Tuesday: Boat Snacks, Dinner for 17 & Ma! The Meatloaf!

Tuesday was a full lake day, which meant lots of time on the boat, lots of snacks, and eventually cooking dinner for 17 people.

My four-year-old spent a good portion of the day doing what four-year-olds do on boats: eating.

She also got to “drive” the boat with Chris, which she loved.

When we’re tubing, though, the boat is moving pretty fast, so even with her life jacket on, I like having a hand on her. That means she spends a lot of tubing time sitting on me, leaning against me, eating snacks beside me, or generally attached to my body in some capacity.

Such is boating with a four-year-old.

A Very Quick Lunch

We came back to the house for a fast lunch, and I didn’t even take pictures because we were basically eating and turning right back around to head to the boat.

I made sandwiches and wraps and pulled out some of the grilled chicken I’d cooked at home on Saturday night.

This is exactly why I brought cooked protein with us. I didn’t have to cook anything. I could just pull out chicken, make some sandwiches and wraps, add sides, and feed everyone.

But while I was making lunch, I was also thinking ahead to dinner because Tuesday night was my night to cook for the whole extended family.

Seventeen people.

So while everyone ate, I got to work.

Prepping Dinner at Lunchtime

This is one of my biggest strategies when I’m cooking on vacation: do the work when you have the time, not necessarily right before you need the food.

I pulled out the dinner roll dough I’d made and frozen at home and got that rising.

I cut up a huge amount of potatoes and put them in water to soak for several hours.

Then I prepped all of my vegetables so they were ready to go later.

And with that done, we went back out on the boat.

More tubing. More snacks. More lake.

Then we came back, and it was time for me to feed 17 people.

And this is where things started to get interesting.

The Rolls

First up: my sweet milk dinner rolls.

The dough had risen beautifully, and I formed the rolls and put them outside for their final rise because it was warm.

They looked fantastic.

Then I put them into an unfamiliar oven without my thermometer.

Mistake.

Normally I like being able to check the internal temperature of my rolls and pull them when they’re around 190–195°F. But I hadn’t brought my thermometer with me, and the tops started browning much faster than I expected.

So I covered them with foil.

And somehow they still burned on top.

You know what?

We ate them.

I brushed the tops with butter, everyone happily pulled them apart, and out of an entire tray of rolls, there were two left.

Seventeen people ate almost every single slightly-burned-on-top roll.

I’m calling that a win.

Potatoes for 17

I also made a massive amount of roasted potatoes.

There was no way around overcrowding the pan because feeding 17 people requires a lot of potatoes and I only had so much oven space.

I had soaked the cut potatoes in water for several hours first, then drained and seasoned them before roasting.

Once they’d cooked for a while, I pulled them out and smashed them with the back of a measuring cup.

That created all those rough little edges and gave me a better chance of getting some browning and crispiness even with a very full pan.

Were they the crispiest potatoes I’ve ever made?

No.

Did 17 people have potatoes with dinner?

Yes.

Vacation cooking sometimes requires adjusting the goal.

Roasted Vegetables

For vegetables, I made a huge pan with whatever combination I’d brought along.

I seasoned everything simply with:

• Olive oil
• Salt
• Pepper
• Garlic powder
• Italian seasoning

Then I spread everything onto a sheet pan and roasted it.

I also put together some fresh fruit and vegetable platters so there were plenty of options on the table.

And then there was the meatloaf.

Ma! The Meatloaf!

I had brought my Dinner Insurance Meatloaf from home specifically for this dinner.

It was already completely cooked, sliced and frozen.

In theory, this should have been the easiest part of dinner.

In theory.

The lake house had one of those ovens with a smaller oven on top and a larger one underneath. I thought the small oven would be perfect for reheating the meatloaf because it was a smaller space and surely it would hold the heat really well.

It did not.

The double batch of meatloaf was in a large roasting pan, and it was taking approximately 400 years to get hot.

Thankfully, I had brought backup protein.

Of course I had.

I pulled out the Teton Waters Ranch Polish sausage, sliced it up and got that heating on a sheet pan in the oven.

Dinner Insurance needed an insurance policy.

Eventually, the meatloaf finally got hot enough to serve.

At that point, everyone was already sitting down and eating, so I walked around the table serving slices of meatloaf as they were ready.

Very much:

Ma! The meatloaf!

Will Ferrell style.

Not exactly how I pictured serving dinner.

But everyone got fed.

Dinner Was Served

At the end of the day, we had:

• Dinner Insurance Meatloaf
• Polish sausage
• Smashed roasted potatoes
• Roasted vegetables
• Fresh vegetables
• Fruit
• Homemade dinner rolls

Some things cooked beautifully.

Some things absolutely did not.

But this is also why I like cooking food I already know when I’m feeding a crowd.

The meatloaf recipe wasn’t the problem. The roll recipe wasn’t the problem. I knew the food.

I just didn’t know the kitchen.

And when things went sideways, I could adjust.

Seventeen people ate dinner, almost the entire tray of rolls disappeared, and nobody went hungry.

That’s a successful vacation dinner in my book.

Ending the Day at the Lake

After the dinner adventure, we got back to actually enjoying the lake.

We did some fishing, and this year we had much better luck than last year.

We caught a really big fish, which was very exciting, especially after our rather unimpressive fishing success on last year’s trip.

And, of course, we ended the night with more time in the hot tub.

So Tuesday was a very full lake day: tubing, a four-year-old attached to me for much of the boat ride, snacks upon snacks, cooking dinner for 17, slightly burned rolls, meatloaf table service, and one very big fish.