This month's menu was a first for us: big, beautiful BLTs (as well as some BELTs and TLTs) - more on that later.
Various people sponsored the bacon, and one of the team turned tempeh into beautiful bacon-substitute strips for our vegan and vegetarian guests.
We had beautiful "artisan" Romaine lettuce donated - it was perfect on the sandwiches, and the family did a great job prepping it into individual 'leaflets' ahead of time. Three people donated 10 tomatoes apiece. They were SO big and beautiful and bright red.
Another friend donated six dozen eggs, which Kennedy fried up like a pro. The eggs boosted the calories and protein of the main entree.
Another friend brought some lovely avocado slices that we added to vegan guests' sandwiches.
Others donated dozens of big sandwich rolls. Those helped make the sandwiches super substantial.
The sides were something else! An array of astounding pasta salads (and some potato salad to boot)! Kennedy made a great Greek chicken pasta salad.
We also had some sweet treats. My friend Ana made the prettiest fresh fruit cups. Guests gobbled those up!
A couple of other people provided ice cream treats for the crowd.
A mother-daughter team were the evening's sandwich artists. They assembled those things like seasoned pros. The teenaged girl made wrapping the sandwiches look easy. It is not. I tried to wrap a few after they left, and the fillings basically EXPLODED all over the counter. It was humbling.
The meal service was not without its challenges, however. When we 'cooked up' the idea of BLTs for the meal, I thought, "That will be easy! We can just par cook the bacon at home ahead of time, and do a quick heat up on site." The second half of that equation played out perfectly. The pre-cooking part? In case you're wondering, it takes about 6.25 hours to carefully par-bake 30 pounds of bacon two cookie sheets at a time. You can imagine how our house smelled on Saturday, and our neighbors probably think we're (more) nuts.
That said, it was *totally* worth it! There were rave reviews from dinner guests and Teen Feed staff. My favorite quote of the night from one appreciative diner was, "That sandwich looks hella bomb!" Another teen declared, "That was a great sandwich - restaurant quality!"
All in all, we pumped out 40 sandwiches for the first service, and packed up another 40 for the Roots shelter, plus the abundance of sides and desserts. It was a great team effort!
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For whatever reason, they're taking that tool away in August (they didn't say what day). So, if you have been following the blog via reminder emails, sorry. :( You're going to have to come straight to the website to see if there's a new post. Alternatively, you could email me and let me know if you want me to send you an email when there's a new post. I could try to remember to do that. :)
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