits though I'll keep it simple, apple, or mandarins if the have them, and if grapes are on sale that week, I'll go for that too! For veggies, just your basics, carrots, broccoli and celery, and if I can find a small head of lettuce, well then I'll get that, chop it in half, leave some in MY fridge at home, then clean and take the other half to work. NOW, for presentation, even if I got lunch meats? Just take them out of the package of course, and lay them in rolls, and just layered on top of each other. Cheese is simple enough, chop in slices and tiny blocks. with the rolls? ALSO simple, stack em up! The apples I tend to slice, and take a bit of yogurt to put in a bowl for dipping. The mandarins I leave with the peelings on, so if noone eats them all, then put them back in the fridge for later use. Veggies? Chop them to finger food size if need be. With ranch dipping sauce of course. And during clean up? Keep LOTS of zip lock bags, honestly I wish all bags had the ziplock on them, make life SO much easier. Hope this helps with anybody planning for the holiday parties that are still about!
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