Also, it might help to know how experienced you are as a cook and how much preparation time you will have. If prep time is limited, there are lots of things you can do. For example. if you serve pasta, you can make most sauces the day before.
An al forno pasta dish works well with a crowd. This means baked in the oven with melted cheese on top. Make your own sauce or purchase it and add extra ingredients of your own.
For example, cook 2-3 pounds of penne pasta. (Depending on whether you consider this a crowd of big eaters or not)
Brown each of these ingredients separately (I do it in a large wok): 2 pounds of Italian sausage (hot or mild), 1 pound sliced mushrooms, 1 eggplant, peeled and cut in 1/2-inch cubes, and 2-3 coarsely chopped red, orange or yellow bell peppers. Add a clove of garlic to the olive oil when you brown the mushrooms and the eggplant. The eggplant will absorb as much olive oil as you put in the pan, so have your pan nice and hot, then throw the vegetables in with the garlic and a small amount of olive oil. Add more as you go along, if you like.
(Hint: I always keep some of Trader Joe's Sun Dried Tomato Seasoning Splash and some mushroom powder - dried [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse]ake mushrooms ground in a blender or coffee grinder to a coarse texture. When browning large amounts of vegetables or meat, liquid sometimes collects in the bottom of the pan and keeps them from browning. You can then throw in a little bit of one of these ingredients to absorb the liquid, as well as adding flavor to your recipe, and get the vegetables or meat nice and brown.)
Slice the cooked sausage thinly.
In a very large bowl, combine everything above with 2 large jars of commercial marinara sauce. You could also add a can of drained pitted Greek olives at this point, if you like. Add a little Italian seasoning like a bunch of chopped fresh basil leaves or some Trader Joe's Pasta Seasoning Blend. Stir in 2 pounds of small fresh mozarella balls, and put in a couple of large baking dishes, sprayed with Pam. Instead of mozarella balls, you could put half the pasta in the baking dishes, drop little spoonfuls of ricotta cheese all over, then top with the rest of the pasta mixture.
Top everything with 1-2 pounds of grated cheese (I like Trader Joe's Mediteranean Blend) and bake in a 400º oven until the cheese on top begins to brown. (about 20 minutes) If you are starting with cold ingredients because you cooked some of them the day before, set the oven at 350º and bake longer - probably 45 minutes to 1 hour.
