Last night I actually got to come home after 8 hours of work. Usually it turns into a 12 because we're short. Didn't feel like making dinner so I swung by and picked up Alex and we went to a new-to-us restaurant. He had fried shrimp basket and I ordered a grilled cheese and fries, not supposed to eat bread or potatoes on my diet, but am allowed one day off. It was so good! I tasted a few of Alex's shrimp too, and they were excellent and piping hot right out of the deep fryer. Not sure what I'm having tonight. Not much probably. I no longer have an appetite at all, thanks to the meds I'm on.

Some chicken things from the trader joes freezer case, not that impressed. And I used the spiralizer I got for Christmas to make zucchini noodles. I sautéed them in butter, olive oil and garlic. I thought they looked really pretty and tasted good. Kids not impressed.

If this is the first time for doing this and you have just over three weeks to organize and pull it off, limit what you do so that you can be sure to do it well. . Keep it simpler and you will be more successful and be able to build in the future. It sounds like you are responsible for getting pricing for the groceries, but also at least to some degree determining the menu and what those groceries will be. Pancakes, butter and syrup are given. Do you want to provide vegan or GF options or figure that GF folks will expect pancakes not to be their thing and be satisfied with generic pancakes being vegetarian? If you do decide to provide GF and/or vegan options, I would say so on any publicity for the event. Since it is a dinner, you could consider adding eggs for more protein/substance, and it could be a GF option. Scrambled are easiest -- and you may be buying eggs for the pancakes. Bacon is great, but it is harder to cook a lot of it to correct doneness and it is messier. Sausage or ham are easier to deal with for crowds. Since this is Shrove Tuesday aka Fat Tuesday, it might be fun to have whipped cream, chocolate chips and some berries. The baked apples sound good too, but both of these could reduce baked good sales if you want to add the bake sale on the side. Decide whether you would rather have just the dinner and both provide and charge a bit more or do the bake sale. I have also seen dessert auctions where towards the end of the meal, people bid on a whole cake or pie. This works best with family events where folks tend to come for the entire event rather than just come, eat and go. You could adapt the idea to coffee cakes, muffins and other take home items since many will have had all the sweet they can handle with pancakes and syrup -- with or without whipped cream, etc. You can do some pricing online. Sam's allows you to shop online and pick up at the warehouse, so you should be able to shop and price their options online. I think Walmart does also, though not all items may be in stock at the stores, so you might have to order in advance. Costco has different pricing online and I'm not sure they have the same order and pick up. They also don't typically give prices over the phone. If you were starting 6 months out, you could do a lot more research (mixes, scratch recipes, stores, etc. -- and maybe drive yourself nuts with it all, but given what you said about Krusteaz, I decided to take a look. Interestingly, Sam's and Walmart both have Krusteaz Buttermilk complete 10 lb bags with pricing shown online -- and Walmart runs slightly cheaper than Sam's -- about $7.50 vs $8. The info says that makes 240 pancakes (not what size) and all you add is water -- so that is your total cost for pancakes. The nutritional info says 90 servings per bag -- I'd guess you might do larger pancakes for dinner and maybe serrve as few as 50 guests peer bag -- but that's still 15 cents per person. And Krusteaz will reimburse half of that? I would go buy a smaller box of the mix and make a test batch this weekend. If you are happy with them, I'd stop worrying about the pancakes and move on. You can hardly make it easier or cheaper than that. Move on to sausage or ham, syrup, butter, plates, napkins, forks and knives and beverage options (since it's dinnerr, you can get away with iced tea, lemonade and water -- maybe add coffee) then decide if you want to add anything else. Have you set a price for the dinner? Do you have any idea how many people you might be serving? Will you sell tickets in advance (helps you can get an idea -- rough idea if you also do at the door sales)? I think you probably have enough to deal with without trying to get sponsorships or donations -- I would consider those things to consider adding next year. Those things take more time than you have to do successfully. You often have to go back, call and follow up a number of times to get an answer or work out details. Have I made this long enough to lose you yet? LOL Sorry

Only me for dinner tonight. Earlier I thought I would make a tuna salad with apples and put it on Romaine lettuce, but I had a pretzel at the mall mid afternoon which spoiled my appetite. Starting to get a little hungry after reading this thread. Trying to get motivated to prepare something to eat.