The third Saturday of the month finds me at my usual early morning haunt. The Catholic Outreach Soup Kitchen in Grand Junction Colorado. Was asked to use up a lot of ground beef that was donated and could go bad due to lack of freezer space. Not problem the answer is my smoked barbequed meatloaf. It will be served with Penna. Dutch potato filling, roasted whole kernel corn, and since we have about 25 fifty pounds sacks of onions, French onion soup. I have to provide a balanced meal for the 200 clients that will show up from under bridges, cars, and who knows were else to eat what will probably be there only hot meal of the weekend. I take time to create a balanced meal menu as well as using some tricks to get extra veggies and protein into the souls that come to visit me to help them out.
I have a real good crew after five years of doing this, the Fruita Monument High School Key Club is always great help. I also have a group of individuals that show up to help regularly. To feed 200 people on the list with 45 pounds of 80/20 ground beef I am going to need some fillers. Diced celery, onions, and bread will go into the meatloaf, along with my barbeque sauce, about 3 dozen eggs (one dozen large is a pound of perfect protein) Plus spices and herbs.
I am sweating out the onions and celery. Half will go into the meatloaf, the other half goes into the mash potatoes to create potato filling. After I was done sweating these out, I moved on to cooking down 55 pounds of onions to make homemade French Onion Soup for my clients. I love the 35 gallon tilt skillet. It is a great piece of kitchen equipment. Today I turned the celery and onions in it, the French Onion Soup in it, and boiled the taters for the Potato filling in it. Nice!
I decided to roast the whole kernel corn, they have mostly home cook volunteers at the soup kitchen. So the clients get a lot of boiled vegetables. I like to change it up for them when I can.
Roasting corn makes the sugars come forward. Almost like having corn on the cob, but it is cold outside.
So the young adults volunteering usually want to learn to cook. I have one that for three years has been learning things. Today since no desserts were donated I helped her learn to make a marble cake. She did it from scratch with help from her other club members. It came out very nice. While she was making that the meatloaf was smoking thanks to the 2QTLS system I keep hidden at the soup kitchen. It does the job when I don't want to drag the whole cooking rig down to the place.
The meal came out very nice, good smoke in the meatloaf, and they ate almost every single bit of it when I opened the line for seconds. I have a lot of fun down at the kitchen teaching the young ones about cooking. Plus it is always a challenge to turn donations into a proper meal that I eat myself after every client has had all they want to eat.
Many many thanks to my crew that comes to help and serve, and to the nameless thousands that remember to donate all year long. Cause the people I help can not survive by eating at Thanksgiving and Christmas alone!
I have another hog donated for next month, so we will be doing another all nighter for the clients. I hope each of you will remember that you ain't foolin' your god by only helping people two times per year, remember those less fortunate all year long.
I have a real good crew after five years of doing this, the Fruita Monument High School Key Club is always great help. I also have a group of individuals that show up to help regularly. To feed 200 people on the list with 45 pounds of 80/20 ground beef I am going to need some fillers. Diced celery, onions, and bread will go into the meatloaf, along with my barbeque sauce, about 3 dozen eggs (one dozen large is a pound of perfect protein) Plus spices and herbs.
I am sweating out the onions and celery. Half will go into the meatloaf, the other half goes into the mash potatoes to create potato filling. After I was done sweating these out, I moved on to cooking down 55 pounds of onions to make homemade French Onion Soup for my clients. I love the 35 gallon tilt skillet. It is a great piece of kitchen equipment. Today I turned the celery and onions in it, the French Onion Soup in it, and boiled the taters for the Potato filling in it. Nice!
I decided to roast the whole kernel corn, they have mostly home cook volunteers at the soup kitchen. So the clients get a lot of boiled vegetables. I like to change it up for them when I can.
Roasting corn makes the sugars come forward. Almost like having corn on the cob, but it is cold outside.
So the young adults volunteering usually want to learn to cook. I have one that for three years has been learning things. Today since no desserts were donated I helped her learn to make a marble cake. She did it from scratch with help from her other club members. It came out very nice. While she was making that the meatloaf was smoking thanks to the 2QTLS system I keep hidden at the soup kitchen. It does the job when I don't want to drag the whole cooking rig down to the place.
The meal came out very nice, good smoke in the meatloaf, and they ate almost every single bit of it when I opened the line for seconds. I have a lot of fun down at the kitchen teaching the young ones about cooking. Plus it is always a challenge to turn donations into a proper meal that I eat myself after every client has had all they want to eat.
Many many thanks to my crew that comes to help and serve, and to the nameless thousands that remember to donate all year long. Cause the people I help can not survive by eating at Thanksgiving and Christmas alone!
I have another hog donated for next month, so we will be doing another all nighter for the clients. I hope each of you will remember that you ain't foolin' your god by only helping people two times per year, remember those less fortunate all year long.
