BBQ for the office yesterday

I do a regular lunch meeting with my boss, and last year one week, instead of us going out to a restaurant, I offered to bring in some BBQ… smoked beef short ribs, potatoes, a salad. Nothing too crazy. However, ever since then, he's been asking if I could do a BBQ for the office — they usually bring in lunch for everyone on Wednesday in an attempt to get people to meet face-to-face (we're tech, so we're hybrid and all WFH most of the time).

I finally decided to do it, and the best time was yesterday — almost no one was on vacation, and we even had some out-of-town staff in. Other than a (rough) budget, I was kinda given carte blanche to do whatever I wanted, and it was understood that this would basically be my work day. This is the result!

Meats

• Pulled pork (not yet pulled in the pictures, I brought it in wrapped and shredded shortly after this pic)
• Bacon burnt ends
• Beef back ribs
• Chicken thighs (marinated overnight in buttermilk brine and seasonings)

Sauces

• "Classic" BBQ (Kansas City style — a little spicy, a little sweet, vinegar on the end)
  • Made 2 versions of this — my "normal" one, plus one that was gluten- and peppers-free (more on that later)
• Peach Tea BBQ (absolutely freaking killer with the burnt ends)
• Apple Butter BBQ (I cheated, this one is commercial)

Sides

• Mac & Cheese (inspired by Chud's recipe, just without the brisket; also made a gluten-free version!)
• Maple Bacon Bourbon Baked Beans (same homemade bacon I used for the burnt ends, and I also made a pork/bourbon-free version)
• Corn bread
• Corn with a choice of butters:
  • Plain
  • Chili Lime
  • Parmesan Ranch
• Apple, Pear, and Endive salad with a raspberry vinaigrette, with maple-candied walnuts and blue cheese as add-ins (usually I just mix those in, but for bigger groups I leave them as optional because some people are crazy and don't like blue cheese?)
• Coleslaw (cheated here too — pre-made salad mix and commercial dressing)

One of the hardest parts of this was having to reformulate ALL of my rubs, sauces, etc. We have someone who is allergic to anything to do with peppers (bell peppers, chilis, etc). So… no paprika, no chili powder, no cayenne, no Ancho powder, no Tabasco. She insisted that I didn't have to cater for her and she'd just eat a salad or something, but no one is eating a f***ing salad at one of my BBQs, so I spent part of the weekend reformulating and testing the rubs.

Other than the couple things I noted (apple butter sauce, coleslaw, coleslaw dressing), absolutely EVERYTHING was homemade — even the maple-candied walnuts and the ranch mix in the compound butter. A LOT of the prep was done over the weekend (bacon smoked, rubs made, sauces made, compound butters made and portioned, dry mixes for corn bread made, walnuts candied), and the remaining few things were done Tuesday during the day (Canada Day up here, so had the day off).

The morning of service was a little hectic getting all the sides cranked out (other than beans, which were made the day before), but I had a (written) plan going in and it worked out great. The only thing that completely failed and I had to ditch was the gluten-free corn bread — I've used the recipe in the past and it was fine, but for some reason it just completely collapsed on me yesterday. Didn't have time to try a second batch so it just got dropped, and it was regular cornbread or bust. :p

I was running slightly behind schedule, otherwise I would have set everything up in real chafing dishes (had them in my Jeep, just by the time I got everything up, water heated, etc, it would have been too late), but honestly, for a <1 hour service, it didn't matter.

Ton of work, but people REALLY enjoyed it. Nothing left on plates except bones, and there were LOTS of trips for 2nds and 3rds, haha. Pretty sure I single-handedly killed productivity for the entire afternoon by putting people in food comas.