Gift Week: Mini September Cooking Session for Others

I have likely mentioned a time or two that our family is part of a House Church as part of our church. We love our little group and are really starting to get into the rhythm of things now that we have been meeting together for about 6 months. During the third week of every month we discuss as a group a service project we would like to do together. This month we decided that we knew several families in need of meals in the area so perhaps we should make meals for them. Since I am not able to do the full September menu I chose a few of the September menu items, a few of us shopped for the goods and on the night of our scheduled meeting we had dinner together (Easy White Chicken Chili) and then the men watched the children while the women got to work making 5 of the September menu items. Here is a little bit about our evening and what we made:

White Chicken Chili

I actually started this at home in the slow cooker so that we could eat half of it for the evening meal. The other 2 four serving portions got divided up and frozen for the families. This recipe was super easy to make. A double batch did not fit in my 4 quart slow cooker so I recommend using a 5+ quart slow cooker.

Black Beans & Brown Rice

This was another easy to throw together recipe. I can’t say I am a huge fan of black beans but several cooking members mentioned how good this looked (I hope this dish made it to its intended destination).

Deconstructed Broccoli Cheese Stuffed Chicken Breasts

Two of our members worked on this dish together. It seemed to those making it that the cheese sauce was really thick. Even hard to stir at times which made them a bit nervous. But when put together it looked good. I am sure that as it cooks and the cheese melts it will make a fine dish!

Freezer Beef Stew

Myself and another member worked on assembling these. These were so easy to do and looked delicious! My one recommendation is to make sure that the potatoes get put in the bottom of the bag so that when you add the liquid they will be covered and hopefully avoid any brown discoloration. There were several comments by house church members about how easy and what a good idea this recipe was. (Oh yea, we also accidentally shredded the carrots instead of slicing them. Oops. We just improvised by adding them anyway.)

Apple Streusel Muffins

Oh. My. Goodness. I am surprised we didn’t eat these up right out of the oven! They looked and smelled so good. They made a bit of a mess on the muffin tin pans so be prepared. You might have a few “soakers” on your hands after making these.

Summary

Overall, it went fairly quickly and easily. We had 6 people all working together on this which made it go very quickly. Two worked on the muffins, two worked on the Deconstructed Chicken, and two worked on the Black Beans and Stew (remember, I did the chili ahead). The hardest part of this adventure was having 6 cooks in the kitchen at once trying to share utensils, etc. It would work great for a larger kitchen and if I had remembered to bring extra measuring tools. So don’t think you have to just stick to the partner method. You can branch out and try working with more people. We did 5 recipes and it took us about 1.5 hours working together. Not too bad. We spent a total of $93.25 which comes to $4.66 per entree for 4. A little higher than my normal average but then again we chose to do one of the high-end meat recipes. I am very pleased with these results! Now we have 18 meals (we ate two batches of White Chicken Chili) to give to families that we have identified that have a need. All in 2 hours time. I am excited to see what they think!