The COOK Part 3

     Planning is essential and we all have our jobs to do.  When we begin to get low on meals we will start looking at dates.  We get several in place and call the church to see what they have.  We used to cook on a Saturday morning from 7 to about 12, but by accident discovered Friday night.   This has worked out much better.  It is easier to reserve with our church and we get to go to bed after wearing ourselves out cooking!  When we cooked on Saturdays we were all shot for the rest of the day.  It is a marathon!

     Once we have a date, recipes begin hitting our email boxes.  We trade some, steal some from each other, use old, but loved ones and search the internet.  Repeats don't happen very often, not even from cook to cook. We cook 24 different meals (each contributing 6 recipes prepped 4 times...with one being prepped 5 times).  If you are cooking by yourself or with only one other person, you would need to duplicate to keep the time from going too long.  I have done this before as well with one of the gals when we needed some extra meals.  We still did 24 meals each, BUT it was 12 meals duplicated.  STILL awesome!

     Recipes are then adjusted for 8 and multiplied for 4 families and sent to our SHOPPER.  She makes a spread sheet, compares to her STOCK (baggies, spices, non-perishables), and also makes a PREP list. Shopping is divided between the 2 shoppers and prepping is divided as well.  Receipts are saved.  Our shopper stores several large clear plastic bins of our spices, etc.  There is not sense in wasting them and many are used over and over like garlic, salt....you get the drill).

     Each individual makes her labels out of regular typing paper and cuts them out.  This has the title and the cooking instructions. 

    We then pack what we like to use during the cook.  We all have large square blue coolers with extendable handles.  We didn't do this on purpose.  It just happened that way. I bring a handled bag with my battery operated one touch can opener.  I have a love/hate relationship with it.  They often quit working and I march myself back to Walmart to exchange it!  The church kitchen has extras.

Large roller type cooler
Large carrying bag
can opener
apron
dish towel
Pampered Chef spoons and spatulas
knives (freshly sharpened)
Large mixing bowls are already at the church
measuring cups and spoons (I bring 2 sets to keep from washing too often)
scissors

(In our stock we keep sharpies for each of us, packing tape for the labels, gallon freezer baggies along with some non freezer ones in large and small, food gloves as well as non perishable items that we use time and time again.  We often have perishable items left over.  If this happens we share them with each other.  For a while we always had chicken left over so we had extra for a meal).

The church has large trash bags and soap for washing dishes as well as any of those items we forgot.