Leading Sydney Caterer gives away $10,000 worth of vouchers

Win $100 free vouchers For Spit roast catering or finger food catering

Help me girls, my husband says no one reads these blogs, so i said i will give away a $100 catering voucher to the first 50 people to ring me, not many vouchers left now so hurry! call: Carol or that cynic Jeff 02 9896 6006 or send us an email with your address and we will mail you a voucher valid for 12 months. You can use it yourself or give it to a friend to spend on enjoying wonderful spit roasts or finger foods and we will mail you a voucher valid for 12 months. You can use it yourself or give it to a friend to spend on enjoying wonderful spit roasts or finger food

join the vip club for free at www.allsuburbs.com.au

Cheap Catering Sydney provides you with a low cost solution for all your catering needs, they can provide different menus and different priced catering options for Birthday Parties, weddings, BBQs, Corporate and Office functions along with other events. We also can provide spit roast hire. We also help arrange staff for you, whether you just need waiters, or bartenders or chefs as well. These services are all provided at a low cost, so if you are catering on a budget yet want a high quality standard to show off to your guests then – call us Today!

We work in Sydney, South Coast, Blue Mountains, Central Coast and other areas including Eastern Suburbs, Western Sydney, Inner West, Sydney CBD, St. George area catering, North Shore, Northern Beaches Catering, South East Sydney, Southern Sydney, South West Sydney and the Hills District, among others. Give us a call and we’ll help you arrange a cheap catering solution, to make your next barbecue, birthday party or function a real event to remember!

There are many fine details to work on with your wedding party catering. It is not easy to select from the many caterers for wedding. It is crucial that you get the best function catering to make your wedding reception a huge success. If there is one thing that your guests will talk about the affair is how sumptuous your spit roast hire or how delectable is your finger food gourmet. Unlike the usual catering parties, your wedding reception requires a lot of careful planning.

In your search for the best company we want to help you find your ideal caterer. We suggest booking with My Wedding Caterer they will provide you with a tailored service so that you get exactly what you want. Most brides dream of their big day since they were little and have ideas on what they feel would make their day perfect.

Take a look at their menu options so there will be something for everyone their menus. Remember to cater for any friends or family which may have certain dietry needs e.g. vegans.

They have caterers who are very organized and experienced so you can put them worries at rest. Your wedding party catering is a big task that must have the skills and experience of the professionals so they will be ideal for you. Your wedding party catering can provide you with all the solutions to your wedding reception concerns so that you can focus on the other important details of your wedding.

They cover the areas of: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth

Don’t forget the drinks! We know just the company to sort out all of your beverage catering needs. Have a look at On Tap Beverage they have some great drinks packages which will suit any type of wedding.

The cocktail party is a perfect way of entertaining for occasions as diverse as a casual after work get together to a glamourous Melbourne Cup party.

You can serve cocktails and hors d’oeuvres as a prelude to a dinner party but they will also stand on their own, simply start your party after the dinner hour, or alternately have a short happy hour gathering after work. A nice finishing touch to an evening cocktail party is a dessert buffet and a selection of coffee and teas. A variation of this is the after theatre cocktail party in which a variety of coffee drinks, such as Irish Coffee, are served along with a selection of desserts. All Suburbs Catering provide great cocktail party catering for all kinds of parties.

If you are planning a celebration or function in the near future then why not give Jessica a call on 1800 253 329 – she would be more than happy to give you all the advice you need to make your party a fabulous hit.

Why not try www.mrfingerfood.com.au for your finger food wedding catering.

Receptions don’t always have to be held at dinner time, you might find that choosing a different time of day for your reception will result in a significant saving. Below are some suggestions and ideas for alternative receptions:

