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I would welcome recommendations for books with recipes for 12 to 20 people, preferably ones that can be doubled if necessary. Most books about cooking for larger groups are party oriented and I want recipes for hearty inexpensive meals for conservation volunteers, community meals, etc that reflect modern eating trends and are feasible for tight budgets.

Moosewood Restaurant Cooks for a Crowd has recipes for 24 or more. The book was published 20 years ago so won't reflect modern eating trends but has a vegetarian slant which is on trend. The book is indexed so you can look through the recipes before deciding whether to buy the book. One good thing about the book being older is that you can pick up cheap used copies.

There are 36 books in the EYB Library that have the tag 'Cooking for a crowd'.

Ferran Adrias The Family Meal has got quite simple menus, gives the amounts needed for 2, 6, 20 or 75 people and has planning tables so you know when to start and what to do first. And this being Ferran Adria, the modern eating trends are taken care of (without things getting overly fiddly).

Thanks to everyone for their useful suggestions. I will follow up on all of them. I do own the Moosewood Cooking for Crowds, and it has good things in it. I also have some of the other books listed on Eat your books - the Australian Womens Weekly Cooking for Crowds is good. For what it is worth - are there publishers out there watching - I think there is quite a gap in the market for a book for cooking for larger family groups, volunteer groups, etc without spending a lot of money. People may be interested to know that I live in New Zealand and we like to eat lots of fruit and vegetables. I have been helping to cook meals for homeless people and they love fruit salad for dessert. Thanks again everyone.

Tui, I just wanted to say how brilliant that you cook for homeless people and you care enough to make food which reflects modern eating trends, and you also make fruit salad for them.  Inspirational.