May Homeless Cooking

May Homeless Cooking was suppose to be a tribute to Cinco de Mayo.  We were focused on Mexican food but of course, we have to be open to the ingredients that are donated and the specialties of the volunteers.  We made many Mexican dishes, such as our version of Burrito and Enchilada fusion.   These were not quite Burritos and they not were quite Enchilada, but they were "Burritada".

We were very fortunate to have Khadija, a Moroccan lady who used to own her own restaurant join us again this month.  She made these fabulous Cinnamon Rolls from scratch.  They weren't too sweet and she also put in some of her own spices that she brought with her. It was "delish"!

A special shout out to "Chicago Don" who roasted all the veggies to make our wonderful sauce!

Homemade Pizza for the Homeless

Nothing beats homemade pizza.  I remember growing up, my mom always made us the Chef Boyardee box pizza.  It's like a box cake mix for pizza.  It comes with pizza dough powder that you mix with water and rise, can of sauce, and dry cheese.  You are suppose to add any fresh topping and mozzarella cheese.  My mom always added hamburger (when I was not a veggie), olives, onions, and mushrooms.  If you've never had this, I highly recommend as a fun eats. It's not the best, but it's about memories...  A few years ago, I asked my mom why we just didn't order pizza and why she always made it, and she said it was because her and my dad didn't speak English very well so it was hard to just order Domino or Pizza Hut.  I never thought about that. (sniff, sniff).  


Anyways, we made fresh pizza for the homeless cooking back in January I believe.  It was really tasty and amazingly easy.  The homeless folks loved it!  We the volunteers loved it!  We always taste what we serve.  We made everything from scratch!  Check out pics below.


I made the dough the night before the cooking event so it would rise overnight.  The recipe I followed was actually a bread recipe called the "No Knead Bread".  (Click link for recipe)  If you don't know about this recipe, it's pretty popular and you can find ton's youtube videos on it too.  My friend Anya makes this bread and gave me the tip to use it for pizza as well, and she was right. (Thanks Anya!) It was easy and superb.  What I like about this recipe is that it gives the dough a nice chewy, yeasty crust.  We didn't have cornmeal but I like to add cornmeal on the bottom of the pan to give an additional texture to the crust.   Make sure to top it with lots of olive oil so it doesn't stick too much to pan and plastic wrap.  

Here is the finished product.  We topped it with fresh basil.

I forgot this kid's name but he was so good. He pretty much took charge of assembling all the pizzas before they went into the oven. He scooped the sauce, added the various toppings and cheese.  Love him!

We received a box of grapefruit and made salad out of it.  Segmenting grapefruit takes some skills.  Lucky we had Hamed with us that day and show Darren how to do.

It was still winter so we made some kind of stew or soup here.  I forgot...Eckhart made this one.

All in all, it was a great cooking event.  Really fun to do pizza.  I need to suggest we do this again really soon.  Let me know if any of you tried making your own.  

March Neighborhood Cooking

Last month's homeless feeding program was all about chicken!  We made 2 different kinds: jerk and teriyaki.  Since we cook "iron chef" style, in that we never fully know what fresh ingredients we will get that day, the side items were a bit of  a mix.  We made some rice, roasted potatoes, salads, garlic bread, and for dessert lemon fruit tarts and jam bars.  


It was also a great month because we had a youth group from the Sammamish Hills Lutheran Church who did most of the cooking and serving.  Super bunch of kids with a great giving spirit, and fun attitude. Their sous and cooking skills were really good too!


This was our version of Jerk chicken.  Flavored with limes, cilantro, and spices, then cooked on a grill.

This is the teriyaki one.  This was made with homemade sauce.  Our southern chef originally attempted it but it was not quite right, nothing bad about his skills.  My sis ended up finishing it.  Sometimes it takes an Asian to get the flavors right.  :)

The homeless folks love garlic bread.  It's usually the simple comfort foods they really enjoy.  Turned out the kids love making and eating garlic bread too.

Below are some of the volunteering kids.  

Strawberry Tarts

Dessert from June's Homeless cooking. Puff pastry with macerated strawberries, banana, chocolate ganache, and some had homemade caramel sauce. This was so good!

What a cooking day!

What a day it was....I started with June homeless cooking in the morning then worked for St. Cloud for catering a bar mitvah.

Homeless Cooking

Made a great marinade for Salmon and we grilled.  The other was a apple lemon cake.

At St. Cloud, it was back breaking work but loved every minute of it. It's been a long time since I've catered with St. Cloud almost 6 months, am so glad to be back, had a lot of fun.  I started with cutting fruit for the chocolate fountain, assembled the smoked trout on toasted brioche, then made these mini caprese sandwiches wiht heirloom tomatoes, then plated this aisan broth soup with crab and black cod.  

Forgot to take my camera so don't have any pic.  I do the same thing next week so will have more content and pics!

April Homeless Cooking

April's Neighborhood Cooking Foundation

Here is a pic from cookout for April. I recall it was still a bit cold and we had Easter theme. We made chicken pot pie, coconut cupcake and lot of other things.

I didn't go in May due to busy schedule. I will be there for June which starts this weekend and will get good pics and better food list.

Neighborhood Cooking-Feb 2009

I'm a bit behind on blogging due to busy work so these posts are late.  There was 3 homeless cooking events in Feb. I went to 2 of them.  The theme for Feb was "southern, soul food" since it's black history month and celebrate Obama in the the office.

First outings we cooked and delivered food to a tent city in Shoreline.  

Menu:  Chicken Stew with home made biscuits, Jambalaya, Red Velvet cupcakes, Greens.

Second event, we cooked and servered at Operation Sack lunch.  We had no theme for this one and cooked what ingrediants we got.  This was also on Valentines' day so we made sure to have chocolate!  Everyone needs a little something chocolate.

Menu:  Tuna pasta, Stuffed peppers, grilled asparagus, fruit salad, green salad, soup, chocolate cupcakes, crepes, plus more I can't remember.