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Posts tagged ‘mashed potatoes’

Fried Chicken Dinner

Calvary Lutheran Church was lively last night!  The 3 year olds through 5th graders shared their songs they learned in Wednesday school with the congregation at 6:30 worship.  Special guests from Woyatan Lutheran Church came to have dinner with us and share their drum circle and dancing with the high school youth group.

Our fried chicken dinner was delicious, thanks to a little help from Family Thrift Center on Omaha Street, who fried up 1000 pieces of chicken and delivered it to us Wednesday afternoon.  We made mashed potatoes and gravy, biscuits, green beans, broccoli and chocolate cherry cake to go with the chicken, and there was not much left after serving 560 hungry people.  For the biscuits we used 4 cases (576 biscuits) of Sysco’s Bakerboy Butter flavored biscuit dough, which we put into the oven directly from the freezer and baked for 12 minutes.  We steamed the broccoli, boiled the green beans, and seasoned both with seasoned salt and a little melted butter.  Our mashed potatoes were mixed up using 22 packages of Excel Potato Pearls, hot water, and some cream cheese and sour cream added to each batch. Six gallons of gravy was mixed up in 2 large roasters using Sysco turkey gravy mix.  For dessert, we baked 14 chocolate cherry cakes in 12 x 20 x 2 inch cake pans on Tuesday morning.  We topped it with whipped cream or cool whip and a cherry (recipe below).

Chocolate Cherry Cake

560 servings: 14 cakes 12 x 20 x 2 inch pans.  Cut each in 40 pieces (8×5).  For one 9 x 13 cake, make 1/2 of the following recipe.

 

Each Cake: (Make 14 times)

2 pkg (18.25 oz each) devil’s food cake mix with pudding

6 eggs

2 Tbsp almond extract

2 21 oz cans cherry pie filling (use 5 1/2 #10 cans cherry pie filling)

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

 

Mix together cake mix, eggs, extract, pie filling and chocolate chips, and stir until just combined.  Pour batter into greased pan.

Bake at 325* convection for 45 to 50 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  Remove from oven.  Spread glaze on cake while warm.

 

Glaze (for each cake): Melt chocolate with butter and milk.  Stir in sifted powdered sugar.

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

2 Tbsp butter

4 Tbsp milk

1 cup powdered sugar

Cut each cake into 40 pieces (8×5) and top with cool whip and a cherry.

Thanks for visiting us!

 

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Thanksgiving in February

Last night’s church service included a celebration of Communion for the 5th Grade class.  Our sign in table for dinner honors our 5th graders and their families for their “Milestone” celebration. Ten tables of 10 were reserved for these families to eat together at dinner.

Everyone eats a lot of turkey during the holidays, so at Calvary we like to have our turkey dinner in the middle of winter.   The kitchen crew sliced and warmed up 228 pounds of smoked turkey breast, and made 18 pans of  mashed potatoes and 8 gallons of turkey gravy.

As an alternative to the mashed potatoes, we also baked up 300 sweet potatoes in a 400 degree oven for 1 to 1 1/2 hours until soft.  Some were so huge we had to cut them into thirds to serve.  The leftover sweet potatoes were peeled, mashed and frozen for future use in a sweet potato casserole.

For a green vegetable side dish, we served 55 pounds of asparagus, which was rinsed, had the ends snapped off, and then steamed for 5 minutes.  On the side we served a ready-to-eat lemony Hollandaise sauce made by Knorr.  The sauce comes frozen and just requires warming before serving.  Towards the end of our serving time, we ran out of asparagus and then cooked up some green beans that we had on hand from the freezer.  We’ll make more asparagus next time!

For dinner rolls, we used Sister Shubert’s yeast rolls which are available at Sam’s Club.  These are very popular rolls:  we went through 24 bags of 30 rolls/bag!  They come parbaked, so you just have to put them in a 350 degree oven for 8 minutes, and they come out warm, golden brown and have that delicious yeasty bread smell.

On Tuesday morning, we made 17 pumpkin spice cakes with cream cheese frosting, baked in half size sheet pans. We also defrosted the extra cookies from the freezer that we made 2 weeks ago.

470 people signed in at dinner last night!  Thanks for coming and we’ll see you next week.  Visitors are always welcome, so bring your friends along.

Next week is Ash Wednesday, so there will be no education classes, just dinner at the usual time, 4:45-6:15 pm, followed by a special Ash Wednesday service in the sanctuary.

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