The weather guessers are at it again in Central California. We were supposed to have sun for the last two days. It was ALL cloudy fog. Mostly sunny is again in the forecast for the next three days. I'm not holding my breath. They can change the name of fog to sun, but that doesn't mean it will work. It's an overcast 39 degrees right now. BRRRRR!!!
Mr. Cooper doesn't like it at all. He gets to the door, sticks his nose out and says NO WAY MOM!! Yes he still has that foot, this is just his usual one-foot-up stance.
Kitters has developed her sneaking in skills to the max. I've not been letting her in much at all, and only for a few minutes. I don't want her to get too used to company because I'll be gone. Once I get back, she can move right in.
I was up early, but didn't do much. Jeeves ran around on the floor, vacuuming up stuff until he got stuck on a rug. Surprisingly, he does some gymnastics and gets free every time. I've not had one single problem with this robot guy. In fact, I usually have to tell him to go back home and rest up. That turned out to be a good 50% off sale purchase.
Lunch was a reminder that I really should follow a recipe. All those vegetarian vegetables I bought needed to be used up, so STIR FRY it is!! I even threw in the leftover carrots. Not bad I suppose, but the sauce was less than desirable. Not enough ... too much cornstarch to thicken it and not enough soy sauce. It's sad how my cooking skills have disappeared.
That meant I was a little leery to take on the big Elks kitchen ovens. That's the turkeys, top left. Five huge birds roasting away. I grabbed pans right and left, ten in all, and began to prepare the dinner for seniors at a nearby Apartment complex. They downgraded from 100 folks to 75. YAY!
Here's my tip of the day, crazy as it is. I drained four huge cans of sweet potatoes, dumped them into a large foil pan and sprinkled pumpkin pie spice all over them. WHO KNEW? I never would have thought of that, but our Head Chef said to try it. Over that went a dozen slices of butter and into the oven they went.
Next up ... boil ten gallons of water for potatoes, stuffing and gravy. Sounds terrible, but the stuff they buy tastes amazing. There is nothing harder to make than four gallons of mashed potatoes, If you don't stir fast enough, they clump up like crazy. That's where the Chef comes in. I sweet talk him into doing it for me every time. Truly, he's a great guy.
All of this happened while they served lunch in the lodge AND whipped up a prime rib dinner for 200 in the ovens. Pretty amazing.
He also made my dressing, and then the lump-free gravy. You stir that into COLD water, then dump that into the boiling water. You have to be TALL and STRONG. I'm neither, so am very happy when he helps me out.
At the last minute, we sliced the turkey, panned everything (two of these big pans for each entree) and stuffed them into big box warmers. Those were loaded into the back of my truck and we were OFF. It's a short four block ride to the facility. Here we are getting ready to serve.
We usually box up 50 or so to-go meals, but they discovered people would say they needed three meals when there was just one person. This year they made everyone come in to the building. Many, if not all, cannot really walk and carry a big plate of food, so the King of Bingo served everyone in the place. There was only one OH NO when one gentleman turned around and ran into a lady, dumping an entire plate on the floor.
In the end, we only served 60 people, but most came back for seconds. I guess the food was good! Here's the entire crew that helped out.
We loaded everything up and went back to the lodge, to find the prime rib dinner people leaving and the next group sitting down for THEIR dinner. This crew we have in the kitchen ... they perform miracles. They get all the credit for the money needed to run this place. They make it look easy to put on event after event.
Though volunteers can take home a bit of the leftovers, most everything is donated to the local Men's Shelter unless it can be used somehow for lunch the next day. The leftover prime rib is sliced up for the best au jus sandwiches in town.
I'm pretty beat this morning, but I have to make a quick store run. Honestly, I don't know whether to go for a walk or snooze on the couch. I'm not sure which would make me feel better!! I got a lot of exercise throwing those big heavy pans around, so maybe a rest is in order.
It won't last long however ... there's a Trustee meeting tonight at the lodge. Friday is another big day ... feeding 300 special needs kids a turkey dinner at the lodge. Thank goodness I don't have to cook for THAT one!! Yes, that's a HUGE undertaking ... but we do it every year. After all, it's CHRISTMAS!!
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