haystacks, two days in a row

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This is the first chance I had to get on here today. Things have been busy, but fairly good. It's been 11 days since our household expanded, and I've been trying to feed everyone while staying within budget (as well as dealing with different picky eaters). Even though we've sometimes had these many people for a week or two at a time, as well as 2 days every other weekend, I often planned things like spaghetti, hot dogs, or dinosaur chicken nuggets on those days (less expensive things in portions to feed an army or more expensive things for a meal or two). Now that we've got 10 people for dinner nearly every night for the foreseeable future, I need to figure out something more sustainable. I sometimes watch "large family" videos on YouTube, trying to figure out how they manage things logistically and especially how they feed their families without having pasta constantly (we also have wheat sensitivities and blood sugar issues in the household, so those sorts of meals will make people here sick). One mom serves "haystacks" fairly often to her family and says that they're a great way to stretch food and to manage dinner when you have a bunch of picky eaters. I thought that sounded perfect! Essentially you layer some kind of starchy item (rice, tortilla chips, Fritos, saltines, Ritz crackers, noodles) with a protein and a variety of toppings (shredded cheese, chopped vegetables or fruits, salsa, ranch dressing, chow mein noodles, etc). There's a few different variations of haystacks, although they fall into 3 main categories: Adventist haystacks (similar to a vegetarian taco salad) Amish haystacks (taco seasoned meat cooked with spaghetti sauce and layered on top of crushed crackers, tortilla chips, and shredded lettuce, then topped with various items), and Mormon haystacks (also called "Hawaiian haystacks", made with chicken or ham, mandarin oranges, pineapple, chopped green pepper and other vegetables, chow mein noodles, and chicken gravy on top of rice). Yesterday I tried out the Hawaiian haystacks -- I put out bowls of chopped red bell pepper, shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, shredded cheese, chopped broccoli, cashew pieces, mandarin oranges, crushed pineapple, chopped green onion, chopped leftover Easter ham, sour cream, thawed green peas, corn niblets, a pot of rice, and some chicken gravy. There were some skeptical looks at the weird combination of ingredients on the table, but I let everyone assemble their bowls and top them as they liked. It worked! Some of them got seconds, and no one complained that they had weird stuff on their plate. Tonight we had the "Mexican" style haystacks, which were more like the Adventist haystacks with meat. The kids said "yay, loaded nachos!" and went to town. It was pretty similar to the burrito/taco/nacho dinner I often put together. I've been wondering about what other kinds of "assemble yourself" meals I might put on the table in the future. Have you ever eaten dinner this way? Any suggestions for me?