Serving Shelter

The view of the dining room from the kitchen during our last half hour of service. I was so happy to see my friend Bob seated closest to the kitchen so that I could smile and wave at him. We've been friends for more than 16 years.

So far this year, Portland's weather has been very hard on the homeless. Last week it was snow and ice and this week it's been rain, nonstop rain.

Those who joined us at the Wednesday Community Meal today seemed to be seeking shelter just as much as a hot meal because they lingered longer than usual in the dining room. The tables cleared up slowly and there was a constant line to get in throughout most of our two hour lunch service.

But who can blame our guests for staying inside as long as possible? The wet weather has been miserable and Trinity Episcopal Cathedral's Kempton Hall is a beautiful, warm and comfortable place to eat.

We served 310 meals today and helped a lot of cold and wet folks warm up. 

Our entrees were crispy oven-baked chicken and homemade meat loaf. We also served soup, salad, dessert and lots and lots of hot chocolate and coffee.

Meatloaf was one of today's entrees.

Enchilada Casserole, Pork Roast And Baked Potatoes

Those who made the cold and rainy journey today to Trinity Episcopal Cathedral for The Wednesday Community Meal were treated to enchilada casserole, pork roast and baked potatoes.

A roast pork and baked potato meal.

The enchilada casserole was what we served first and is always one one of our most popular dishes. Today we made it with some extra creativity. We alternated layers of flour tortillas and a filling made with refried beans, black beans and cheese from our pantry and cooked corn and shredded chicken gleaned from Good Samaritan Hospital.

What we didn't have for our casserole were any cans of tomato sauce or tomato paste to make an enchilada sauce. This is where the creative part came in, we used the only tomato product we had on hand, ketchup, and it worked like a charm. I now know that by just thinning ketchup with water and adding chili powder, cumin and garlic powder you can make a darn good enchilada sauce.

Using what we have and turning it into something new and delicious is the part of cooking I love most. It's a fun challenge for me.

After we served the enchilada casserole, we moved onto roast pork and baked potatoes which were also very popular.

Louise, one of our regular guests said to me "Heidi, I have a complaint about the baked potato. There wasn't enough of it."

There is just something so comforting about a hot baked potato cut open and topped with real butter. It was very good medicine for the miserable weather.

We served 252 meals today.

A Community Smorgasbord

Fourteen menu changes today kept the servers including Sharon and Thomas hopping. But as always, there was still time for service with a smile. We have the best volunteers at the Wednesday Community Meal.

We are so fortunate at the Wednesday Community Meal to be able to glean food twice a week from Good Samaritan Hospital.

From the hospital we get lots of wonderful all-ready prepared dishes like barbecue ribs, shepherd's pie and sweet and sour chicken and shrimp.

Sometimes we get very small quantities of dishes and when that happens,  we freeze them for a once every so often Community Smorgasbord. Today was one of those days.

We served 14 different dishes today from vegetarian lasagna and stuffed chicken breasts to roast pork and enchilada casserole. The latter we made using chicken and beef taco filling, refried beans and rice from Good Samaritan Hospital, tortillas and tomato sauce from the Oregon Food Bank and chedder cheese purchased by Trinity Episcopal Cathedral.

Putting all this wonderful food together and adding a few spices helped create the biggest enchilada casserole I've ever seen. Oh boy, it was heavy and awkward to get in and out of the oven.

And I give volunteers Kate and Davis a lot of credit for cutting and dishing it up. It was pretty hard to handle, but they made it work and the guests loved it.

Volunteer Davis and the giant enchilada casserole.

We served 351 meals today. Next week is the fifth Wednesday in April so we are expecting an even bigger crowd. We never know how many guests we will serve but somehow we always have enough for everyone.