Need help trying to decide how much food you’ll need to serve for your upcoming party?

Before you do, consider the composition of men, women and children in your group. The time of your party is also very important. An after-dinner cocktail party requires much less food than an all-afternoon barbecue.

Here are a few general principles you can follow when planning your menu and recipes.

• Always round up your estimates, don't round them down.

• Anticipate which food selections will be most popular and serve more of them than the general portion guidelines suggest. 

• The more choices you offer, the smaller your calculation of individual portion size should be.

• Assume your guests will taste everything on a buffet, but the tastes will be small. However, overall consumption per individual will be greater than if there were fewer choices.

Add bulk items to your menu. For a sit-down dinner have plenty of bread to fill in any hungry spots. When hosting a cocktail party, nuts, olives and pretzels will always be on demand, so make sure you’ve stocked up!