• Tea receptions are held between 2-4 pm. You can serve things such as canapes, finger sandwiches, tea, scones, pastries and a variety of cheeses. For ideas try www.mrfingerfood.com.au
• A Simple Cake and Punch Reception is perfect if your reception is not during a normal mealtime. Mid morning or mid afternoon is ideal. You can also include candies, cookies, and nuts to the menu. Include a Cake and Punch Reception Following Ceremony on your invitations and this inform guests ahead of time not to expect a full meal.
• A cocktail reception might include passed trays of food as well as small stations with finger food. Be sure to have to have plenty of napkins, plates, cutlery and seating on hand to avoid messy dining. Be clear in your invitation that the reception will include cocktails and hors d’oeuvres only. The receptions finale will be the cake-cutting ceremony and coffee service, which can be supplemented by after-dinner drinks and petits fours.
• A hors d’oeuvres reception is takes place between 11am-5pm or after an evening wedding. As the name suggests, you would serve light finger foods such as chips and dips, fruit and vegetable platters, cheeses, and crackers. You can also include meat and cheese trays, shrimp cocktails, oysters, egg rolls, sausages, chicken wings, and tea sandwiches. See www.mrfingerfood.com.au for inexpensive options.
• Decadent Dessert Receptions are held from 1- 4pm or after an evening wedding. Serve an extensive assortment of rich desserts such as cheese cakes, tarts, tortes, cookies, pies, cakes, pastries, cobblers, biscotti, ice cream, sundaes, and candies. Serve coffee, tea, and other beverages.
• You can cut costs by using paper and plastic goods instead of glassware, china plates, cloth napkins, and silverware.

Check their website for their great menu option! www.mrfingerfood.com.au

If you’re in the process of planning a party or function, we have listed several Sydney caterers who we have worked with and who we can highly recommend.

They offer menus that range from $7.95 to $29.95 per guest and include spit roasts, finger food, bbqs, buffets – any function from 20 to 2000 guests.

• 1300 368 251 – All Suburbs Catering
• 1300 368 539 – Mr Finger Food
• 1300 368 453 – Fabulous Finger Foods
• 1300 727 843 – Cheap Catering Sydney
• 1300 368 913 – Dial A Spit Roast, Sydney
• 1800 251 440 – My Wedding Caterer

Thinking of planning a wedding reception party? First of all CONGRATULATIONS! We all know that planning a wedding can be stressful but we want to help you in every way we can. If you want to make a lasting impression on your guests then choose a good wedding caterer or company since good food and beverages stick in the minds of guests for quite some time. Your aim should be to find a caterer that suits your style, need and also fits in your budget. At times, you have no choice in selecting a caterer if your reception site has a contract with an exclusive caterer. But at many good reception sites, you will have the freedom to choose the wedding caterer of your choice. We always do our best to find you the best caterer for all types of events and suggest My Wedding Caterer is reliable and a good value caterer. Book quickly though since their spaces fill up fast.

Make a detailed plan for the kind of reception you would like to give, such as theme of the party and various food requirements with elaborate planning for menu, courses, desserts, alcohol, wine, etc, and then narrow down your list of potential caterers based on the kind of service they provide.

Cost is not the only factor, but certainly an important factor in deciding a particular caterer. You should carefully compare the price quote given by different caterers for different services they offer. Often, there is a trade-off between the price quote and the quality of service, and you must bear this in mind while evaluating various options. Try to set up a meeting with caterers that you have short listed based on preliminary information they have provided in their brochure, price quotes or other details.

The quality of food served in the buffet is the most important consideration at the reception party and you should make it a point to sample taste the food and beverages that you are planning to provide in the party. When you have decided on a caterer, try to ask them for as much information as possible, such as cancellation and refund policy, meal plan, courses, detailed menu, number of staffs to be provided, charges for rentals.

Checkout My Wedding Caterer for information on their wedding catering services and you won’t be disappointed with their attention to quality and detail.

Don’t forget the drinks! We know just the company to sort out all of your beverage catering needs. Have a look at On Tap Beverage they have some great drinks packages which will suit any type of wedding.

Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth

JANUARY 2011

THE QUEEN OF THE FINGERFOOD FACTORY

If you’ve tasted a nibble from a cocktail tray in Double Bay – at a corporate event, wedding or bar mitzvah or even at Luna Park – chances are good you’ve tasted the food of Jessica Veale . Unfamiliar with her? Our region’s caterers, party planners and Reception centres know her like their own mothers.

Jessica , is the queen of canapes, the godmother of gourmet hors d’oeuvres. She runs www.fingerfoods.com.au , a million-dollar factory that churns out thousands of beautiful finger foods every week.

So her name’s not familiar. But you’ve likely eaten her mini-beef Wellington. Her signature hors d’oeuvre took the party circuit by storm.

“We sell to distributors, all the upscale hotels Luna Park and all the cruise ships. We’re all throughout Australia,” she said.

You’ll find her foods in Adelaide, and up and down the Victorian Coast. Even out at Alice Springs

In the factory In Wetherill Park in a warehouse district in Sydney , Jessica manages a staff of more than 40 who produce, in assembly-line fashion, more than 10,000 hors d’oeuvres and canapes every day, five days a week. “I’ve come a long way from vegemite sandwiches ,” she said.

