Good Food But Few Guests

One of today's 216 meals - A pork enchilada, ham, rice and veggies.

We had a large group of energetic volunteers eager to work at today's Wednesday Community Meal but a surprisingly small number of guests. At the end of the two hour service, we'd served only 216 meals. Last Wednesday, the first week of July,  we served 245 and our numbers typically go up each week until the end of the month.

The lulls in today's service actually made me more tired and my fellow kitchen volunteers said the same was true for them. When we're really busy it's easier to keep our energy levels up, especially in the summer heat. Continually stopping and starting is more tiring.

The meal was a success though, we served every person who came to our door a well-rounded and delicious meal. The first guests in the door got ribs from Phil's Uptown Meat Market, rice and vegetables. Then it was onto corned beef, chicken, hot roast beef sandwiches, ham sandwiches, sweet and sour chicken and pork enchiladas.

The corned beef, roast beef and ham were donated by the Oregon Food Bank. They came already cooked and just needed to be sliced and heated for serving. High school volunteers Micah and my nephew Sam took on the task of slicing all the meat and they did a great job. I told them I appreciated their hard  work and that they are now officially qualified to seek work in a deli.

Sam slicing the roast beef.

Olivia whisked up a combo of mayo and mustard to put on the sandwiches.

We also served soup, salad and dessert. The soup was donated from Good Samaritan Hospital, the salads were made from lettuce donated by Springhill Organic Farm and the dessert was delicious cake donated by Trader Joe's.

Linda and Leah plating salads.

We All Want To Eat Yellow Submarines!

I've decided to make Yellow Submarine Sugar Cookies to serve at the upcoming Beatles Concert to support feeding the hungry in our community. This is going to be fun!

I have my submarine cookie cutter and am excited to get to work.

Stay tuned...

Beatles Benefit Concert

This coming Saturday, July 12, there will be a be a Beatles Concert featuring an all-star lineup of Portland musicians in the courtyard of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral (147 NW 19th Ave, Portland, OR).

Admission to the concert is free but there will be an offering to benefit Trinity Hunger Ministries which supports the Wednesday Community Meal. It's a great opportunity to get out and enjoy great music while at the same time helping to feed the hungry in our community. I hope to see you there.

Here are the details: 

Let It Be: The Beatles Porchlight Concert

Saturday, July 12, 7:00 p.m., Trinity Courtyard
Come together for a porchlight concert set to the music of the world's most timeless band. The Trinity Alt.Liturgy Band and an all-star lineup of Portland musicians will perform The Beatles' songs of grace, transcendence, peace, justice and, most of all, love, love, love. The freewill offering benefits Trinity's hunger ministries.

Cookie Decorating Tip: Draw An Outline

Using a food-safe pen, I drew an outline of the bee onto these apple cookies before adding the royal icing. Having and outline to follow makes decorating so much easier.

Food Safe Pens are so helpful in cookie decorating. They can be used to add detail to small areas in lieu of royal icing, but I what I find myself using them most frequently for is drawing outlines of designs.

Drawing an outline to follow before adding the royal icing helps keep my stress level down and my designs much more consistent.

Practice drawing your design onto paper first to get the scale and look just right. If the design is intricate, you might want to actually cut a template that you can trace onto your cookies.

For the bee design on these apple cookies, the design was simple enough that I felt comfortable drawing it free hand.

It is essential that your base coat of royal icing be completely dry before drawing onto the cookie. You must be patient and not rush this step or believe me, you will be frustrated when your food safe pen breaks into the base coat.

It took 12 hours for the green base coat of icing to dry completely. Drying time varies. It depends on the humidity and the amount of royal icing needed to fill the cookie. The bigger the cookie, the longer the drying time. 

Here's how I made these custom Apple And Bee cookies for the summer gathering of a family whose last name is Appleby (get it?):

I outlined the apple cookies with medium consistency royal icing and a #2 tip.

After letting the outline dry for about 30 minutes, I filled the cookies with flood consistency royal icing and a #3 tip. I used the larger tip because the cookies are big and there was a lot of area to cover.

I used a scribe to evenly distribute the icing and then gave the cookie a gentle shake to help the icing settle.

After filling all of the cookies, I waited for them to completely dry before moving onto the next step. This took 12 hours.

I used a black food safe pen to draw an outline of the bee. The design was simple enough for me to do this free hand but if you are uncomfortable doing this, you can make a paper template to trace.

