Feeding Teens

As a fund raiser, we used to sell nachos at school. Crockpot full of chili, crockpot full of nacho cheese, and bags of nachos. Not exactly healthy, but filling and the kids love them. And you can go to a place like Costco to buy large cans for less. Good luck.

To turn the taco meat into sloppy joes, I'd probably just add tomatoe paste, a bit of water and maybe some brown sugar to give it that "sloppy joe" flavor.

Ideas for other meals? Most of my ideas would have to be made off site and brought prepared.

Hot dogs. If you set them upright in the crock pot, you can cook them just as they are. You don't have to add water or anything. I do for birthday parties all the time. It works great.

Fried rice. Obviously, you'd have to make it off site, but you could warm it in crock pots. But you can add frozen veggies and any kind of meat, or go with out meat (the egg will be protein already).

Pasta dishes. Again, cook offsite and warm there. Pasta dishes are very affordable and pretty easy to prepare. They can even be made very far in advance and then frozen, to be used later.

Bean and rice can make burritos.

Egg salad. Eggs are really inexpensive. Mayo isn't too bad either, especially if you find coupons or shop wholesale.

Baked potatoes in the roaster oven.

If you keep an eye out pork shoulder roast often goes on sale for a great price. Cooked in the crock pot, these make great pulled pork for sandwiches.

Chili. There are vegetarian recipes available if meat is not in the budget. This can be prepared in the crock pots on site. It's also another recipe that can be made ahead of time and then frozen until you need it.

If you have an electric skillet...grilled cheese sandwiches (and possibly tomato soup too)

Soups are very inexpensive. Especially noodle or potato soups.

If you google "ramen noodle recipes", you'll find a ton of ideas. I know ramen noodles are questionable because of the msg. The Msg is in the flavor packets, not the noodles. So I am sure you can find recipes that do not use the flavor packets.

This trick won't be handy now, but around the holidays, stock up on turkeys. Whole turkeys are often free with grocery store purchases. Then you'd have a ton of options.

When my son ran track we did a weekly pasta feed. We usually had a few different pastas (pesto, marinara, no meat) a few big salads and garlic bread. Super cheap, filling and easy! Oh and white and chocolate milk :-)
ETA: the food was delivered warm and ready to serve. You could keep the pasta warm in the crockpots if you need to, and pop a ziploc bag of crushed ice on top of the salads (or put them in the fridge) if they're dropped off in advance.

I would take jugs of water in the future.

I also would consider preparing food ahead of time or consider some cold lunch ideas like sandwiches or wraps.

Spaghetti can be inexpensive.

We make a deal here with some of the pizza places to purchase cheese or pepperoni pizzas for $6.00 for a large pizza...

wow, the fact that the only water supply is the rest room....don't let the Health Dept catch you on that one! Seriously a safety issue when combined with food!

Any ground meat can be turned into sloppy joes. Just add your preferred sauce & you'll be good to go. Doesn't matter if it's taco meat, it'll still work the same.

Food ideas: the sloppy joes & tacos are great. You could also do BBQ chicken, beef, or pork. Cook the meat at home, shred it, & then use the crockpots to keep it safe. Any soup, chili, or stew could be handled in the same way. I think the key here is to be safety-conscious & prepare the food at home....using the facility just for warm-up before serving. :)

I recommend doing the cooking in someone's kitchen and then bringing the prepared food in crockpots/roaster and plugging in on location.

SB has some great suggestions.

Taco meat? Totally different taste so I am not sure how yummy they'd be with all the Mexican seasoning on the meat already....challenging to say the least.

Just google sloppy joes for a crowd taste of home recipes. The one I use for a crowd is from their magazine. You could go to the local library and look it up in the first year or so's magazines down in the periodic magazines and catalog area.

Don't make sloppy Joe's. Make taco bell beef ers
Bun, scoop of taco meat, little sprinkle of chess and wala your done. Taco bell used to sell these in the very early 80's. My daughter loved them. We still make them at home

Hi! I have a couple of suggestions....
Beans, add beans to everything. Soak and cook and mash and you can add them to your taco meat, meatloaf, anything. I put lentils in chili all the time, it adds tasty, cheap bulk.
Things like brats and meatballs will do well sitting in a crockpot. So will mac and cheese.
Soups are easy to put together too.
If someone has a Costco membership their huge pizzas are $6 in their coupon book. You can have as many as you want and don't need the coupon just your card. Maybe the member can go in (always in person) and give them a heads up about how many pies you'll need for the day and maybe they'll offer to throw in something to go with it (our Costco mgr is great). Problem is the pies aren't cooked so people will need to run them home and bake them.
Check Craigslist and get a free gas grill, you can do lots of cooking on it.
But what you really might want to consider is going to Restaurant Depot, there is one in Hartford and one in Orange. You'll need your 501C3 and tax paperwork or something (it's on their site, we used a business license) but it is free to belong. The downside is the quantity you have to buy. But, say you buy a case of boneless, skinless chicken thighs. It's $1.25 a pound this month but it's a 40 pound case. You've got four meals, say one of bbq chicken, one of cooked strips for wraps, one of chicken burgers, and one of chili. Anything you would do with beef you can do with chicken. I even make sausage, it is SO easy.
Good luck! There are lots of things you can do cheaply, we used to bribe volunteers with food so I know cheap and good are doable.
Have fun---

Picadillo is a spanish dish that I love making because it yields many different meals. It is kinda like sloppy joe/shepards pie/taco meat. It contains peas, carrots, potatoes, olives and capers are optional. Make it exactly like sloppy joe meat and add the extras. One day you can serve with rice, the next on buns, the next with mashed potatoes, the next in tacos, the next with eggs, you can also serve it with pasta like a meat sauce.

Baked potatoes are FABULOUS in the crockpot. They could add the meat, some cheese, and other fixings and it would be a great lunch.

Lots of options with a crockpot. I think if you focus on that you could come up with "one pot wonders" that would feed the crowd. Lots of filling, cheap meals with one of those.

Hold the beans. A lot of teens do not like beans yet. Taco meat isn't that much different and the seasoning really doesn't come through that much. All you have to do to transform taco meat into sloppy Joes is to just add tomato paste and don't add any extra seasoning.