Well, I can't just leave the rest of the week up to your imagination even if it means scaring some of you into not checking my blog for months at a time. Let's just say there will be fewer pictures. Wednesday night was an example of God's hand on the smallest detail . I served spaghetti, because the youth choir tour had quite a bit left over and I knew just how to put it to good use. I mixed sauce and spaghetti and added cheese but I really did not know what I was doing. That became evident when I tried to fit six large pans in the oven. Only four pans fit and the other two had to be divided into smaller pans. That setback robbed me of the time I would have used to make one more pan - just to make sure we had enough. Well, the spaghetti was a HUGE hit and as we scraped the pan for the last serving. I don't think there was any one we did not serve but there were no seconds. I served green jello with the spaghetti - again, something we might not serve again. I made "commercial size" batches - 1 gallon at a time, poured them into 5 oz serving cups, and stacked them on trays in the frig. (Now, why don't I have a picure of that!) The kids either left it untouched or ate theirs and the neighbors.
I had planned pancakes for Thursday night - a very inexpensive but labor intensive menu since we make the pancakes ourselves. Pancakes were actually on the menu but our pastor asked if we could have McDonald's cheeseburgers one night and I chose to replace the pancakes. We asked if we could get them at the Wednesday night .59 cent price but the gentleman in our church who owns three McDonalds actually donated and delivered 180 warm cheeseburgers and 180 warm hamburgers at 6pm and they were still warm when we served them to the children. Everyone had one, then fearing we would not have enough, I served half hamburgers as seconds. Every one had their fill with about 20 burgers to spare. For our part, I baked 2200 tater tots to go with the hamburgers. The tots were all gone! Needless to say, the ketchup flowed that night but we were prepared. My hardworking crew had filled 400 (2 oz) portion cups and we simply put one at each place.
Finally, Friday night was chicken nuggets. 30 bags of 45 nuggets each translated to 3 for each preschooler and 5 for the school age (plus adult workers) We served nuggets until they were gone. I was able to get much closer on the servings purchased/servings needed ratio this year. The experience I gained last year was invaluable. Not to mention that most of the same volunteers returned as well. The nuggets did give me a bit of a scare. I called Walmart and spoke to the manager and he had given me a price for the nuggets but I had not been able to find them myself. Finally, I located them in the seafood section of the freezers. Why didn't I think to look there?
