RainyDayChefs

May 21 2017 Cookout

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This was our second cookout for the Rainy Day Chefs.  Our first experience was super successful and we got extra ambitious  and decided to cook more variety this time.

The month of May is the busiest time of the school year for us with end of the year concerts and school finals. Since we didn’t have enough time to serve dinner at the FOY center we decided to experiment with breakfast. Our Chef decided on a menu which included Chicken Chorizo on a bed of scrambled eggs along with waffles with a strawberry topping and parfaits.

Nitya made a modified shopping list and we bought only a few basic ingredients as we had plenty ingredients left over from our first cook-out. We were much more familiar with Costco aisles and we even had some time for tasters!

We felt confident when we started cooking until we started making waffles. We had to cook for 30 people which meant we had to make 64 waffles! We figured out that each batch of 4 waffles on a panini press was 3 minutes. Thus, 64 waffles took about an hour which we had not accounted for.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We realized we need more helpers to complete the remaining work. We had to ask our moms to help out. While Nitya and my mom focused on waffles, Ria and her mom worked on scrambled eggs and chorizos. Ria had to work on 32 eggs for a long time in order to get the consistency of the eggs right and to prevent the scrambled eggs from becoming runny. Meanwhile, I got lucky slicing 150 strawberries for waffles and parfaits. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We cooked non stop for 4 hours and didn’t even realize it as we had so much fun cooking together. Our dinner that evening were abundance  of waffles crumbs hanging off the panini press from the mess we had made. The kitchen was filled with the smell of freshly baked waffles and the crumbs were fluffy and delicious!

My parents drove us to the shelter that evening and we dropped off the food for the next day’s breakfast. I saw a few kids we served from last time, but there were also some new kids at the shelter. The kids were eager to help us carry the food inside. We felt happy having worked so hard to deliver another meal!

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During every meal preparation we plan on improving one factor. This cookout taught us how to divide our tasks, which was a smart way to work faster and save time. Also, always communicate with your Chef first! Trying to cook an elaborate meal always sounds great, but making 64 waffles from scratch within 3-4 hours remains a big challenge!

A big THANK YOU to Ria’s Aunt and Uncle, Rupa and Bharat for sponsoring the ingredients for this meal! It means a lot for us to receive so much love and support for what we strive to do!! -Neha

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