The Evolution of Mac 'n Cheese

A serving of homemade mac 'n cheese. Also on the plate is barbecued chicken and roasted zucchini.

Guests at today's Wednesday Community Meal were treated to homemade mac 'n cheese. Each week, I have to decide what to make based on what's been gleaned, what's in the pantry and what's on sale. My aim is always to create something that's pleasing, nutritious and affordable.

So this week I decided to make mac 'n cheese and here's why:

Last Wednesday, we served cornbread donated by New Seasons Market with the soup and there were lots of extra crumbs left over, at least three cups worth. Volunteer Martha wrapped them, gave them to me, and asked, "Can you use these next week? I'd hate to throw them out." "Yes," I said, thinking they would make a great crispy topping for a casserole.

On Friday, volunteer Dave, who also volunteers at Lift Urban Portland, asked me if I could use some donated boxes of matzo crackers. I said, "yes," thinking if I crushed them, they would also be perfect for a crispy topping.

On Saturday, I catered a memorial reception and was gifted all of the leftover cheeses to use for the community meal. I immediately thought of using the cheese to make some yummy mac 'n cheese. There was medium cheddar, havarti, muenster, sharp cheddar and I already had some Swiss in the pantry fridge, gosh this was going to be good!

On Monday, while gleaning at New Seasons Market with my fellow community meal organizer, Fred, we picked up a few gallons of milk and some containers of chopped onions. My idea for mac 'n cheese was coming together nicely. I just needed a few more items.

On Tuesday, I went to Cash 'n' Carry and purchased two cases of dried macaroni, two more gallons of milk, fresh parsley and a box of roma tomatoes. For color and nutrition, I wanted to top the mac 'n cheese with sliced tomatoes. The total cost of the purchased ingredients was $43.25.

The mac 'n cheese came together wonderfully— volunteer Terri helped me make nine hotel pans of it and all of our guests got a taste. We served it as a main entree or as a side for everyone. We served 297 meals today.

Hamburgers For Everyone

Today's lunch.

We served hamburgers, which proved to be a very popular lunch, at today's Wednesday Community Meal. We were non-stop busy from the moment we opened our doors at 11 a.m. and served 368 meals during our two hour service.

When I told one of our guests who was in line early what we would be serving he smiled and the man standing behind him responded with an enthusiastic "Yes!".

The Cascade Farms hamburger patties were donated to us by Lift Urban Portland and Trinity Episcopal Cathedral provided the buns, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes and condiments.

The cathedral and its members are so generous and supportive of the weekly meal and fund extra necessary purchases. It's not just food they provide — they also provide the paper placemats, napkins, cups, foil, plastic wrap... and more....anything that we need to make the weekly free to everyone meal happen. Trinity also lets us use their commercial kitchen and serve in their large beautiful dining room.

My two full carts at Cash 'n' Carry on Tuesday, shopping for the additional ingredients and supplies that we needed for today's meal.

Alongside the hamburgers, we served Tim' Cascade chips and grapes. There was also soup, salad, dessert and drinks. Thanks to Trinity and Lift Urban Portland, it was a tasty and satisfying meal for our hungry friends.

A Fantastic Bargain Of A Meal

A meal of beef fajitas.

The most expensive part of putting on the Wednesday Community Meal is buying the protein. It's hard to find donations of lean meat. So typically each week, Trinity Episcopal Cathedral purchases it for the free-for-everyone weekly meal.

Of course, there's a budget that we need to stay within, so we shop sales and look for deals. We usually buy pork or chicken.  

Beef is the protein that rarely makes an appearance on our menu. But today was different. The best part: It was all free!

Our guests were able to enjoy homemade beef fajitas because of donations of high-quality beef from two of our wonderful community partners, Lift Urban Portland and Good Samaritan Hospital.

Lift Urban Portland donated two giant roasts; Good Samaritan Hospital gave us 40 six-ounce steaks.

We chose to make fajitas because we knew slicing the beef thin and adding peppers, onions and tomatoes would make it go farther, feeding more people.

After the beef fajitas, we served chili-topped baked potatoes, chicken skewers, meatloaf, ribs, chicken curry and ham. The latter was a gorgeous spiral cut ham from Whole Foods, donated by a Trinity parishioner.

A ham meal.

All of the proteins we served today were donated and helped us stay way under budget. Here's the breakdown: We spent $149.08 on ingredients for today's meal and served 398! That's soup, salad, entree, dessert and drinks for .37 cents a person! It was delicious, too.

Handmade Scarves

Volunteers Sam, Justine, Martha and Leah modeling scarves made by Chieko.

Guests at today's Wednesday's Community Meal at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral were gifted handmade scarves all lovingly knitted and donated by a wonderful woman named Chieko who is the mother of volunteer Nancy. 

It was such a generous gift and everyone enjoyed choosing their scarf from the large array of choices. It was so kind of Chieko to make them for our guests and I can't even begin to imagine the hours of knitting that she must have put in to make them.

Look at all of the scarves Chieko made! And that's not even all of them — there are more in the bag under the table. This photo was taken by volunteer J. Anderson who laid all of them out and oversaw their distribution.

