Some of my readers may have begun to wonder whether I cook anywhere myself- you might even be curious to try something I've made! Well the answer is yes. While I am currently in an early retirement from cooking professionally, I couldn't resist the siren call of the oven, and so every week during the school year I volunteer my skills at my church, First Church Carrollton, for their weekly community supper. While I do help collaborate for ideas, my mom is actually the Head Chef in the kitchen, while I mostly focus on desserts and support alongside an amazing group of volunteers.
Together we have worked to far surpass people's expectation of "cafeteria-style" meals, doing almost every meal from scratch, using real potatoes in the mashed potatoes, homemade dough for the pizzas, and coming up with new techniques to get a more home-style, authentic flavor and texture in enormous quantities without sacrificing quality. Among those who have been attending the dinners regularly for the last year, it has become a happy secret how much like a hearty home-cooked meal the Community Life supper is.
Did I mention this meal is free? It's become a real life-saver to some of the busy parents who bring their families to the suppers because they can ensure a healthy, homestyle meal for their kids between all their activities.
For example, last week for the kick-off, my mom was inspired to make a take on chicken-fried chicken and biscuits.
Now, we don't have a fryer of any kind in our kitchen, and chicken-fried chicken isn't meant to be deep fried anyway, but while we pulled off chicken fried chicken last semester, it was a huge mess and a close call for timing. So we came up with a new way to do cafeteria-quantity chicken-fried chicken with limited space by heating a thin layer of oil in sheet pans in the oven, and then frying the chicken in the oven in that oil! It was excellent, even if I might call it oven-fried chicken from this point forward.
Every Community Life supper also features a gluten free version of whatever that evening's meal is:
In fact, we accommodate most food allergies or medical dietary restrictions with a week's notice! We've even been known to come up with something on the fly once or twice when an obscure allergy popped up.
As I said, my specialty is the dessert. You're not going to find any store-bought cookies at Community Life! Last year I took great pleasure in breaking out several recipes from my time at the 4 Seasons, including Caramel apples in October,
...Chai Cheesecake Pumpkin Pie in November...
...authentic Sticky Toffee Date Pudding in December, layered Chocolate Brownie Trifle with hand-made chocolate mousse...
...individual Spiced Peach-Berry Pies a la mode...
...and all of my personal best cookie recipes, warm from the oven.
The meals match and even exceed the quality and variety of the desserts in every way. Again not only is every meal completely or mostly made from scratch, but we're not talking mystery meat and nacho cheese, here. Some of the meals served at Community Life suppers include Fajitas, smoked ribs, a large scale take on Boeuf Bourguignon (my all time, hands-down, number one favorite dish of all time), the famously best homemade pizza, POT ROAST and so much more.
And BEST OF ALL it's FREE. Donations are welcome, but not enforced.
The catch you ask? As it is a community supper you're encouraged to sit with some of the other diners and get to know your community, and you're welcome to stick around for any of the Wednesday night activities at the church after dinner, including choir, Youth group, kids stuff, and adult classes and bible studies. There is even daycare provided until 8!
So if you want a great meal for the best possible price, come check it out! Everyone is welcome. I'll review tonight's Scotland-inspired meal next week, but it'll be:
Pulled Pork Sandwiches
Spiced Applesauce
Stuffing
Cole Slaw
French Fries
A Choice of Chocolate & Classic Snickerdoodles
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