How she got her start

It was trial by fire.

She was Student in the Late 90s who made hors d’oeuvres on the side for in-house parties, and some for friends. “I love to entertain,” she said.

One night, after one of her parties, the catering manager from the a very large hotel chain asked her if she could do the cocktail food for a banquet. His other caterer had dropped out at the last minute.

“He wanted crab-filled wontons, sushi, mini burgers, fish and chip cones. I thought, ‘Sure. I can do those,’ “Jessica said.

“I asked how many. He said 3,000.clients I had to catch a chair!” she said. “Right away, I turned him down. I was doing everything on my own, and the most I’d ever done of anything was 200 – maybe.”

She thought it over, though, and asked her dad and a friend for help. They agreed, and she called the manager back. “I committed myself to do it, and that means I had to do it. That was what pushed me,” she said. Her deadline was in two days.

“I had no plan. I had to go shopping – fast. I had to find supplies – a lot of them – in a hurry. I bought up all the ingredients in all the stores. I had to buy a table deep-fryer. I had been frying them in little batches on the stove – well, you can’t do 3,000 six or seven at a time. Then I had to find boxes enough to pack 3,000 in so they didn’t get crushed.

“It was crazy,” she said, laughing. “We had everyone in here working very late at night, cutting cabbage, mixing, filling and closing them, and frying and frying. It was like an episode of I Love Lucy.”

But she pulled it off. The chef liked her work, and requested more. Then, other chefs and caterers heard about her, and her business was on its way.

She offered only 10 or 15 items at first – popular bites like the wontons, Rumaki – chicken livers and a water chestnut slice wrapped in bacon, and Spanakopita – phyllo triangles filled with spinach and cheese.

Today, her menu list contains more than 300 hot and cold items, and she’ll make custom canapes to order. She sells wholesale to distributors and retail to consumers via the company Web site www.fingerfoods.com.au

Her inspiration

She gets her food ideas from magazines and cookbooks and watching TV. “There’s a lot of creativity there that I see,” she said. “And today, there is more weight put on presentation, too.”

She has a full-time chef Ray Myers, who works with her to develop recipes and handle quality control. He was a banquet chef at the Hilton Harbor Beach Resort and worked for a number of other Hiltons before Jessica offered him a job. “I thought about it for 10 seconds,” he said, “and said yes.”

Up to six new items are designed every week, he said, though not all will make it to the menu. One of the latest successes is a risotto and Gorgonzola cheese croquette. “It’s killer,” he said.

Another new favorite is the mini Monte Cristo, a Swiss cheese-Danish ham-turkey breast “sandwich” made up in a puff pastry triangle.

Knowing what flavours will sell and how to mix them is tricky, however. “It’s a gift,” her Dad, Jeff Veale , said. She runs the business and marketing arm of the factory. “I can’t do it, but my Wife can taste these things before she puts them together and just comes up with really tasty foods.”

They range from Mediterranean items like asparagus Palermo – a bread-crumb coated chunk of cooked asparagus, Provolone and Parma ham – to the Cajun-inspired Mardi Gras shrimp in phyllo purses.

Her most famous food is the mini-beef Wellington – a slice of tenderloin cooked with red wine and herbs and enclosed in puff pastry.

“I was cooking a real beef Wellington at home, and wondered how this would be in miniature. It turned out just great, and people just loved them.

“Anything you can do big, you can do small,” Jessica said. Her formula has led to mini eggplant Parmesans, and two-bite Philly cheese steaks en croute.

“We use Cheez Whiz, and saute the onions and peppers, and use paper-thin beef loin, then wrap it in puff pastry. It’s very popular. That’s a new item for us,” Jessica says.

How she does it

But making miniatures is a huge hands-on, labor-intensive undertaking. The only machines at the factory are large mixers for making fillings and mousses, and a shrink-wrap machine to enclose the finished boxes.

The cooking of fillings, wrapping crusts and pastries, piping perfect mousses and packing individual canapes – is all done by workers, assembly-line fashion. A tour of the immaculate factory begins with hairnets and chef coats for all. “You have to remove all jewellery, too. We have awards for our sanitation Jessica said. The plant is inspected by the local health , and they show up unannounced, so it’s kept clean at all times.

