Faith, food and fellowship still top the menu after 2,000 years | Church Executive.
Interesting story on food service in one of the largest food service ministries in the country. To compare it to us, First Baptist of Orlando served 225,000 meals last year (including banquets and other events), while Calvary Lutheran served about 12,000 (Wednesday meals only). They have a 4 walk-in coolers and 8 reach-in coolers…we have a 3 door refrigerator. Kind of puts things in perspective.
Counting this week, we have made 115 Wednesday meals, ranging from burgers on the grill to turkey and dressing with mashed potatoes and gravy. Sometimes we have theme dinners: Chinese, Moroccan, Hawaiian Luau, Greek, Italian, or my personal favorite…Retro Night (complete with Pigs in a Blanket, Deviled Eggs, Jello Salads, Pimento Cheese Stuffed Celery, Chicken Hot Dish, and Gingerbread with Lemon Sauce). Add in the appropriate mood music in the background, decorate the tables as best you can on a shoestring budget, and you can create a little excitement on an otherwise ordinary Wednesday night.
Gotta love the Church Ladies on Retro Night!
We baked up 900 of these cute little Pigs in a Blanket that I purchased at Sam’s Club, and the kids where begging for more!
A Plethora of Jello! Lemon-lime jello salad with crushed pineapple and cream cheese, Cranberry-apple jello salad, and Orange Parfait jello salad with mandarin oranges.
Here’s a recipe for
Hot Chicken and Chips Retro
27 servings per pan, 18 pans 12x20x2. Total servings 486
60# cooked chicken breast strips, diced (3 1/3# per pan)
18 cups chopped green onion (1 cup)
18 cups chopped red bell pepper (1 cup)
9 cups chopped parsley (1/2 cup per pan)
648 oz water chestnuts (36 oz per pan), drained and chopped
36 cups mayo (2 cups per pan)
18 cups sour cream (1 cups per pan)
4 1/2 cups fresh lemon juice, (4 oz per pan)
3 1/3 cups Dijon mustard (3 Tbsp per pan)
13 Tbsp black pepper (2 ¼ tsp pepper per pan)
18# shredded cheddar cheese (1# per pan)
9# potato chips, crushed (1/2# per pan)
Combine chicken through water chestnuts. Whisk together mayo through pepper, and add to chicken mixture. Stir well to combine. Spoon into greased casserole dish. Bake at 375 until warm. Remove from oven and sprinkle with cheese. Top cheese evenly with chips and bake until filling is bubbling and chips are golden. May serve with buttered egg noodles.
Buttered Egg Noodles: Make 30# of dried noodles = 375 4 oz servings
(4#/50 servings = 50 4 oz cooked noodles)
Update on 9-25-16: Calvary Lutheran Church has a full time food coordinator, Karla Roberts, who started at Calvary last year after many years in a high school cafeteria kitchen. Karla manages the menus and a crew of volunteers to cook, serve and clean up after the Wednesday meals. She is also responsible for all the other dining needs of the congregation, including funerals, potlucks, council meetings, new member meals, and much more. I continue to help Karla as a volunteer in the kitchen most weeks, and keep this blog updated with the weekly menus. If anyone has any recipe requests, I can get them from Karla and post them here. Just send me a message to the blog or email me at kschleusener@gmail.com. Thanks to the 138 followers my blog has gained over the years, and thanks those of you who contributed to the 85,520 all time views to the blog as of today since I started it in 2012.
Karen Schleusener
This was my original blog description from when we started up our Wednesday meal ministry at Calvary 9 years ago:
Cook a meal for 500+ people? Feed them in the space of an hour and a half? 25 times a year? With no background in the culinary arts? With a crew of all volunteers in a church kitchen? Sure, count me in, I said. From humble beginnings of potlucks or hurried trips to pick up fast food on Wednesday education nights, Calvary Lutheran Church of Rapid City, SD embarked on a journey to bring the congregation closer together as a church family, one Wednesday evening meal at a time. Four years since it’s inception, the Wednesday Evening Meal has grown from an average attendance of 280 to 525. Wow, I say to myself every Thursday morning, when the frenzy of the cooking, dining and cleaning of the day before is done. What an experience, what a miracle, what a privilege it is to be involved in this ministry. Many people have asked me, as the coordinator of the meals, to share recipes, insights, and stories of how we manage to serve this many people every week, and on a budget of a suggested donation of $4 per person collected at each meal. So here you go…stories, photos, recipes and more. (The word might just get out now of how much fun we’re having in the kitchen, when everyone thinks we are just working so hard.) Hopefully, I’ll hear back from readers with suggestions for menus, recipes, cooking tips, etc.
I hope you enjoy the blog,
Karen Schleusener
35 Cheesecakes…Check!
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