I had a really good time last night, cooking dinner for the choir. It’s often one of the high points of my week. It works a bit like “Ready Steady Cook”, where some ingredients left over from shops and restaurants are kindly donated to us, and we have to conjure a meal using them. We shop for our own ingredients in advance as well, but that’s tricky when we don’t really know exactly what will be donated. It’s a lot of fun and usually turns out very well.
Last night, I saw some rump steak special offer in Tesco, about £2.60 a pound, and couldn’t pass it up. Nice tasty steak. So I got that. I knew I could use it with anything. As well as some tea bags, milk, and squash, all of which we turned out not to be short of anyway. And some chocolate digestives. Always a winner. We were told to expect some curry, some frittata, and some roast vegetables.
What turned up was a vast quantity of bread, which we gave the members to take home, some fruit drinks, and some roasted veg as advertised. No frittata, but fortunately some soya mince, half of which I froze for another time, and the rest of which I combined with some soup left over from last week to make a vegetarian dish. The “curry” turned out to be some spiced peas and cauliflower, not in a sauce, so I cooked some rice and mixed them into that. Then there was a tray of thinly sliced fried courgettes, so we cubed our steak, fried it, and mixed it with the courgettes and made a sauce. Oh, and there was a mixed salad, and a big dish of raw radishes, which we offered to people. An excellent meal, in all.
It’s always fun and interesting. I tend to overestimate on the food, but any leftovers are always eagerly taken home by the members. Many of the members seem to be used to eating quite little (or else they’ve had their tea before they come to choir!). I get burns on my hands. And I get to play with a big kitchen.
There’s nothing like that moment when people start to come in the door and say “oh, something smells good!”
