Day Eight - The Beanpot Invitiational

Today started out at our housing site of Burlington high school. We thought we would do a breakfast of egg casseroles. They are easy to make and delicious. We added ripped up bread to 8 hotel pans and then added cheese, onions, peppers, ham and pepperoni and then baked them. Jay liked to get them almost all baked, then take them out of the oven to set up and then back in the oven to finish up cooking. They came out of the oven and into the cambros waiting for service. This is Matt's recipe, but he warned us that the members are finicky about egg casseroles and they never go that well, the member opting for cereal and other breakfast items. He was right and out of the 8 that we made, we had four left over. I had a serving and it ware really quite delicious, so I think the member missed out.

For lunch, we planned to create a stir-fry from peppers, onions, carrots and chicken breast meat that we had in the refrigerator. Matt needed some pasta cooked for a pasta salad to be served as well, so I started heating water for that. After the water got hot, I used some of it to prepare to cook the rice. I used the regular rice and the oven cook method, which I knew would make the rice a bit sticky, but that is how you want it for Chinese food. After I got the 3 6 inch hotel pans loaded with rice and boiling water and put in the oven for their 40 minute cook time, I started cooking the pasta two 6 pound batches at a time. Between each batch of pasta, I peeled carrots to use in the stir-fry and pasta salad. When the pasta and rice was done, I finished preparing the carrots and the used the new slicing attachment for the Kitchen Aide to slice most of them. I reserved a few and used the shredding attachment to create some shredded carrots for the pasta salad. Al the while I was doing this, Alice, Dave, Bob and Matt were dicing up peppers, onions and chicken for the stir fry.

When all that was done, Matt came in and started stir frying the vegetables on the flat top. When he was done, he portioned it out into 8 hotel pans waiting fro the checked and sauce to be added. While he did that I assembled the pasta salad, adding some of the uncooked peppers and onions and some Italian salad dressing along with a little hot pepper flakes, salt and pepper. The trainers had come in and asked us to up the salt content in the food a little bit to help encourage the members to drink more water, so we salted up the pasta water and the salad a little bit.

Matt started cooking the marinated chicken on the flat top and I took the reserved marinade and started it boiling on the stove. I used it as a base for a spicy-sweet sauce to add to the stir fry. I thickened it with corn starch and it came out very well. I made enough so that we would sauce all 8 pans and have some left over for the members to add if they wanted more. We saved off a pan of vegetables to serve to the vegans and vegetarians and since the rice was cooked only with water and vegetable oil, we had a simple vegan/vegetarian mean ready too.

We served the stir fry with sticky rice, a pasta salad and jello with bananas in it. The members really seemed to enjoy it, but they enjoyed it so much that we ran out before everyone got some. I felt terrible because I thought it was a good lunch and I wish we had not run out. We had buffalo chicken and tilapia wraps left over so we brought them out so that no one needed to go hungry. In the future, we will cut up two large tubs of peppers, onions and carrots instead of one to go with the one large tub of diced chicken. I think that would have made enough so that everyone would have gotten some.

Cheryl went to the store today so right after lunch she arrived with a full box truck of food that needed to be put away, always a big job. Today was a show day, so dinner was going to be simple and easy to re-use for snack. We made hot dogs, sweet potato fries and the pasta salad again. I added cheese and pepperoni and some additional spices to the pasta salad to make it a bit different from the one they had at lunch and I think the members like it better that way. The hot dos were simple, just boiled in water and store int he cambro until service time. Cheryl had gotten the New England style rolls that are split at the top. They are really much better than any other kind so that was a treat for me. 

After dinner, we prepared to depart for Manning Field, the site for "The Beanpot Invitational" in Lynn, MA.  Once we got there, we setup the food truck and started making BLT wraps for lunch the next day. We had to do this because the next day involved 3 different sites and there would be no time to make lunches. We set up another assembly line and started constructing BLT wraps. When we ran out of cooked bacon, we switched to ham and made about 250 sandwiches. We also made 6 vegan versions and 6 vegetarian version. They were large, so it was thought that we could make fewer of them since most member would only take one. Just as soon as we were done making them, it was time to get snack prepared. We would be serving some left overs: tilapia, egg casserole, sweet potato fries and jello. We also had some cookies, and treats for the members to take with them, since we would have about a 7 hour ride down to south New Jersey from Lynn, MA. 

Matt