We served 349 meals during our two hour service today and our entrees were also extra special because of a generous donation of chicken quarters and legs of lamb from Lift Urban Portland. Alongside the chicken and lamb, we served mashed potatoes and gravy and peas and carrots — Real comfort food that pleased our guests.

A baked chicken meal.

A roasted leg of lamb meal.

Thankful For Our Community Partners

A leg of lamb ready for the oven. We seasoned it with garlic, kosher salt, pepper and fresh rosemary and the guests loved it.

The first guests at The Wednesday Community Meal today were treated to an entree of roasted leg of lamb, baked potato and sauteed zucchini.

The gorgeous lamb was generously donated to us by Lift Urban Portland and we were so lucky to have it, especially today when we served 413 meals during our two hour service and needed every single bit of food that we had.

After the lamb, we served chicken, another gift from Lift Urban Portland, that we coated with breadcrumbs, herbs and spices and baked until golden brown and crispy.

Next up were gifts from Good Samaritan Hospital — corned beef, salmon, orange chicken and pork.

Then it was onto treats from Phil's Uptown Meat Market, ribs (which are probably the most popular of everything we serve), roasted chicken and pasta and meatballs. We ended our community meal today with pizza donated by Pizza Schmizza.

In addition to the entrees, there was soup, salad, dessert and drinks which included cups of cold milk thanks to New Seasons Market on NW Raleigh. The newly opened store kindly has invited us to glean from them every Monday morning and this week we hit the organic milk jackpot. Our guests were very happy.

Because of our wonderful community partners were were able to feed everyone who came to our door a delicious, nutritious and well-rounded meal. We are indeed blessed.

Chicken For Lunch!

The roasted chicken we served today drew a large crowd to our meal.

Chicken is hands down the most popular entree that we serve at The Wednesday Community Meal.

In the past, we've been able to serve it quite frequently because of the generosity of Lift Urban Portland which donates to us large boxes of frozen chicken quarters.

But lately, they haven't had it to give to us and our guests missed it until today because the local nonprofit treated us to four boxes.

We seasoned the large pieces of chicken with a homemade seasoning blend of garlic, herbs, salt, pepper and little chili powder and baked it in a 350-degree oven until it was done and the skin was crisp and golden brown. The smell in the kitchen was amazing and after our first seating of 60 people, there was a long line to get into the lunch. Word on the street spreads really fast when roasted chicken is being served.

The first 130 or so guests got chicken and then it was onto ribs, enchiladas, lasagna and finally ham. Everyone got a good meal.

The side dishes we served today were rice, green beans, mashed potatoes and mashed carrots. The latter was a dish we concocted on the fly because of the largest carrots I've ever seen that our gleaners picked up at The Oregon Food Bank. Last week we roasted the carrots but this week I thought we should try something different and our carrot mash ended up better than I could have imagined.

We boiled the carrots for over an hour and then mashed them by hand (thank you Andy!) and added butter, salt and pepper and fresh parsley. It was a beautiful and very fresh tasting dish.

Our special carrot side dish.

Here are some of the wonderful volunteers who helped us prepare and serve 333 meals today:

Isla Blue who is 5-years-old, worked alongside volunteer Cindy serving pudding in the busy dining room. Isla Blue's dad is a regular volunteer in the dining room, greeting and seating our guests, and her grandma is the co-chair of Outreach at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral. With such great role models for volunteering in her life, I have a feeling she'll do great things.

I can't say enough good things about Terri. She comes early to help cook and stays until the very end,  helping to clean up. She's smart and efficient in the kitchen and a huge help to me.

Justine, John and Leah are also indispensable. They are hard workers and up for any task. After prepping food for the meal, Justine went out into the dining room to wait on tables and Leah and John stayed in the kitchen plating the salads.

Nancy just knows exactly what to do without being told. It's like she's a mind reader! I'll say "oh I forgot to get the rice out of the oven," and she'll say "I already did it." Keeping track of what's cooking would be overwhelming without Nancy. She also stays late to help clean up.

I owe Andy big time for mashing pounds and pound of boiled carrots in small batches. It was tedious work!

Andy insisted that I mash one batch of carrots and pose for a picture because in his words, "you're never on your blog." So here I am, but really, he deserves the credit for mashing the carrots.

Happy To Be Back

I got Carol to pose for a quick picture at the kitchen window today.  She is a longtime regular volunteer who works nonstop in the dining room delivering food to the guests.

It felt so good to see my friends at The Wednesday Community Meal after two weeks of being away. I know this might sound sappy because it was just two weeks, but I really missed them. Volunteering at the meal is something I look forward to each week and to me it's much more than just about feeding those in need. It's also about creating a community where everyone is welcome and everyone feels comfortable and safe.

The main entree today was spaghetti and meatballs and our guests seemed very pleased. The pasta and sauce for the spaghetti came from The Oregon Food Bank and the ground beef we used to make the meatballs was donated by Lift Urban Portland.

Today's entree.

Of course we also served hot soup, salad and dessert. The latter was pudding topped with crushed cookies which is always popular. There's just something very soothing about a cup of pudding.

Cups of butterscotch and chocolate pudding ready to served.

We served 233 meals today.