Down To The Wire

It took some real frantic scrambling to be ready to serve promptly at 11 a.m. today when the doors of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral were opened for guests of the Wednesday Community Meal.

Mixing the pork, rice, tomatoes, sauce and cilantro for a pan of enchiladas. We layered this mixture along with shredded cheese and flour tortillas in hotel pans and baked them until bubbly.  This method of basically making an "enchilada lasagna" works really well when feeding a crowd.

Today's meal of pork enchiladas was a real hit with our guests but boy were they labor intensive. And, they were designed on the fly this morning while trying to utilize the ingredients we had on hand — rice, onions, tortillas, tomato sauce and cheese. 

To make them also required a major shopping trip to Cash 'n' Carry for pork and additional ingredients like cilantro, fresh tomatoes and extra cheese. Volunteer Dave as usual saved the day by running to the store for the necessary ingredients while we worked hard to get organized to make 10 hotel pans of enchiladas.

At 9:30 a.m, the pork was still cooking and I knew that we were facing crunch time. We had to get at least four pans in the oven by 10 a.m.

All of the volunteers were so great and worked well under the pressure — Tomatoes, onions and cilantro were being chopped, pork was being shredded and enchilada sauce was being mixed. The kitchen was chaotic but we all endured, knowing we were making a delicious dish that would please our guests.

By 11 a.m., I was still making pans of enchiladas but we had enough out of the oven to start the meal. It was down to the wire,  but we did it!

We were very busy today and served 366 meals. There was a long line to get inside up until the last 20 minutes of our two hour service. But most importantly, our guests loved the food.