I added the outline to all of the cookies.

Using medium consistency black royal icing and a #1 tip, I traced and filled the head of the bee.

Using the same icing and #1 tip I traced the body and added two lines across it. I then used my scribe tool to ease the bottom of the body into a point. If you don't have a scribe tool, a skewer or toothpick would also work.

Again, using the same icing, I added the antenna.

I let the black icing dry for about 15 minutes and then filled the body section with medium consistency yellow icing using a #1 tip.

I worked until I had the body of the bee finished on all of the cookies.

Now it's time for the wings. I traced and filled the wing outline with medium consistency white royal icing using a #1 tip.

I finished the bee on all of the cookies, but I'm still not done.

The apples needed a brown stem.

And, they needed a green leaf. Wait for all of the royal icing to be completely dry before packaging or serving.

A Break From The Heat

I had to get a picture of the super high schoolers who volunteered today. Besides being big helps, they are nice and a lot of fun to be around. Thank you Nicholas, Sam, Eleanor, Micah, Ava and Sierra!

In the winter, The Wednesday Community Meal serves as a place for the homeless to escape from cold temperatures and warm up.

Today, the opposite was true. Guests enjoyed the food, but they also appreciated the break from the heat and the opportunity to cool off in our large dining room at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral.

Midway through today's service, a clean-cut female guest,  who looked to be about the same age as myself, came up to the kitchen window to say thank you for the food and hospitality. She told me that she's been homeless for a little over a year and just found out about the meal.

"I am so grateful that you do this," she said.

Volunteering at the weekly free meal and getting to know the guests has taught me not to take for granted the simple comforts in my life.

Having a home, food in the cupboard and a soft bed are blessings that I don't deserve any more than the next person. I don't know why I have them and others don't. Life is uncertain.

This is what I do know: Appreciating life's blessings, no matter how small, and doing my best to help others deeply enriches my life.

We served 245 meals today in addition to lots and lots of cups of cold lemonade.

Red, White And Blue Macarons

Celebrate the 4th of July with these cute and patriotic Red, White and Blue Macarons.

I made the different colored macaron shells from a single recipe and the filling is a lightly sweet Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream.

The standard way to tint macaron batter is to add the coloring to the meringue before adding the almond meal and powdered sugar. I didn't want to have to make two separate batches of batter, so I instead mixed up one batch completely and then divided it and added the red and blue coloring.

I was a bit nervous about messing around with my tried and true recipe since macarons can be finicky little buggers but thankfully, adding the coloring at a later time worked just fine.

Macarons can be made up to a week in advance so they are a practical choice for entertaining. Just be sure to bring them to room temperature for 30 minutes before serving.

Here's the recipe:

Red, White And Blue Macarons

180g ground almonds, sifted
270g powdered sugar, sifted
150g egg whites, aged 2 to 4 days in the fridge and then brought to room temperature
100g granulated sugar
Blue food coloring
Red food coloring

Line four heavy baking sheets with good quality parchment paper and set aside. Also, set aside two pastry bags for the piping of the macarons.

Sift together your ground almonds with the powdered sugar and set aside.

Whisk the egg whites (at room temperature) to glossy firm peaks adding the granulated sugar gradually in four parts. 

Incorporate the dry ingredients into the beaten egg whites using a large rubber scraper.  Mix well. 


Divide the batter in half and tint one half with red coloring and the other half with blue coloring.

Fold each mixture with a rubber scraper by pulling down the sides and flipping the mixture over. Do this until you have a smooth mixture that falls like a “ribbon” off the scraper.

Transfer the mixtures into separate piping bags. Use rubber bands to close the piping bags. Clip the tip of the bags, one at a time, and pipe small quarter sized rounds, leaving 1-inch of space between each because they spread as they set.

Piped red and blue macarons.

Leave to set for about 30 minutes or until the top has formed a crust and is not sticky to the touch.

While they are setting, preheat the oven to 325 degrees. A convection oven is preferable. 

Bake one sheet at a time in the center of the oven for about 12 minutes or until the cookie is firm, matte and doesn't wobble when touched.

Leave on the baking tray until cool then lift them all off the parchment carefully. You may need to use a thin knife to help lift them off.



Sort into pairs and fill with Vanilla Swiss meringue Buttercream.

Sorted macaron shells that are ready for filling.

Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream
2 egg whites
1/3 cup sugar
a pinch of cream of tartar
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
a pinch of sea salt

Place the whites in a clean mixing bowl. Whisk in sugar and cream of tartar.

Place bowl over a double boiler on medium heat, stir frequently until the mixture is very hot (120 to 130 degrees Fahrenheit).

Move to mixer and whip whites on high for 2 to 3 minutes; turn down to medium low until cool (use the bowl as your guide).

In a separate bowl with a wooden spoon, stir butter to soften.

With mixer on medium/high speed, add the butter one tablespoon at a time, adding the next tablespoon just as the previous one is blended in. Once all the butter incorporated, add in the vanilla and salt.  Whip on high speed until fluffy.

Transfer the filling to a pastry bag for filling the macarons.

For a little added interest, I used a Wilton #22 tip, also known as an open star tip for piping the filling.

Chocolate Cake Wrap

This was my first attempt at making a chocolate wrap to put around a cake and I'm pretty pleased with the results.  But I know I'll get better with practice.

In all honesty,  I would have had a much easier time if I would have started smaller and then gained experience before attempting a wrap on such large cake.  But as my family would attest to, that's not my style. When I get excited about a project, I tend to jump right in and go for it.

The reason that a smaller cake would have been better to start with is that the chocolate wrap needs to be long enough to go around the circumference of the cake. A smaller wrap would be much easier to manage.

After adding the frosting, my cake measured 9.5-inches in diameter.  It's very important to measure carefully because you don't want to come up short. The circumference is simply the diameter of the cake multiplied by pi (3.14). By doing this, I got 29.83-inches and proof that it's important to pay attention in geometry class. I added 2 plus inches to the circumference to get 32 since it's better to have a bit of extra wrap so that you don't come up short. Excess chocolate can be easily trimmed off.

I also measured the height of my cake which was 5.25 inches and then added an inch so that I could also trim it fit perfectly. On another note, it's essential that your cake be as level and as straight-sided as possible. This means you might have to do a bit of cake shaving before adding the frosting.

So once I had my level iced-cake and measurements, here how I made the chocolate wrap:

Supplies
A sheet of parchment paper cut to fit the cake with a little extra:  My measurements were 32x6.25-inches, so I used a ruler to mark these on a larger piece of parchment because I needed to leave space at the top where I could grab to lift the template up and get it around the cake. I had to tape two strips of parchment together to make it long enough. Also, tape the template onto a flat surface so that it doesn't shift while you pipe the chocolate.

Melted chocolate:  You can use semi-sweet, milk, or dark chocolate. I used Callebaut dark chocolate and it's important that the chocolate not be tempered or it will set up too fast before you have time to get it around the cake. Just melt the chocolate in the microwave for 30-second intervals, stirring after each until it's thoroughly melted.

Pastry bag or parchment cone for piping: I used a disposable pastry bag and simply clipped a bit off the end for piping. Don't overfill the bag and the chocolate will be easier to control. If you wanted to use a pastry tip for even better control, I would use a #2 tip.

I started off by piping staggered squares and then piped "v" shapes through them for added strength. Be creative with the pattern you choose but be sure it's not too delicate. You need solid connections of chocolate throughout the pattern.

Finishing this took a good 30 minutes so you can see why it's important not to use tempered chocolate. You need the chocolate to set up slowly. Once the wrap is piped you need to be patient and wait until the chocolate is firm but still soft enough to be flexible and bend without breaking. It took another 30 minutes for the chocolate to be ready to go onto the cake. If you are working on a smaller cake and have space in your refrigerator,  you could set the template in it for just a minute or so, watching it carefully,  to speed the firming process.

I quickly found out that picking the template up and getting it onto the cake wasn't a one person job. I could lift the template up and get it into place but I didn't have a third hand to also gently press it to get it to stick onto the cake. My daughter Eleanor came to my rescue and we got the cake wrapped and then put it straight into the refrigerator so the chocolate could completely set up. This takes about 15 minutes. Then you pull the cake out and gently begin pulling off the parchment. In the picture I've pulled off a section of the parchment and you can also see where the chocolate overlaps. After removing all of the parchment you can cut this off. A warm knife does the job nicely.

I also cut off the excess chocolate from the top of the wrap. Cutting it to fit masks any imperfections you might have with the levelness of the cake.

A shell border of frosting around the base and top of the cake looks nice and helps keep the chocolate wrap locked into place.

All done!