In several chilly workrooms, workers were busy at dozens of stainless steel tables. Plastic tubs were lined up in front of them; doughs stacked neatly to one side. One by one, the tiny foods were created by assembling the foods, then lining them neatly on sheet pans that filled speed racks. They would then be wheeled to the freezers, and packed, frozen, for shipping.

In the first room, 10 workers were making mini-mushroom quiches. Several workers patted pastry crust circles into mini-muffin pans – the same type that home cooks use.

The pans were shoved over to other workers, who scooped a spoonful of duxelle, a mix of wild mushrooms, onions and herbs, into the cups. The workers used a squeeze bottle filled with the egg and milk mixture to fill each cup. A garnish of three or four tiny pieces of red pepper was added and the pans slid onto the conveyor-belt ovens. Workers at the other end of the oven used a wooden pick to loosen the quiches from the pans. They were then placed on the trays and sent to the freezer. Dozens of empty pans were moving from the oven area to the filling table, over and over. More than 10,000 little quiches would be churned out before the workday was up.

In the meat room, where raw meats are used for fillings, three workers at one table were making beef and cheese “firecrackers.” A piece of chili-spiced raw beef was placed on an egg roll wrapper. A piece of cheddar cheese was added and the wrapper was rolled up and sealed. It took three seconds for each.

“It’s so simple,” Jessica said. “You just do it 99 more times for a boxful.”

At another table, workers were stuffing shrimp into small phyllo purses – so named because they resemble a woman’s drawstring-cinched purse. A circle of phyllo pastry was set out and a shrimp, already marinated and cut to size, was placed on the dough. The dough was gathered in a smooth motion and crimped at the top to seal. Four seconds each.

“The workers are all cross-trained, so they can make any of the foods, depending on the orders we have to fill,” Jessica said.

A speed rack on one side of the room held small hot dogs on sticks.

“Those will be what we call ‘Franks a la Kerry ,’” Jeff Veale said. “We named them after the Our factory who first ordered them. For his own party They’ll be wrapped in puff pastry.”

They’re neither kosher nor modern – they’re throwbacks to the ’50s party circuits, Jessica said. But as one of her most-ordered items, “I can’t take them off the list. People just love these, especially at kids’ parties.”

Workers at another table were trimming chicken breast pieces for Caribbean jerk chicken turnovers – jerk-spiced chicken place in a circle of pastry crust and folded into a half-moon shape. “We don’t waste anything. The leftover pieces will be ground up and used in the chicken empanadas,” she said.

Tiny cornucopia shapes were being formed from flour tortillas at one table where two workers trimmed the dough rounds into quarters, then used a template to recut them for the horn shape. Flour and water mixed together formed the glue that held these into the tiny horns. They would be filled with smoked chicken and cheese.

Brand-name products were scattered throughout the kitchens: Tip Top makes the mini-bagels for the tiny bagelette pizzas. Crafty chef makes the puff pastry dough.

“We use quality products,” Jessica said. “Consistency is key, and we need consistency.”

In the last kitchen area is the canape assembly room. Here, the cold foods, typically mousses and soft cheese mixtures, are piped attractively onto vegetable rounds or into tiny phyllo cups. They’re one-bite foods, and set up for colour as well as a burst of flavour in the mouth, Jessica said.

Maria Cruz , a chef from Philippines , puts together the smoked salmon rosettes, or scallops and basil leaves. Tiny ham pinwheels with Cheddar cheese are assembled here, cut and packed. The latest favorite is the dried apricot with a rum mousse and macadamia nut filling.

The final piece of the factory is the packing room, where custom-made white boxes for the foods are assembled and filled with the beautiful creations, like fine candies set like little jewels in their individual spaces.

Even here, the details set Jessica’s operation apart: Special spacers are added to the boxes in the corners and on the sides, so the pieces are protected from crushing.

“Our customers tell us they’re so beautiful when they open the boxes, they don’t want to eat them.”

But eat them, they do. Jessica will do more than $5 million in business this year. Not bad selling canapes and hors d’oeuvres that range from 25cents to $2.50 each for most. Lobster medallions with pate can run up to $1.50 and custom items can cost up to $3 each, she said, but those are exceptions.

To order call 0296896-6006 or see www.fingerfoods.com.au

Each platter under each category will cater for approximately 20 People.

All platters are available 7 days per week!

Mr Fingerfood accepts all forms of payment options: including Cash on Delivery, Cheque, direct deposit and all major credit cards and are very reliable and have a great reputation for providing top quality food.

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