A Crowd Pleaser

I have a few set meals I make whenever I have a large gathering of people at my home. One of them is BBQ pork sandwiches, with potato salad, chips, pork and beans etc. It's a crowd pleaser, easy to do, makes plenty, and easy to keep warm in the crock pot.

After this last weekend, my menu might be changing. We were getting ready to head to Boise for Jay's swim meet. Around lunchtime, DH ran to the grocery store for me. When he got home, he had picked up some Arby's sandwiches. We do not eat at Arby's very often - maybe twice a year - so the kids were excited. Excited-until DH broke out the Arby-Q's. My twins hate bbq sandwiches - so they weren't thrilled. I am not usually a fan of the Arby-Q either because it is way to saucy - but I was hungry so I ate. We ended up making the twins a pnut butter and jelly sandwich because they could barely choke down 1/2 of their Arby-Q.

After lunch, we loaded up the van and headed to Boise. Destination: Auntie G's house. About an hour out of Boise, I decided to give Auntie G a call and let her know we were close. Being the great hostess that she is, she told me that she had dinner cooking and it would be ready by the time we got there. She also had invited my cousins and their little kids - so it was going to be a big group. "What's on the menu?" I asked. "BBQ Beef sandwiches," she answered. I tried not to laugh - man my twins weren't going to be happy.

Upon arriving at Auntie G's, we did indeed eat BBQ beef sandwiches, & potato and jello salad. By the way, they were much, much better than the Arby-Q's -- my Aunt's a great cook. Plus, she actually had some meat without the sauce - so the kids lucked out with a roast beef sandwich.

The next day was Jay's swim meet. My aunt and I took the twins over to my cousins house to visit, while DH, Jay and my father-in-law went to the meet (I know I'm a bad mom - but the meets last forever and I knew the younger kids would hate it). Sure enough, the meet went from 7:30-1:30 - after which the team went to the "Cheesecake Factory." Originally I was going to meet DH for lunch somewhere - but since it was so late in the day & the twins had already eaten - I decided not to meet them. My Aunt and I hadn't eaten so we headed back to her house for another round of BBQ sandwiches. They really were quite good - but my palatte was begging for cheesecake (which my DH did bring me a slice YAY!)

After the meet and dinner, we loaded up the van, said our goodbyes and headed to my bro-in-law's house (about 2 hours away). We had dinner plans with them and my sis-in-law is a great cook - so we were all looking forward to dinner. We arrived at their home - and I immediately smelled BBQ sauce. I figured I was so used to smelling it that it probably was just my nose being sensitive. Guess what - my nose was right. On the menu - BBQ pork sandwiches, with funeral potatoes, green salad, corn - it was a spread.

Luckily, none of the kids moaned "Not again". It was actually pretty good - and the side dishes were divine (just ask the twins cause they didn't eat their meat). I still am a fan of the BBQ sandwiches -but I'm taking a break from making it for awhile. And for my next large gathering I'm thinking pizza will do.