We made it!! A few bumps along the way, but overall things went well. We had around 80 people attend. The comments were positive and I think they appreciated it. My daughter played piano while people were eating appetizers and another friend played and sang Christmas carols during dessert. It was a fun night, but I don't think I could do it more than once a year!
I decided to change the chicken dish a couple of days ago. Opted to do a spinach pie with filo dough. That proved to be a good move.
The pork dish ended up being a bit of a challenge. I have a small grill at home that decided would be easier to use rather than pulling out the large one at the church. Once I got the tenderloins set up I went back to work on the rest of the food and my wife would pull them off the grill and bring them with her around 4 p.m. I got a call at 4:45. She said she went out to get the mail and noticed something smelled really good. She wondered who was BBQing, and then said, "I realized it was me!"
The bottom halves were quite charred. The top part was a bit dried out, but tasted really good. The stuffing was excellent. With just a little over an hour to go before people were going to be there (and a few already showing up early), I had to try and come up with Plan B to figure out how or if I was going to serve the tenderloins and stuffing.
I started out by having someone go get some apple juice. I then began cutting away the black and separating the filling. Using a small scoop, I made small balls of the filling and baked them for about 15 minutes to try and firm them up a bit. Then I put them in a chaffing dish to serve them on the side with the meat.
By now I was on to plan C or D to try and figure out how to serve the meat. I ended up cutting the meat into small strips and then submerged the meat into the apple juice, covered it tightly, and placed it in the oven to try and create some steam. It worked. The meat turned out great and most people never realized it was supposed to have been served differently.
I will post pictures tomorrow. Thanks again for all your help!!
